• Registered: 2008-07-08
  • Posts: 55

Topic: display error on my Mac

Some type is displaying incorrectly on my screen, for examples some of my widgets have outlined fonts when they are supposed to be solid, and recently I went to a website which was also displaying this incorrectly-making it hard to read.

Any idea why this is? I haven't messed with any of my library folders, except for adding some fonts to my font folder, but this hasn't happened before.

Once I used disk utility to "repair disk permissions", and I think it has been this way ever since.

running OS X 10.5, MacBook

  • ronin
  • cervine lugbot
  • Offline
  • From: now
  • Registered: 2008-07-08
  • Posts: 1,266

Re: display error on my Mac

do you have phone support? that would be my first action.

  • From: hackney grid
  • Registered: 2008-07-09
  • Posts: 328

Re: display error on my Mac

adding fonts can be the problem.
corrupt typefaces, or too many of them installed at once can definitely damage displaying of fonts. repairing permissions doesn't generate such error. how many fonts have you added to font book? try removing most of the added ones. also, be sure you never overwrite system fonts as that can screw up things big time as much as the above mentioned factors...

fonts are a very delicate matter and the problem you are mentioning normally happens because of adding fonts in excessive quantities, fonts with corrupt metrics etc...

signalsum

cimabot's Website

  • rude66
  • robot des duivels
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2008-07-07
  • Posts: 1,844

Re: display error on my Mac

thats the first thing i thought.. somehow there's a corrupt font somewhere.. try throwing the new fonts out, or better yet, just re-install or copy the font folder if possible..

  • Registered: 2008-07-08
  • Posts: 55

Re: display error on my Mac

ah yes. i installed probably about 40 fonts at once. so if i remove them it should fix itself? perhaps the computer mistakenly replaced one of the system fonts with one i added

6 Reply by cimabot (edited by cimabot 2009-02-05 00:11:01)

  • From: hackney grid
  • Registered: 2008-07-09
  • Posts: 328

Re: display error on my Mac

unfortunately removing the installed fonts doesn't always do the trick. try, by all means, but I have seen many screwed up font sets remaining corrupt until a system restore/re-install was done. also check in font book for fonts with a little dot next to the font name. that could mean duplication (same font installed twice with slightly different metric instruction or family components) or corruption. try removing those frst.

if worse comes worst, I suggest a nice backup and restore smile

edit: as rude mentioned, if you can get hold of a clean copy of a system font folder, try replace the corrupt one with that.
important is to know if you installed the fonts on a system wide level or on a user specific level... system fonts have particular permissions applied to them, so replacing is not necessarily going to do the trick.

system wide font folder: /Library/Fonts
user specific font folder: /Users/Username/Library/Fonts (where Username is the name of your Home folder)

signalsum

cimabot's Website

  • From: Berlin
  • Registered: 2008-07-07
  • Posts: 99

Re: display error on my Mac

google for deleting font caches... The system caches some font info, and those caches may get corrupt. After you delete them, the system will safely regenerate the caches. Also, the application "Font Book" (comes with the system) has a feature that searches for bad fonts, you may want to throw those out.

"Repairing permissions" generally has no more effect in terms of fixing problems than waiving a voodoo doll in front of your machine.

  • Registered: 2008-07-08
  • Posts: 55

Re: display error on my Mac

damn, i'm seeing like 20 fonts with dots next to them in Fontbook! i'll try those steps though