Font Won't Show Up In Word

These are fonts from all different sources, all stored on my computer. Some are free, some I paid for. Some are very old, some I downloaded last year. I have no links for any of them. Perhaps you could suggest a font you know to be good, I could download and see what happens.

Here's a hint. Don't know what it means.

When I upgraded to 10.12, I got an iCloud Drive. My fonts are in my applications folder, which isn't part of the iCloud Drive. I moved the fonts from Font Squirrel from the desktop folder, which is in the cloud, to the Applications folder, which isn't. Presto, the fonts are getting the "serious problems, do not use" error message.

What do you think?

Here's a hint. Don't know what it means.

In regards to wondering if you have a backup? From the text following that, I would presume "yes".

I don't use any type of remote storage, though an iCloud Drive isn't quite the same thing. It's a file sharing space. Anything you drop into the sharing folder can be accessed from any of your other devices. By creating copies of anything you put there to the cloud, it's also an ad-hoc backup system. However, I'm not thrilled with how it works, based on a description found on the web:

You can store documents, keep files and folders up-to-date across all your devices, work on items and access them from anywhere using iCloud Drive. Changes applied to a copy of a file on one device will automatically sync across all your other systems.

Hmm. So at one time, there could have been undamaged copies of the fonts on your system. But if they "change" in any way, iCloud will update the remote files to match. If you had good copies on the iCloud drive, now they're damaged copies, too. The site continued on with:

If you use iCloud Drive across multiple Macs then changes made to the Documents and Desktop files on both Macs will sync. The Mac you activate last will create its own folder for the contents of its Documents and Desktop, and this will also sync.

Also a possibility of losing good copies of files. If the last Mac to be activated had bad copies of the fonts on the drive, those will sync to iCloud, overwriting what might have been good copies. Your Mac in turn, pulls those damaged copies down to sync across all of your devices. Then, oh goody!, now you don't have undamaged copies anywhere.

This is one reason I will not use such systems. So, that brings me to what I meant by a backup. And that's, do you have copies of the original, and then likely undamaged fonts on a local, external drive? If so, pull copies of those fonts back to your Mac.

If not, your only way of replacing them is to go back to where you purchased each font and download clean copies from them. Normally (with most vendors), once purchased, you can always login to your account and re-download those items.

I moved the fonts from Font Squirrel from the desktop folder, which is in the cloud, to the Applications folder, which isn't. Presto, the fonts are getting the "serious problems, do not use" error message.

Not quite, at least as I understand how an iCloud Drive works. The folder is local on your Mac, but when you place anything into that folder, it is copied/synced to iCloud. The question then is, why is the simple act of placing fonts into the sharing folder damaging them?

I do a lot of typographic work, and it's easier to have the font collections on the computer than to load them every time I want a new font. I have hundreds of fonts, can't load them all.

Thanks for trying. At least I've pinpointed the problem. Thanks for the troubleshooting help.

Thanks tons, the Font Nuke utility solved my issues. Perfect solution!

What font is missing? Exact name please.

Is it an OS installed font, or a third party font you added?

It is a third party font, Melior. It worked fine until we did OS and Word updates over the weekend.

It was totally strange. I've NEVER had anything like that happen before.

Thanks, but this didn't work. The problem is probably not the fonts, since all the fonts from all sources still come up as having serious problems.

Great article, by the way.

Font Squirrel is an excellent source of quality made, free fonts.

I tried two fonts. One worked well, the other worked with a yellow warning. Is it possible that all the fonts which were stored on my computer outside the font folder when I upgraded were corrupted?

PS Kurt, I really appreciate your help and all the time invested. Left you a small token at the PayPal address on your article. Sorry it can't be more.

I did get an email notice for that. Not at all necessary, but thank you!

But, it's a puzzle, and I hate not being able to solve a puzzle. I'll have to see if I can think of some other approach.

That is odd. Booting into Safe Mode and back removes Font Book's database. A corrupt FB database is usually the cause of a font showing up in some apps, but not others.

Try these steps:

Close all apps, particularly Font Book. Go to the Library folder of your user account. Open the Preferences folder. Put these two files in the trash.

com.apple.FontBook.plist

com.apple.FontRegistry.user.plist

You many not find both. It depends on whether or not you've deactivated any fonts with Font Book.

From an administrator account, open the Terminal app and enter the following command. You can also copy/paste it from here into the Terminal window:

sudo atsutil databases -remove

Terminal will then ask for your admin password. As you type, it will not show anything, so be sure to enter it correctly.

This command removes all font cache files. Both for the system and the current logged in user account. After running the command, close Terminal and immediately restart your Mac.

Is it possible that all the fonts which were stored on my computer outside the font folder when I upgraded were corrupted?

Never say never when it comes to computers, but it would be highly unlikely. Or at least, should be.

However, something obviously happened. Do you have backups of the fonts from before upgrading the OS you could replace them with, and then test again to see how Font Book reacts?