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How do I fix or change the default sans-serif font

What font does Safari use for the "font-family:sans-serif" style? Because on every page where text is styled only with sans-serif the text comes up badly garbled. Probably the font is broken, but i have no idea which font it is. I've already tried to clear the font cache but that didn't help. This display error is with me for Safari 4 and 5.

Is it possible to change the default font for sans-serif?

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jun 30, 2010 11:29 AM

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12 replies

Jun 30, 2010 1:13 PM in response to Klaus1

Yes, I've seen that dialog too and I have the default settings. But this does not help, because the Standard font is not used when the style is set to sans-serif. When I use the element info to change the font style from sans-serif to Arial or some other font, the text becomes legible again. Hence my question what font is used internally.

Jun 30, 2010 2:33 PM in response to TildeBee

Thanks for the tip, but the problem persists. I found two fount conflicts, but these were not sans-serif fonts and the pages are still broken in Safari. My "test page" is this: http://www.virtualpixel.de/2010/06/30/gpodder-freier-speicherplatz-auf-dem-iphon e-und-playcounts/ The headline “Nicht genügend freier Speicherplatz auf dem Gerät verfügbar” is garbled in Safari but not in Firefox. Probably because you can set a default font for serif and sans-serif in FF.

Jun 30, 2010 10:50 PM in response to Gabriel Birke

Ok, I have solved the display problem by renaming my ~/Library/Fonts folder (Safari then displayed the headline as AAAAAAAAAAAAAA") and renaming it back to "Fonts", starting the Font Collection app in between.

Nevertheless I would like to rephrase my original question: *What font is used by Safari for text that is styled sans-serif?*

Dec 16, 2010 4:57 PM in response to Gabriel Birke

Finally! I find someone else having this issue. Only certain websites specify "san serif" without a specific font and I've been getting text that either garbled with letters that are horribly spaced/missing, etc. I didn't notice this until after I installed FreeType. Most fonts were pretty badly garbled in Safari and Chrome. SeaMonkey simply crashed. I noticed a few font files in my fonts folder had been altered. Replacing those fixed most of the problems, but I still have this issue with Safari.

Edit: I found the corrupted font. It's Helvetica Black for me. Even the preview in the Finder is corrupted! The timestamp on the font is still from back in 1999 and FontBook can't find a problem with it, so I'm not sure if it was actually edited or if something else happened…

How do I fix or change the default sans-serif font

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