Mac OS-X Font Problem?

[JP]

I'm looking for some advice as I'm having what I believe to be font issues.



That thumbnail is a screen capture of what I see in this thread, for some reason I'm finding that almost all of the text I'm seeing is emboldened even though it shouldn't be.

I've tried different browsers which makes no difference and it happens on all sites so I'm thinking that I've sone something which has messed up my system fonts.

I've had a look online and can't find any reference to this happening to other people but I'm really looking for some advice as it's becoming more and more annoying as it goes along.

Any assistance would be appreciated,
Thanks

EDIT:

I'm looking for some advice as I'm having what I believe to be font issues.



That thumbnail is a screen capture of what I see in this thread, for some reason I'm finding that almost all of the text I'm seeing is emboldened even though it shouldn't be.

I've tried different browsers which makes no difference and it happens on all sites so I'm thinking that I've sone something which has messed up my system fonts.

I've had a look online and can't find any reference to this happening to other people but I'm really looking for some advice as it's becoming more and more annoying as it goes along.

Any assistance would be appreciated,
Thanks

What I typed originally looks exactly as it should but the quote below it has emboldened everything.

[egparadigm]

This is just a punt, but could it be something in the Universal Access sys preference pane? I know some things on there can be accidentally switched on with a keyboard shortcut.

[JP]

I've had a mess around in the Universal Access preference pane as well as everything else in System Preferences that I can think of but it doesn't seem to do anything.

I'm going to see if I can reinstall the fonts from the installation DVD.

[egparadigm]

Have you got a Time Machine backup? You might try restoring from a couple days ago.

[JP]

Unfortunately not, I started running out of space ages ago and always meant to get a bigger hdd but never got around to doing it.

[Strolls]

You might try renaming ~/Library/Fonts/ to Library/Fonts.old/ and giving it a reboot.

Sorry I don't know what else to suggest. It's an extremely interesting problem you have, but I can't think of any quick and easy suggestions (if the above fails).

[JP]

Are you thinking that it will create a new font folder if I do that? I'll give it a try later to see what happens but I'm just guessing that it's something to do with the fonts.

"Interesting" is not the word that I'd use!

[Strolls]

It's your "user fonts" folder - I believe that if you have added any fonts to the system they'll be installed in there. System fonts will be in /Library/Fonts/ (without the ~ in front - ~/Library/Fonts/ is a subdirectory of your homedir).

[Strolls]

PS:

"Interesting" is not the word that I'd use!

Well, I'd actually rather like to have a crack at fixing it - an interesting challenge, and I wanna know what's causing it! But you're probably not local, I don't know that I could promise to have it done whilst you wait, and I'd really want to have a spare hard-drive lying around whilst I grind away at it.

I mean, the "easy" fix is to whip out the hard-drive, put a new one in, install OS X, create a new jparry user with the same password, hook up the original drive (with all your data on it) via a USB enclosure and copy your user files across to the new installation. But if that doesn't do it, then you've wasted a couple of hours and have to start again from scratch.

Oh! One often-recommended trick for a Mac which is showing some problem is to create a new user on it, and see if that does the same thing. I'm not sure if you've tried this yet? If the new user doesn't show the same symptoms then you know it's in your user's home-directory (probably ~/Library or ~/Library/Preferences) and not anywhere else in the system.

I find it intriguing that the problem isn't restricted to Safari - you get the same problem with Firefox, too, right? My instinct says I might find the problem within 30 - 90 minutes if I had my hands on it, but I have no what fiddling that would involve, beyond a poke around System Preferences.

[JP]

Well if that's interesting this is going to entertain the hell out of you.

I tested everything with a new user and made no difference at all but then I remembered something which I'd forgotten to mentioned before. When I get new emails sent to me (Apple Mail) they would embolden the email to make it stand out but since I've been having this problem that hasn't been happening.

I've marked some old emails as Unread here and as you can see it marks them as such with the blue marker next to the From field but they aren't bold as they should be.


You mentioned renaming the Fonts folder to Fonts.old but I've not done that as the folder is showing as empty even though I have installed quite a few fonts over time.

When I use Word, NeoOffice, etc the fonts that I had installed are no longer available to select. Surely additional fonts wouldn't make this happen though? I could understand if I'd somehow deleted the default fonts and they needed to be re-installed but not with custom fonts that I only use for design work.

[doodledude]

I think it is a font conflict. Either you have 2 versions of the same font enabled (I've had problems with Helvetica Neue (OTF system font) and another version which is the Adobe Helvetica Neue OTF family. I was getting problems with websites and my iCal display in the dock. I had to choose one family or the other so I ended up going for the system OTF version.
Of course it maybe that you have a problem with a missing font. It looks like the font in question is Lucida Sans and the italic isn't displaying correctly. See if you can see it in Font Book if you can't then either the font is corrupt or another font is conflicting with it.
If theirs a conflict your best bet is to turn off most fonts and then try activating them one at a time.

[Strolls]

You mentioned renaming the Fonts folder to Fonts.old but I've not done that as the folder is showing as empty even though I have installed quite a few fonts over time.

Well, you could try doing the same thing with the /Library/Fonts/ folder, and then giving it a reboot.

In Terminal:

sudo mv /Library/Fonts /Library/Fonts.old

and enter your user password (same one you use for updates).

[Strolls]

I had a slight panic about the above advice just now, some 6 hours after posting it. I've just checked and it should be OK, as essential fonts should be in /System/Library/Fonts. /Library/Fonts is where applications like Office will install their fonts to.

You might want to take a look at this: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/327/327791.html
I found it whilst double-checking myself - points 6, 9 & 10 look worthwhile.

[JP]

Thanks for the suggestions, I do appreciate them all. I'll try them tomorrow to see if I can make any progress.

[Strolls]

Check Font Book as a first stop, as per doodledude's suggestion. I noticed this yesterday, not that it seems to cause any problems on my system: