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User profile for user: Michel Chaouli
Michel Chaouli Author
User level: Level 1
30 points

Strange font problem in Safari, only in one account

Hi,

Safari (3.2.1) renders small fonts on some pages incorrectly, but does so only on one user account. On nytimes.com, for example, the headlines are all fine, but the text is thin and hard to read.

I have cleared caches, deleted User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.safari.plist, used Onyx to clear out various User caches, and checked to make sure I don't have Helvetica Fractions or Times Phonetic in my Font Book (these had mentioned as problems in various posts). In my own account, Firefox 3 renders those same texts correctly. So the problem seems to be isolated to Safari on one account. I would be grateful to hear if you can suggest a remedy.

Best,
Michel

MacBook Pro 15, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Jan 24, 2009 7:25 AM

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User profile for user: Hawaiian_Starman
Hawaiian_Starman
User level: Level 7
21,415 points

Posted on Jan 24, 2009 8:46 AM

Hi Michel,

Might be a problem with a local font, or settings within Safari's preferences.

Within Safari, make sure your preference settings are correct.

In the Appearance panel, default encoding is "Western (ISO 1), Standard and Fixed Width Fonts - I set mine to Skia. I believe the default font is Times. Either works fine.

In the Advance panel, make sure the Style Sheet is set to "none".

Outside of Safari, open Font Book from your Applications Folder. Highlight All Fonts, then scan the list. If you see any blue dots, that indicates a duplicate in your Font collection. You can remove the duplicates as follows: single-click on the first font listed, then Command/A keys to select "all". Then, go to the edit menu and select "resolve duplicates".

Also, with everything still selected, in the File Menu, select "Validate Fonts". If errors appear, correct them by removing the corrupted font. Lastly, download a copy of Font Nuke. This will allow you to clean the Font cache.

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User profile for user: Hawaiian_Starman
Hawaiian_Starman
User level: Level 7
21,415 points

Jan 24, 2009 8:46 AM in response to Michel Chaouli

Hi Michel,

Might be a problem with a local font, or settings within Safari's preferences.

Within Safari, make sure your preference settings are correct.

In the Appearance panel, default encoding is "Western (ISO 1), Standard and Fixed Width Fonts - I set mine to Skia. I believe the default font is Times. Either works fine.

In the Advance panel, make sure the Style Sheet is set to "none".

Outside of Safari, open Font Book from your Applications Folder. Highlight All Fonts, then scan the list. If you see any blue dots, that indicates a duplicate in your Font collection. You can remove the duplicates as follows: single-click on the first font listed, then Command/A keys to select "all". Then, go to the edit menu and select "resolve duplicates".

Also, with everything still selected, in the File Menu, select "Validate Fonts". If errors appear, correct them by removing the corrupted font. Lastly, download a copy of Font Nuke. This will allow you to clean the Font cache.

Post back
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User profile for user: Michel Chaouli
Michel Chaouli Author
User level: Level 1
30 points

Jan 24, 2009 11:43 AM in response to Hawaiian_Starman

Many thanks. Unfortunately none of the suggestions you made resolved the issue. I checked the Safari preferences, and they were OK. I removed duplicate fonts that Font Book identified as a problem. (Now Font Book finds no problems in validation.) I ran Font Nuke and had it delete font caches. And I restarted.

In playing with settings I realized that badly displaying fonts occur only when they are under 12 point. Once I hit command-+ and increase the font size, they seem smooth. Again, what is strange is that this problem does not occur in Firefox in the same account or in Safari in another account, where the same text (like regular text on the front page of nytimes.com) appears in clean fashion.

But thanks again for your help.

Michel
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User profile for user: Hawaiian_Starman
Hawaiian_Starman
User level: Level 7
21,415 points

Jan 24, 2009 12:30 PM in response to Michel Chaouli

Hi

Good you cleaned up the fonts - always a good housekeeping step.

Check these two locations:

In Safari's Preferences>Advanced, Font preference at the top ought to be 9.

In System Preferences>Appearance>General, at the bottom "turn off font smoothing..." ought to be 8.

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______
Just reread your initial post. Unlikely the System Preference setting is triggering the problem as the no such affect was seen in the other user account.

Message was edited by: Hawaiian_Starman
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User profile for user: theincubus
theincubus
User level: Level 1
15 points

Mar 24, 2009 8:04 AM in response to Michel Chaouli

OK... Sorry to revive a dead thread but one of my girls is having a font issue where the static font on some pages (Google is the fastest page to see it on) is set to italics and so far NOTHING I've tried changes it back to the default Verdana at 12 or 13 points. I've also disabled all the Helveticas on the entire machine (All Users) and still this pesky Italics font (it does resemble Helvetica Bold Italics quite a bit) is still there. Mind you I am a very experience Mac Tech and I repaired this issue on a Machine a couple years back but can't for the life of me remember what the **** I did.

On my Admin User (Any experience Tech ALWAYS sets up a main Admin account FIRST) everything is good ole Hunky Dory!

Man I'm soo frustrated with this and I know it's something rather simple.


Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!



ROB.
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User profile for user: TildeBee
TildeBee
User level: Level 7
31,923 points

Mar 24, 2009 2:38 PM in response to theincubus

Hi there, Rob!
You might try this.
Open Font Book in the Applications folder.
Click on the All Fonts.
Then look at the Arial fonts.
Is there a bold italic one there?
If so, disable it. Also, look around for any other
fonts that look like the culprit. You may find it that way.


The really short way, is to take the whole
USERS>Her Account>Library>Fonts folder to the desktop
and fire up safari. If it's fine,
it's just a matter of trial and error replacement. (Argh).
Let us know how you're doing, OK???
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Strange font problem in Safari, only in one account

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