Fonts garbled in Safari iCloud email.

I mean FontAgent Pro.

I have tracked the main problem down to Helvetica. I had a LInotype version in FontAgent Pro, and it is also in the computer fonts in FontBook. I turned it off in FAP, and the fonts on the iCloud home screen looked good, but the fonts in Mail were still not right. It seems that if global auto-activation is on, the fonts in Mail are still wrong; but I changed the setting to Enable auto-activation Only for Adobe and Quark applications, and after a restart the fonts in iCloud still are readable.

Have the same problem in icloud. Also the same problem occurs when you change the font in Notes to Helvetica. Could be a problem with this font file.

I have no problem using Helvetica in Notes, as long as the duplicate Helvetica font in FontAgent Pro is turned off, and also global auto-activation. The Helvetica that comes with Mountain Lion seems to work fine.

Hi I used time machine in the system fonts folder and went back to fonts previous to Mountain Lion. This seems to have worked for me. Think some Mountain Lion fonts may have a problem.

If this does'nt work delete any Helvetica files from fontpro and clear its cache and restart. Think they could also be clashing with the Helvetica system font.

Update. I have been experiencing the same garbled text on the iCloud site. I use the font manager application Suitcase Fusion 4. Today, I "Stopped Type Core…" in Suitcase Fusion's preferences. This fixed the garbled text for me.

Now a new issue with iCloud. I guess I will need to research elswhere. But, iCloud.com will not load.

I get the repeated message now in iCloud that states "iCloud stopped responding. An error has prevented this application from working properly. Help Apple improve…" Then, two choices appear. "Reload" and "Send to Apple." No matter which button I press, the error message reappears. I thought it might be my firewall. I turned it off. Didn't help. Thought I would try using Firefox instead of Safari. Didn't help. Now, I am wondering if it is because my iTunes account name that I use is not a name@me.com address.

I'm thankful that I do not depend on iCloud.

Fixed mine at last I use Font Agent Pro on my mac and releasied I had 2 copies of Helvetica on the system, 1 in Font Agent Pro and 1 in Font Book so deleted the one out of Font Agent Pro and all is working fine now.

Yup; turning off Helvetica in a font manager (in my case, FAP, as in yours) fixed the garbled text. But check my post above; one also has to turn off global auto-activation (or delete the font from the manager), or the problem will come back.

I've been having this problem with loading the Harvest site in Safari - cleaning font caches would fix the problem briefly but then it would re-occur within a day or two.

I looked at Helvetica in the Fonts folders on my machine:

~/Library/Fonts

/Library/Fonts

/System/Library/Fonts

I found that the HelveLTMM and Helvetica LT MM font files in /SystemLibrary/Fonts were both 0 bytes, while these same files on my laptop were 182 KB and 19 KB respectively. I trashed the 0 byte files from my desktop and replaced them with the same files from my laptop. Restarted Safari (not the whole machine) and the problem is resolved.

Both machines are running 10.8.2 with all the current updates except the most recent Java update.

Same problem here. But at the direction of a good friend who does this for a living, here is how I cured this malady:

Helvetica is at the root of the problem, and I happened to have sereveral different Helvetica and Helvetica Nue sets among my work fonts (in addition to the Helvetica and Helvetica Nue system fonts).

1. In Suitcase Fusion 4 I deleted those sets and made sure there were no stray fonts in the system set.

2. I restarted in safe boot mode to clear the font caches.

3. Restarted in normal mode and did not reactivate any font sets.

4. One more normal restart (this is when the problem was recurring) to "check my work" as they say.

Problem solved AFAIKT on both my Mini and MBP.

There are actually more detailed steps you can take that involve moving certain "protected fonts" to other folders, but IMHO, messing with fonts is like playing with nitro glycerin on a hot day, so I opted to try the safest, least complex method first — and it seems to have worked.

Hope that helps!

This worked for me as well, but without steps 2-4. Just deactivating my Postscript Helvetica family and Helvetica Neue family in Suitcase Fusion 4 did the trick.

thnx bro worked like a charm!

A simpler fix for those having troubles:

Beside the font-cache clearing technique (which didn't work for me, ever), I must point out a simpler, older method which DID work for me and used to be my common fix for screen-fonts getting jumbled up in various older versions of Mac OS X.

It seems Mac OS X is getting confused over which version of Helvetica to use for rendering menus, titles etc. which leads to jumbled and incoherent text on screen. It may also be a problem with a Postscript version of Helvetica. BTW: Lucida Grande isn't the only font OS X uses for text on menus etc.

If you're using a font-manager like FontExplorer or Suitcase, simply go to your main font library and turn off all versions of Helvetica that aren't system fonts. In other words, any extra versions of Helvetica (including Neue, Rounded etc) that you have installed may cause this problem.

You can tell which the correct System versions are by the lock on their suitcase icon.

This is of course an irritating change if you need to use those other flavours of Helvetica for design work, but there you have it. I'm not sure if this is a problem with the way the font manager handles the fonts or a system error or a corrupt font-suitcase or a Postscript vs True Type thing - you'd need to test for yourself one-by-one.

Problems with Mac OS X and Helvetica have been causing me headaches for many years; it's definitely not something new. Here are a couple of interesting blog posts (one almost 5 years old) that may add to the discussion, espeically for any graphic artists using font managers and/or different formats and styles of Helvetica.

http://www.fontgeek.net/blog/?p=253

http://www.creativetechs.com/iq/preparing_for_leopard_helvetica_is_dead.html

http://opentype.info/blog/2008/01/31/myths-about-helvetica-and-mac-os-x-105-leop ard/

(a lot of good comments in the last one)