Font problems after 10.6.7

The downgrade to 10.6.6 is pretty straightforward. The main problem YOU have is that your brand spanking new macbook pro can't be downgraded to 10.6.6, but the iMac is a piece of cake. To be careful and prudent, you should go buy a backup disk and make a carbon copy cloner or super duper backup of your system before you start, but you will only use that backup if something goes wrong. It's not like a windows downgrade where you have to manually reassemble your system from the backup as part of the downgrade. For the downgrade itself, you

put in the Snow Leopard disk,

tell it to install 10.6, (it's probably 10.6.3 on your SL disk)

when it's done you install the 10.6.6 Combo Update which you get here: http://support.apple.com/downloads/DL1343/en_US/MacOSXUpd10.6.6.dmg (search for and download 10.6.5 instead if you want to get rid of the app store)

when the combo is done, run Software Update -- unticking the 10.6.7 update every time -- repeatedly until the only update showing as left is 10.6.7

And when apple comes up with a new 10.6.7, update your macbook pro first and test to see that it works before installing it on the iMac.

Can you please push an update immediately to fix the issue... honestly, you guys make it so freaking hard to run a legitimate business.

I'm afraid I can't personally do anything. This is a user to user board, and I'm just another user of Apple products, not an employee.

I can only tell you that I and at least a few others have filed bug reports to Apple's developer's site. I have also made note of it to these forum's moderators. So I would imagine Apple is looking into it and working on a fix. When something will be released to address the issue is unknown, but hopefully soon.

It's been confirmed by many now that the security patch relating to fonts in the 10.6.7 update is the cause of the Opentype Postscript font issue, particularly in the fact that 10.6.7 will no longer render the glyphs correctly in Opentype Postscript fonts for PDF creation, printing, and in screen display using certain programs. For those who have had issues with other fonts they are likely related to corrupt font cache, which tends to occur over time and/or with system updates like this one. For those without this problem, you are either lucky as **** or you aren't using an OT PS font in the manner which causes the issue. Regardless, this problem exists and is directly related to the 10.6.7 security path to fonts.

If you absolutely do not want to revert to 10.6.6 and you must be able to create PDFs or print with Opentype Postscript fonts from applications other than Adobe (minus Flash Pro), use the free workaround of X11 and Font Forge. We have used Font Forge to convert needed OT PS fonts to TrueType format to work around this issue until Apple provides a fix. Install X11 from your Mac OS X install disc or download from Apple's website, then install Font Forge (just Google it!). Open the fonts you need converted from OT PS to TrueType and then select File>Generate TTC... This will easily convert your font to TrueType and it will then work in ALL applications with PDF creation and printing. I'm as ticked as many others since YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DO THIS! However given the fact that Apple has not addressed this issue yet and there's no word on a fix coming soon, this will solve your issue for now. Hope this helps! 🙂

I would again stress that as many of us as possible call AppleCare and/or report this issue directly to Apple Support. In the 3 times I have called over the past 2 weeks none of the AppleCare reps said they had heard anything about this issue. That is just hard to accept, but perhaps not enough of us have let them know yet.

I am hoping that Apple is already dealing with this, and will provide a fix asap, so we can all get our work done, and once again feel that OSX is the smooth experience we have grown accustomed to.

Aaron Phillips wrote:
For those without this problem, you are either lucky as **** or you aren't using an OT PS font in the manner which causes the issue. Regardless, this problem exists and is directly related to the 10.6.7 security path to fonts.

I can reliably produce the problem with the following sequence:

Open TextEdit, New rich text document.
Type in some text like "This is a test."
Select the text, change it to Minion Pro, Bold Condensed Italic
File->Print->PDF->save as PDF
Open the resulting PDF file in Adobe Reader (I have 8.1.4)

Ok, but for the freaking weird side of things -- Today Minion Pro Regular works just fine, while last week I was getting the same errors that I now get with bold cond italic. No updates to either the mac software or the adobe software.

cathy fasano wrote:

when it's done you install the 10.6.6 Combo Update which you get here: http://support.apple.com/downloads/DL1343/en_US/MacOSXUpd10.6.6.dmg

Actually, the URL to the DL1343 download you posted is the incremental installer which only updates 10.6.5 to 10.6.6. The full 10.6.6 combo installer is DL1349, located here http://support.apple.com/downloads/DL1349/en_US/MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.6.dmg

If you want to get the 10.6.5 combo installer, that is here http://support.apple.com/downloads/DL1324/en_US/MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.5.dmg

Kurt Lang wrote:
Sorry, didn't explain that thoroughly. Right click on the Acrobat Reader X …

As I mentioned, I do not have version X or any other Reader version installed, nor to my knowledge have I ever copied any of the app's "private" fonts to /Library/Fonts or any other location. The last Reader version installed on any of my Macs was version 8 & when I uninstalled it, presumably any fonts stored in the app package were removed. AFAIK, all the Adobe fonts (OT or otherwise) in /Library/Fonts on my Macs came with Photoshop Elements & were installed there by that app's installer.

Either way, Apple is likely the one who will have to fix it. If nothing else, by reverting to the code used in 10.6.6 for the affected issue. It would simply be far too difficult for Adobe to fix the issue, and then have millions, perhaps billions, of Mac and Windows users update their copies of Acrobat Pro and/or the Reader.

Why? Assume for a minute that the problem is at least partially due to a bug in select Adobe apps. Why would it be any more difficult for users to update them to correct that than for any other problem discovered in that software? Don't forget, over the years Adobe has issued numerous security bulletins and advisories for its products & urged users to install Adobe provided updates to correct them.

Maybe more to the point, who in their right mind would want to rely on buggy software or to depend forever more on de facto standards that in effect codify bugs? There are around 2000 software products besides those made by Adobe that depend on the ISO PDF standards & probably many more to come in the years ahead. Any "fix" made by anybody that violates the ISO standards will cause more problems than it is worth, if not now then eventually.

Because this issue has so many different manifestations, I suspect it is caused by more than one bug, each affecting some users & not others. It would be bad for everybody if Apple, Adobe, et al each independently tried to work around bugs in the others' software. Each company needs to cooperate with the others & fix its own bugs. Anything else is insane.

R C-R -- do you have Minion Pro? Does Minion Pro Regular behave or is it broken? What about Minion Pro bold cond italic?

As I mentioned, I do not have version X or any other Reader version installed, nor to my knowledge have I ever copied any of the app's "private" fonts to /Library/Fonts or any other location.

Understood. Just explaining where they are as far as the Acrobat Reader is concerned.

Why? Assume for a minute that the problem is at least partially due to a bug in select Adobe apps.

I have, in more than a few of my posts on this subject.

Why would it be any more difficult for users to update them to correct that than for any other problem discovered in that software?

Not necessarily more difficult to fix, but far more difficult to implement as it would require all users of Acrobat on both the Mac and Windows to update Acrobat Pro and the Reader. I can't even guess how long that would take, or if you could even convince all users to do it. What if a shop is firmly planted in Acrobat Pro 8 and has no intention, or desire to upgrade? Say Adobe then decides they're only going to fix Acrobat X. Then what about that shop? Too bad?

This is far, far less of an inconvenience for users for Apple to fix.

It would be bad for everybody if Apple, Adobe, et al each independently tried to work around bugs in the others' software. Each company needs to cooperate with the others & fix its own bugs. Anything else is insane.

When I (or anyone else in this thread) suggest "Apple needs to fix this!", we do understand companies need to work together on such things. Apple and Quark worked closely on the early issue with fonts in Snow Leopard where Type 1 fonts in particular displayed like they were triple line spaced.

A lot to chew through over 8 pages, and I'm sure I've missed some key pieces. But this is definitely a serious problem.

Is the following summary correct?
The 10.6.7 update has broken compatibility with OpenType Postscript fonts. Or is it with ALL Postscript fonts (Type 1 and OpenType) Or is it a subset of OT/PS fonts?

TrueType fonts are not affected.

And, there is no sure fix other than to stay on 10.6.6.

Is that the gist of things at this time?

Message was edited by: Thorzdad

The 10.6.7 update has broken compatibility with OpenType Postscript fonts. Or is it with ALL Postscript fonts (Type 1 and OpenType) Or is it a subset of OT/PS fonts?

Haven't seen myself with Type 1 fonts, but then I haven't tested dozens, or hundreds of such fonts. Doesn't occur with all OpenType PostScript fonts, but does with most of the ones I've tested with.

TrueType fonts are not affected.

Correct.

And, there is no sure fix other than to stay on 10.6.6.

Also correct. There are some ways around it 10.6.7, but pretty much only with the Adobe apps when you print directly to the Acrobat Pro Distiller, or use Quark's built in PDF generator.

Is that the gist of things at this time?

That pretty much sums it up. The only drawback in reverting to 10.6.6 is that you expose yourself again to a slim, but possible security issue with OT PS fonts. But that bug has existed since 10.6.0, and I haven't seen any reports of anyone getting hit by it.

Thanks, Kurt.

On follow-up (and, again, my apology if this was covered somewhere back in-thread)...
This problem only affects PDFs made using OSX's native File>Print>Save as PDF function? It does not affect PDFs created using the in-app PDF creation tools found in Adobe apps like Illustrator?

I have in all 10 Minion Pro fonts, including the two you mention. All behave normally for me, but keep in mind I do not use Adobe Reader or Acrobat Pro or have a printer with an onboard PostScript interpreter.

This problem only affects PDFs made using OSX's native File>Print>Save as PDF function?

It affects any print choice that goes through OS X. Whether to a PostScript printer, or any of the drop down choices, such as Save as PostScript, Save as PDF, and even Save as Adobe PDF when you have Acrobat Pro installed.

Create a document in TextEdit with Minion Pro. Print to PDF. Open the PDF in preview. Select some portion of the document and copy to the clipboard. Now paste into Office 2011 - crash.

Adobe is not going to update every copy of Acrobat in the world. Nor are they going to update the postscript interpreters in all of the printers of the world. The fix for this bug is Apple's to make. Then, they update that ISO standard to state "Due to historical reasons, these two parameters and their references must be listed in the same order they are used. Embedded fonts using the Deflate algorithm must use these specific parameters."