The much-loved Courier font no longer shows up in the Fonts list with Pages 15.1. This happened once before and Apple had to reinstate it because of its widespread use for scripts, among other things. Will it be reinstated after enough complaints?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: Courier font gone again?
After additional investigation, Apple dropped the aging Courier dfont collection (all dfonts in fact) after macOS Big Sur 11.7.11, leaving only Courier New as /System/Library/Fonts/Courier.ttc. I checked, and macOS Monterey 12.7.6 and later only has this Courier New font.
I just went back to macOS Mojave 10.14.6 and copied its Courier.dfont from the System Library Fonts location to an external USB stick. Then, on macOS Tahoe 26.3, I dragged/dropped that font into my local Library Fonts folder. It was immediately detected by Pages v15.1.1. I also happened to have a third-party Courier Prime font in that location also. Here is what Pages v15.1.1 displays with the first entry the old Courier.dfont:
After additional investigation, Apple dropped the aging Courier dfont collection (all dfonts in fact) after macOS Big Sur 11.7.11, leaving only Courier New as /System/Library/Fonts/Courier.ttc. I checked, and macOS Monterey 12.7.6 and later only has this Courier New font.
I just went back to macOS Mojave 10.14.6 and copied its Courier.dfont from the System Library Fonts location to an external USB stick. Then, on macOS Tahoe 26.3, I dragged/dropped that font into my local Library Fonts folder. It was immediately detected by Pages v15.1.1. I also happened to have a third-party Courier Prime font in that location also. Here is what Pages v15.1.1 displays with the first entry the old Courier.dfont:
As I mentioned, the Courier.ttc font installed after macOS Big Sur is Courier by name only, and is known by Font Book as Courier New. That Courier.dfont that I "borrowed" from the older macOS Mojave is named Courier.dfont and Font Book knows it as just Courier.
If you have access to macOS Big Sur or older, you would be able to obtain the Courier.dfont as I did. On that older Mac, click on the Desktop to make Finder current. Press shift+cmd+G to open a Go To Folder window, and enter:
/System/Library/Fonts
When you press return, a new Finder window appears on that folder. Locate Courier.dfont and copy it to your Desktop. Close that Finder Window. Now, move that Courier.dfont onto a USB stick, properly eject that USB stick, and insert it into the Mac running macOS Monterey or later. Copy the Courier.dfont into your /Users/yourname/Library/Fonts folder. Now, you will have a font that appears as Courier in your Pages font menu.
Switching to LIbreOffice is no help to a user with a large quanta of Pages documents, as they would need to export their documents to Word docx and unlearn Pages.
Their is no industry wide effort to make real Courier obsolete. You just have to pay for it now, as illustrated by Adobe's Courier family, or if offered for free on some Font sites. Apple purged all of the ancient dfonts as the future is TrueType, OpenType TrueType, or OpenType Postscript font architectures.
I have discussed how I obtained the real Courier.dfont from an older macOS above and placed it on Tahoe 26.3.
On macOS Tahoe 26.3, Apple provides a Courier New TrueType font collection that I see in my Pages v15.1.1 font menu. This is the same Courier New that has appeared in Pages font menus since macOS Monterey and probably earlier.
Did you inadvertently deactivate the Courier New font in Font Book?
Should you desire a different variation on the Courier font family, you can obtain it from a free or fee web font source and install it into your /Users/yourname/Library/Fonts folder. It will be immediately detected by the operating system and Pages.
Before I posted, I looked in /System/Library/Fonts and /System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental. The only font file name in the main Fonts folder is Courier.ttc, a Monotype font. Its Font Book name is Courier New. There is no other Courier font installed on macOS unless you placed one in your local User's Font folder.
When I click on the Font Book PDF Collections in Tahoe 26.3, there is no Courier font listed. Select that Courier font in your PDF collections, and then click the i⃝ button on the Font Book tool bar. Expand the Details > in that information sidebar and it will show you a path to the font file location. It will probably point to that Courier New font in the System Font folder.
As a matter of interest, choose Fonts––>Show Fonts. Then, under the Collections column, click PDF and you will see Courier listed there. But it doesn't show up in other lists, so it's in there somewhere but hiding.
You write: "I looked in /System/Library/Fonts and /System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental. The only font file name in the main Fonts folder is Courier.ttc, a Monotype font."
Yes, that is the font I mean. Courier. Plain and simple.
Then you state: "Its Font Book name is Courier New."
No, that is a different font. Try Googling it.
Pages sees Courier New, but not the old original Courier.
Here's a comparison of the two fonts from the Wikipedia page on Mac fonts. Courier New is much thinner and looks less good. It also has different metrics. Courier was one of the original fonts that came with the Mac. Screenwriters and others depend on the metrics of the original Courier. As I recall, Apple replaced Courier with Courier New in an earlier version of Pages but had to bring it back because of complaints from users. I am wondering if the same will happen this time.
This was the original discussion which explained why Courier is so important to professionals (and why Courier New does not cut it):
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253481507?sortBy=rank
Thank you. Maybe I did something like that to get it back all those years ago. Can't remember. The odd thing is, as you have found, Courier.ttc is still on the system, presumably to open legacy documents, but you can't access it directly. Oh, well, Courier Prime it is.
I was going to recommend switching to a different document editor like LibreOffice but I've just checked and it only has Courier New. Maybe there's an industry-wide move to make Courier obsolete? If this is true and Courier is important to you them maybe you should look at getting a hard copy of the Font onto a USB stick or backup drive so you'll have access to it in the future.
I meant the original Courier, not Courier New, which is a different font.
How do I get the Courier font back in Pages 15.1?