Want to highlight a helpful answer? Upvote!

Did someone help you, or did an answer or User Tip resolve your issue? Upvote by selecting the upvote arrow. Your feedback helps others! Learn more about when to upvote >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: bcmartin
bcmartin Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Missing Arial Font

When I upgraded to Snow Leopard last year Dreamweaver CS3 stopped displaying text in Design View, though the coding and text were all there in Code View and the resulting pages had all worked fine when uploaded to the server.

Since installing SL I've tried all kinds of things to get the font display to work in Dreamweaver, removing duplicate fonts, using Font Book's validation facility and removing or disabling dodgy fonts. Nothing!

Today it dawned on me that the css files I'd set for the site all used Arial as first choice, which was there before I installed Snow Leopard. I'd noticed today that Font Book was now showing no plain Arial font.

So I changed the css so it now uses Helvetica as its first choice and Dreamweaver now displays correctly! So the problem is that Arial was missing. Maybe Font Book had identified Arial as a problem font and I'd deleted it without realising it. Or it could have happened during the upgrade to SL.

The big question is: where/how can I get a copy of the basic Arial font that will work and which Font Book won't take exception to?

IMac 2.8 GHz Dual Processor Intel, Mac OS X (10.6.4), 4 GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Posted on Aug 4, 2010 7:38 AM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply
User profile for user: gsmetz
gsmetz
User level: Level 1
15 points

Posted on Aug 25, 2010 12:33 PM

I upgraded from 10.4 to 10.5 and then to 10.6. On the move to 10.6, I found a number of fonts, including Arial, that were broken; e.g. Arial would display on the screen in a Word document but were blank when sent to a printer.

The problem seems to involve conflicts between old and new copies of the same fonts. The solution that worked for me was to find and delete the old ones. Specifically:

Look at /Library/Fonts and /Users/(your_name)/Library/Fonts in two side-by-side finder windows.
Sort both by name, and scroll through the two lists looking for the duplicates.
Note: if one has a file extension such as .ttf or .ttc and the other doesn't, they're still duplicates.

For each duplicate found, verify that the copy in the /Users/(your_name)/Library/Fonts folder is the older of the two (all of mine were); then drag the older one to an empty folder on your desktop.

When you're finished, test to verify that the problem is solved; then delete the folder of old fonts.
View in context
2 replies
Question marked as Best reply
User profile for user: gsmetz
gsmetz
User level: Level 1
15 points

Aug 25, 2010 12:33 PM in response to bcmartin

I upgraded from 10.4 to 10.5 and then to 10.6. On the move to 10.6, I found a number of fonts, including Arial, that were broken; e.g. Arial would display on the screen in a Word document but were blank when sent to a printer.

The problem seems to involve conflicts between old and new copies of the same fonts. The solution that worked for me was to find and delete the old ones. Specifically:

Look at /Library/Fonts and /Users/(your_name)/Library/Fonts in two side-by-side finder windows.
Sort both by name, and scroll through the two lists looking for the duplicates.
Note: if one has a file extension such as .ttf or .ttc and the other doesn't, they're still duplicates.

For each duplicate found, verify that the copy in the /Users/(your_name)/Library/Fonts folder is the older of the two (all of mine were); then drag the older one to an empty folder on your desktop.

When you're finished, test to verify that the problem is solved; then delete the folder of old fonts.
Reply
User profile for user: gsmetz
gsmetz
User level: Level 1
15 points

Aug 26, 2010 7:18 AM in response to gsmetz

An important addendum to my post about deleting duplicates: when looking for / deleting duplicate fonts, be sure to check the "kind" of file in the finder window; go ahead and delete duplicate fonts and font suitcases; do NOT delete it if its "kind" is "document."

Other additional info: the files with extensions .ttf and .ttc are the Snow Leopard versions. Keep those and delete the copy with no extension. In general, that will be the copy under "user"

Another note: after deleting those duplicate fonts, quit and reopen application to help them find all the fonts.
Reply

Missing Arial Font

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.
Learn more Sign up