weird fonts in certain app's (i.e. dashboard)

[patrickschoi]

i know somebody posted a similar thread before, but i'm still having trouble finding what is exactly wrong. the dictionary in my dashboard is displaying a weird font like the one in the attachment. it is not interfering with anything else, but it's just annoying to see that.

 

[b1u3b0y]

could it be the nationality setting under international in the system preferences? Or maybe a setting in your dictionary itself.?

 

[patrickschoi]

i know what you're talking about but that can't be it, because i didn't screw with any language settings. it may be a corrupt font issue or something similar. i just need help pinpointing what exactly is causing it.

 

[patrickschoi]

Somebody Help Me

 

[namethegame2]

Weird Font in Dictionary widget

I am having the exact same problem. Did you every get an answer to this. I had the problem in the Stickies widget also until I clicked on the little "i" in the corner and changed the font. But I do not see how to do that in Dictionary. I have checked "International" in the preferences--Language=English, Input Menu=only Character Palette checked and US-Roman. Any ideas?

The problem is on my iMAC and not on my G5.

 

[creditbrunch]

i've had that problem... it took me ages to figure out... in the end it was some font cache problem (i think)...

as a graphic designer i have to deal with a lot of fonts and i use FONTBOOK to turn the fonts on and off to save memory... one day fonts on certain menu bars and things like the dashboard became gibberish!

i somehow identified the 'gibberish' as 'fonts'-- Cyrillic, fraction fonts, etc... i'm not even sure why suddenly the default fonts were substituted with Helvetica Fractions etc... perhaps it was because there were too many of the same default fonts (i install them by large batches) and messed up the system...

the problem was fixed when i TURNED OFF those fonts in fontbook (or even deleted them from my system)... not sure if this would fix your problem though but it did the trick for me...!

 

[misterredman]

Try booting in safe mode as explained here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455

Then reboot normally. That should delete the font cache, which will be rebuilt.
Or try manually deleting it with onyx:

http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/onyx_leopard.html

 

[namethegame2]

Thanks, that worked

I tried both suggestions. I turned off the font and started in safe mode. That fixed the problem in the dictionary widget. I still have the problem in the Dictionary application (different font I cannot find) but I just won't use it.

Thanks for the info.

 

[braeburn22]

same problem

hey, i've got the same problem, are you able to offer a clear solution?

 

[misterredman]

Did you tried what was suggested in the posts above?

 

[braeburn22]

From the information on thread, I am unable to find what the actual name of the gibberish font is. Also, Onyx, will it work on 10.5? On it's website it only lists for 10.4 and below. What do you suggest to fix the problem misterredman?

 

[misterredman]

You can find onyx for Leopard here, on the same website:

http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/download.html


Try booting in safe mode as explained here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455

Then reboot normally.

 

[braeburn22]

hi misterredman, i tried rebooting in safe mode, then another restart, that didn't fix it. i'm going to try onyx on the link you provided, fingers crossed

 

[braeburn22]

ok, i've restarted in safe mode, the font is still there. Also installed Onyx and cleared the font cache, and the font is still there. I can't find the font in fontbook, not sure what it's called??? Running out of ideas now. Any suggestions?

 

[misterredman]

If it doesn't work can you please describe you problem in details again? Just to be sure we didn't miss something important that may help in the troubleshooting.

Did you try validating the fonts already like described here?

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=FontBook/2.0/en/fb1003.html

 

[braeburn22]

hey, i've run "validate fonts' in fontbook, some came up with minor problems, i.e. duplicate fonts. What do i do now to resolve this?

 

[misterredman]

hey, i've run "validate fonts' in fontbook, some came up with minor problems, i.e. duplicate fonts. What do i do now to resolve this?

Try removing those duplicate fonts, like explained in the link I gave above. Then clear the cache with Onyx or boot in safe mode again. Then reboot.

What is exactly the problem you are experiencing? In which apps?

 

[braeburn22]

The exact problem is that the weird font (see picture) is appearing in help menus and in dashboard widgets, and sometimes (rarely) on webpages. I want to get rid of it.

 

[braeburn22]

After a lot of running around I have finally found out what this funny font is. It's a font called 'Times Phonetic Alternate', turn it off in fontbook and it'll solve your problem. It solved mine! Yay!

 

[visualrhythm]

@braeburn22

Solution Works!!

Saved the Day! I was having the same problems described in this post. Happened to me as soon as I was adding a boat-load of new fonts to FontBook.

I simply turned off "Times Phonetic Alternate" and voila!! No more weird font showing up in my Dictionary in Widgets. Great work braeburne22 and many thanks!!

 

[knowah]

Font Finagler

I was having this same issue and I downloaded a free trial Font Finagler, which cleaned up all my font catches and alerted me of these specific fonts. It deactivated them for me and my dasboard (and some mail app text) is as good as new.