OS X's Font Book seems really buggy. How to reset caches or whatever

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Jeff Wiseman - 14 Feb 2005 22:16 GMT

iMac G5 OS 10.3.6. I have some fonts that were installed by
Office 2004 in the ~/Library/Fonts folder. From Font Book I
selected the User fonts, did a select all, and then drag and
dropped into the "Computer" group. All files were transfered
according to the finder but when looking at the User group in
Font book, there were about 6 of the 70 or so fonts still setting
there. If you selected the Computer group of fonts they don't
show up there but the finder shows that they really ARE in the
/Library/Fonts folder!

In other words, Font Book only recognizes those particular fonts
when they are in the ~/Library/Fonts folder but NOT when they are
in the /Library/Fonts folder.

I'm hoping its just a tracking issue of some cache. Is there
anything I can do to get Font Book to recongnize the fonts that
it moved?

- Jeff

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matt neuburg - 14 Feb 2005 22:27 GMT

> iMac G5 OS 10.3.6. I have some fonts that were installed by
> Office 2004 in the ~/Library/Fonts folder. From Font Book I
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
> anything I can do to get Font Book to recongnize the fonts that
> it moved?

Try restarting. If that doesn't help, delete the font caches (use
Panther Cache Cleaner or similar if you don't know how) and restart
again. If that doesn't help, tell us what fonts they are - maybe there
is something odd about them? m.

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Jeff Wiseman - 15 Feb 2005 02:00 GMT

>>iMac G5 OS 10.3.6. I have some fonts that were installed by
>>Office 2004 in the ~/Library/Fonts folder. From Font Book I
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
> again. If that doesn't help, tell us what fonts they are - maybe there
> is something odd about them? m.

Restarting doesn't help. The situation that exposed this behavior
is as follows:

I have 3 standard accounts and one admin account on the iMac.
From the Admin account, the first time Word is run Office copies
all of its fonts into the ~/Library/Fonts folder. Since I wanted
them available for all accounts without having to waste so much
space, from Font Book, I went in and did a select all on the
fonts for the User font group (I could do this since that
group/folder was empty prior to Office populating it with all
their fonts). I did a drag and drop onto the Computer font group.

At first this seemed to have the effect I wanted but upon closer
examination it appeared that a half dozen fonts were still
setting in the User font group (and verified by seeing them still
in the ~/Library/Fonts folder). When examining the "Computer"
group, they did not show up in the Font Book listing. However,
upon examining the actual /Library/Fonts folder, I discovered
that they were actually there (i.e., the move in the Font Book
Utility had actually worked) They just did not show up in the
Font Book listing for the Computer group. This same thing happens
when the Font folders are copied to directly in the finder.
Somehow Font book doesn't see them if they are not in the User's
area.

The fonts in question are the following Windows TrueType fonts:

Batang.ttf
Gulim.ttf
MS Gothic.ttf
MS Mincho.ttf
MS PGothic.ttf
MS PMincho.ttf

And possibly one or two others, I've forgotten now. Note that
these are all the Windows fonts and Asian at that but that in
itself shouldn't affect whether or not Fontbook sees them. Apple
provides Windows TrueType fonts with the OS X distribution that
see to work just fine (e.g., Apple Symbols.ttf and Chalkboard.ttf

- Jeff

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matt neuburg - 15 Feb 2005 04:00 GMT

> Restarting doesn't help. The situation that exposed this behavior
> is as follows:
[quoted text clipped - 35 lines]
> provides Windows TrueType fonts with the OS X distribution that
> see to work just fine (e.g., Apple Symbols.ttf and Chalkboard.ttf

I tried what you said (I moved just MS Mincho in Font Book from the User
group to the Computer group). It vanished from Font Book - I could not
find it anywhere. However, when I restarted, the problem corrected
itself. I see MS Mincho in Font Book and it correctly shows it as part
of the Computer group too.

You did not say you tried deleting the font caches with Panther Cache
Cleaner or similar. Please try this (and restart). m.

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Jeff Wiseman - 15 Feb 2005 05:46 GMT

>>Restarting doesn't help. The situation that exposed this behavior
>>is as follows:
[quoted text clipped - 44 lines]
> You did not say you tried deleting the font caches with Panther Cache
> Cleaner or similar. Please try this (and restart). m.

Downloaded Panther Cache Cleaner from versiontracker. Ran all the
cache cleanings up to the deep level. Also trashed the Font Book
preferences file. No change.

Those fonts are all in the /Library/Fonts folder, I can see them
with the finder. None of them will show up in the Computer font
group at all and none of my apps that I've tried (including Word)
show them either.

However, after doing all that, I then tried to copy and past one
of them (Batang.ttf) from the /Library/Fonts folder to my
~/Library/Fonts folder. Unlike the last time when it then showed
up, this time the Font Book will not show it in the User
collection either.

I'm totally clueless here. You can see the font file in the
~/LIbrary/Fonts folder with a finder window. Font Book doesn't
see it.

BTW. Something else I noticed. Normally whenever you double click
on a font file, it fires up Font book and opens an install
window. These will start Font book but do not open an install window.

I'm running 1.0.2 (v36.1) of Font Book. When you turn on the
"Show Font info" setting, the information block at the bottom of
the preview window only has 3 lines. It doesn't have a "Foundry"
line as I've seen in some online documentation on Apple's website
for OS 10.3. Is it possible I have an older Font Book utility?

- Jeff

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matt neuburg - 15 Feb 2005 17:00 GMT

> > You did not say you tried deleting the font caches with Panther Cache
> > Cleaner or similar. Please try this (and restart). m.
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
> on a font file, it fires up Font book and opens an install
> window. These will start Font book but do not open an install window.

Is it possible that Font Book *does* see these fonts but the problem is
that you've disabled these fonts (using Font Book)? That would explain
why no app can see them, since that is what disabling a font does.

Try throwing away com.apple.ATS.plist and all the files in your
Preferences/FontCollections (and possibly everything in the top-level
Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS) and restart - this should just enable all
fonts and destroy all collections and get you back to square one.

Otherwise the only thing I can think of is that something is wrong with
the font file itself, but I cannot imagine what it would be (its
permissions, perhaps - do you know how to examine file permissions?)

> I'm running 1.0.2 (v36.1) of Font Book

Font Book isn't the problem here, I'm pretty sure. m.

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Brian Hughes - 15 Feb 2005 21:14 GMT

> The fonts in question are the following Windows TrueType fonts:
>
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> provides Windows TrueType fonts with the OS X distribution that
> see to work just fine (e.g., Apple Symbols.ttf and Chalkboard.ttf

A number of the fonts installed with Office 2004 have had some crucial
information removed. This is so they can't be used effectively outside
of Office. If I double-click the Batang.ttf font, Font Book opens and
nothing happens except this console.log entry:

2005-02-15 13:04:14.845 Font Book[439]
ATSFontActivateFromFileSpecification failed with error: -108 for:
'/Applications/General Apps/Microsoft Office
2004/Office/Fonts/SimSun.ttf' in context: 2

I just recently reinstalled Office 2004 from scratch, it doesn't look
like it even installs those fonts any more. It keeps them all in
"Microsoft Office 2004/Office/Fonts" from the look of it.

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If you *really* need to e-mail me, send it to:
usenet at hughesvideo dot com

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Neill Massello - 14 Feb 2005 23:34 GMT

> iMac G5 OS 10.3.6. I have some fonts that were installed by
> Office 2004 in the ~/Library/Fonts folder. From Font Book I
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> show up there but the finder shows that they really ARE in the
> /Library/Fonts folder!

Open /Library/Fonts and ~/Library/Fonts in side-by-side windows in List
view with the view options for both set to show Version.

Some of the fonts included with MS Office were probably already in your
/Library/Fonts folder as part of the default OS X installation. The
Office fonts are the latest versions. I suggest you replace the older
versions in /Library/Fonts with the newer versions (which you can also
find in Office/Fonts in your Office application folder).

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Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / February 2005

OS X's Font Book seems really buggy. How to reset caches or whatever