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marc cardwell
Level 2 (208 points)
Notebooks

Q: bad font detected?

hello, i was on a page in safari, and an error box appeared, it looked like the fontbook app icon on it. the error said:

"bad font detected
A problem has been detected with the font UNKNOWN in the font file /Users/.../Mistr. the system will attempt to disable this font..."

what i'm confused about is that the font pointed to was NOT in my fonts folder, not even installed by another app. it does not appear in any other app as a font to use (fontbook doesn't see it either).

does fontbook look all over my mac to install fonts? i thought i had to open or load fonts directly in fontbook.

thanks.
marc

15" AlPB and 15" MBP, Mac OS X (10.4.7), 1.5 gb ram, 100 gb hd, 1.75 ghz (upgraded); 2 gb ram, 100 gb hd 2.2 ghz

Posted on Jun 26, 2008 5:52 AM

by Tom Gewecke,Solvedanswer
Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke
Level 9 (79,474 points)
A:
more than anything, i'm just curious as to how FB (i think its FB, from the icon, what do you think?) knew about the font. maybe at one point i had installed it, but FB copies fonts, it doesn't reference where the original font was (i think).


10.5 has a feature called font auto-activation, which may or may not work depending on the app and your os version.

http://db.tidbits.com/article/9655?rss

Posted on Jun 26, 2008 1:56 PM

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marc cardwell

Q: bad font detected?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by orangekay,

    orangekay orangekay Jun 26, 2008 10:02 AM in response to marc cardwell
    Level 5 (4,085 points)
    Jun 26, 2008 10:02 AM in response to marc cardwell
    Where was the page? Current versions of Safari support embedded fonts.

  • by marc cardwell,

    marc cardwell marc cardwell Jun 26, 2008 10:49 AM in response to orangekay
    Level 2 (208 points)
    Notebooks
    Jun 26, 2008 10:49 AM in response to orangekay
    thanks for the response. here is the link:

    http://www.doctormacro1.info/

    i've heard of embedding fonts and thought that meant a subset of the font was in the page, is that correct? what's surprising to me is that fontbook (i think) is detecting a non-installed font buried somewhere.

    the font referenced as bad on my mac is mistral (a nasty and horrid font).

  • by orangekay,

    orangekay orangekay Jun 26, 2008 11:02 AM in response to marc cardwell
    Level 5 (4,085 points)
    Jun 26, 2008 11:02 AM in response to marc cardwell
    My point being that Safari may have downloaded the font to a cache directory somewhere and attempted to activate it without actually installing it on your machine. I have no idea if that's what was actually happening or not, and since that site seems to be dead it will have to remain a guess.

  • by orangekay,Helpful

    orangekay orangekay Jun 26, 2008 11:12 AM in response to marc cardwell
    Level 5 (4,085 points)
    Jun 26, 2008 11:12 AM in response to marc cardwell
    Finally loaded; my guess was probably wrong as that site looks like it was built in 1995. What's the full path to the font it was complaining about and have you verified whether or not it's actually there?

  • by Kurt Lang,Helpful

    Kurt Lang Kurt Lang Jun 26, 2008 11:21 AM in response to marc cardwell
    Level 8 (37,999 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 26, 2008 11:21 AM in response to marc cardwell
    If you view the source code for that page, it is simply making a call to display text using Mistral. Like this:

    <font face="Mistral" style="font-size: 34pt" color="#FFFF00">

    That tells your browser to use the font Mistral on the text following the html tag. If you don't have that font installed, the browser will default to something else. But it's not embedded in any way.

  • by marc cardwell,

    marc cardwell marc cardwell Jun 26, 2008 1:29 PM in response to orangekay
    Level 2 (208 points)
    Notebooks
    Jun 26, 2008 1:29 PM in response to orangekay
    the path is what surprised me, as it was to a collection of fonts buried w/ in several folders, not anything connected w/ the system itself. i DO have it, i was surprised fontbook (FB) knew where it was. this wasn't a font that was downloaded by safari.

    for some reason i could select the text in the error window, but not copy/paste. i took a screenshot and placed it here:

    http://marccardwell.com/test/sshot.jpg

    more than anything, i'm just curious as to how FB (i think its FB, from the icon, what do you think?) knew about the font. maybe at one point i had installed it, but FB copies fonts, it doesn't reference where the original font was (i think).

    thanks to both of you guys for following up w/ this.
    marc

  • by Tom Gewecke,Solvedanswer

    Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke Jun 26, 2008 1:56 PM in response to marc cardwell
    Level 9 (79,474 points)
    Jun 26, 2008 1:56 PM in response to marc cardwell
    more than anything, i'm just curious as to how FB (i think its FB, from the icon, what do you think?) knew about the font. maybe at one point i had installed it, but FB copies fonts, it doesn't reference where the original font was (i think).


    10.5 has a feature called font auto-activation, which may or may not work depending on the app and your os version.

    http://db.tidbits.com/article/9655?rss

  • by marc cardwell,

    marc cardwell marc cardwell Jun 27, 2008 4:25 AM in response to Tom Gewecke
    Level 2 (208 points)
    Notebooks
    Jun 27, 2008 4:25 AM in response to Tom Gewecke
    thanks tom. i thought that feature was going to arrive with snow leopard, but now i know better.

    good job!

    marc