I have a serious problem with font book and am looking for some help to resolve it. If I try to open font book all I get the the spinning beach ball. I previously loaded some fonts and got an error message so I guess somehow I have corrupted it. Since I can't get it to open I can't remove any files, so I am wondering how to fix this problem. I really need to load a font into it for a project I am working on. Is there a way to delete and reinstall font book without making my problem worse? I have tried repairing permissions and that didn't help. I am running Mountain Lion. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Font Book won't open
- Thread starter vandrv
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You can manually drag the font into /Library/Fonts, or <user>/Library/Fonts in order to install it.I really need to load a font into it for a project I am working on.
See if any relevant log messages are generated in the Console utility at the time when FontBook launches and has the spinning wheel.
You may find that deleting the FontBook preferences will help.
in <user>/Library/Preferences, delete com.apple.FontBook.plist and com.apple.FontRegistry.user.plist.
(To get to the hidden user Library, hold down <alt> and select it from the Go menu in the Finder.)
You can also delete the font cache. You can use a utility like Onyx, or there are many webpages that will show you the relevant command for your OS version.
If you want more sophisticated font management, I can recommend Linotype FontExplorerX, which is excellent.
You can manually drag the font into /Library/Fonts, or <user>/Library/Fonts in order to install it.
See if any relevant log messages are generated in the Console utility at the time when FontBook launches and has the spinning wheel.
You may find that deleting the FontBook preferences will help.
in <user>/Library/Preferences, delete com.apple.FontBook.plist and com.apple.FontRegistry.user.plist.
(To get to the hidden user Library, hold down <alt> and select it from the Go menu in the Finder.)
You can also delete the font cache. You can use a utility like Onyx, or there are many webpages that will show you the relevant command for your OS version.
If you want more sophisticated font management, I can recommend Linotype FontExplorerX, which is excellent.
Thank you for this. I managed to get the font loaded and it shows up in Illustrator, so I'm good to go there. I will try some of your suggestions and hopefully I can straighten out the problem. It all started when I downloaded a bunch of fonts. If I logout and log back in on another account font book works fine, so maybe if I go to the font folder and start deleting I can get it fixed.
Move the "bunch of fonts" you downloaded and add them back in one or 2 at a time until Font Book breaks. Then you will know which font is broken.Thank you for this. I managed to get the font loaded and it shows up in Illustrator, so I'm good to go there. I will try some of your suggestions and hopefully I can straighten out the problem. It all started when I downloaded a bunch of fonts. If I logout and log back in on another account font book works fine, so maybe if I go to the font folder and start deleting I can get it fixed.
I recommend doing this soon as sometimes broken fonts cause other issues.
Free fonts are frequently worth what you pay for them. Making a font is still a tricky, time-consuming business, even with top-of-the-range font authoring software. It's still very easy to make a font that can cause "trouble" -- to say nothing of poor metrics, kerning and form.It all started when I downloaded a bunch of fonts.
Move the "bunch of fonts" you downloaded and add them back in one or 2 at a time until Font Book breaks. Then you will know which font is broken.
I recommend doing this soon as sometimes broken fonts cause other issues.
The problem is that the number of fonts is huge. I have discovered I really probably don't need any of them, so I would like to delete them all, but I don't see any way of separating them from the rest of them. Could I just just copy the font folder from when I am logged on as another user and then delete the font folder from my account and replace it with the copied folder? Thanks for the help.
If you're talking about /Users/USERNAME/Library/Fonts then you can probably just wipe it out. I suspect the new user won't have any fonts there. The only thing I have in that folder is 2 fonts I installed and a 4 files that will get created as needed by the OS.The problem is that the number of fonts is huge. I have discovered I really probably don't need any of them, so I would like to delete them all, but I don't see any way of separating them from the rest of them. Could I just just copy the font folder from when I am logged on as another user and then delete the font folder from my account and replace it with the copied folder? Thanks for the help.
/System/Library/Fonts and /Library/Fonts would have to be cleaned out by hand.
I deleted my font book preferences and this allowed font book to open. I did a validation of fonts and it came up with some questionable ones. I deleted them, so hopefully, i have helped eliminate the problem. Thanks again for all the help.
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