Russian (Cyrillic) fonts unreadable in 10.5 but readable in 10.4

Question

Level 1

8 points

Russian (Cyrillic) fonts unreadable in 10.5 but readable in 10.4

I have installd Leopard OS X on my iMac and two old Russian fonts stopped being displayed. They did work with Tiger OS.
The "Cyrilic" and "Russian Time" fonts I have problem with were created in 1994 by companies that do not exist any more. I have Russian word processing documents in AppleWork 6 I could read in Tiger, but now when I open them the page looks like random English letters.
Using Font Book app I see these fonts, but when I select them the message appears "No font seclected". Obviously, the sysem does not see them.
Does anyone know of a converter to change old documents written in an old font into a document with one of new Cyrilic Fonts in Mac? Or the way to create such converter?
Or are there any other solutions?

Mac OS X (10.4.8), iMac

Posted on Dec 1, 2007 10:33 AM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

120,282 points

Dec 1, 2007 10:56 AM in response to michaelip

Does anyone know of a converter to change old documents written in an old font into a document with one of new Cyrilic Fonts in Mac?

Appleworks uses MacCyrillic encoding I think. You can set TextEdit to this in Plain Text mode (use the Customize item at the bottom of the encoding list to add it if necessary) and try to open your docs. It would probably be easier if you could resave these docs in Appleworks as plain text first.

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Answer 2

michaelip Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 1, 2007 1:45 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thank you for your advise.
I have set TextEdit to Plain Text.
I found no "Customize item" on the bottom and there is "no encoding list". Do u mean Font window with pull down menu and commands: Add to favorites, hide commands etc?
Anyhow I opened this old document and it is garbage.
In Font Book my two Russian fonts are listed (I imported them) in Collection column, not in Font Column.
Any other suggestion?

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

120,282 points

Dec 1, 2007 2:04 PM in response to michaelip

I found no "Customize item" on the bottom and there is "no encoding list". Do u mean Font window with pull down menu and commands: Add to favorites, hide commands etc?

In TextEdit, do File > Open. At the bottom you should see an item called Plain Text Encoding, with a drop down menu to choose it. Open the menu and scroll to the bottom to the Customize Encodings List item and select it. Hit the Select All button. Find Cyrillic (Mac OS) in the list and select it, so this now shows in the Open dialogue. Select your doc in the window of the Open dialogue and hit Open.

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Answer 4

michaelip Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 1, 2007 3:13 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

thank you again.
I did everything and get chinese characters and anything but Russian.
Another problem is that when I do Font Validation in Font book, the message comes that problems were found. In review it says "3 serious errors were found. Do not use these fonts". I am afraid to srew all system up if I do validate.
Is there any font building programs that I can use to convert existing Russian font into readable valid current font?

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Answer 5

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

120,282 points

Dec 1, 2007 3:22 PM in response to michaelip

I did everything and get chinese characters and anything but Russian.

Email me one of your docs and I'll see if I can find an easy way to get the content out (tom at bluesky dot org).

Another problem is that when I do Font Validation in Font book, the message comes that problems were found. In review it says "3 serious errors were found. Do not use these fonts". I am afraid to srew all system up if I do validate.

Personally I never pay any attention to those warnings and have never had a problem.

Is there any font building programs that I can use to convert existing Russian font into readable valid current font?

I doubt anything can be done with them. If you email me one of your fonts I will have a look.

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Answer 6

michaelip Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 1, 2007 3:48 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

I sent you e-mail asking for your address to send the attachment with the font.

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Answer 7

michaelip Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 1, 2007 3:59 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thank you for the offer. I don't see here the option to send attachments. Would you please send me your e-mail address and I will send you one of two fonts to try.

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Answer 8

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

120,282 points

Dec 1, 2007 4:15 PM in response to michaelip

I don't see here the option to send attachments.

There must be one. In Mail it's File > Attach File. What email app are you using. Can't be of much help without the doc.

Would you please send me your e-mail address

Already provided (tom at bluesky dot org)

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Answer 9

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

120,282 points

Dec 2, 2007 4:20 PM in response to michaelip

The "Cyrilic" and "Russian Time" fonts I have problem with were created in 1994 by companies that do not exist any more. I have Russian word processing documents in AppleWork 6 I could read in Tiger, but now when I open them the page looks like random English letters.

In case others run into this problem, the info you provided indicates these fonts use non-standard ascii encodings, each slightly different, each apparently a variation of what happens if you type Latin using a Russian keyboard layout. I ran into this once earlier:

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2007/04/solving-cyrillic-puzzle.html

Unfortunately I could not figure out why the fonts don't work in Leopard or any easy way to convert the ascii encoded text to the standard unicode, other than via multiple find/replace operations.

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Russian (Cyrillic) fonts unreadable in 10.5 but readable in 10.4