Odd missing glyphs: Am I missing a font?

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Level 1

122 points

Odd missing glyphs: Am I missing a font?

In a very few situations, a dialog box will be missing a character, as you can see in the "where" field:

I accidentally posted this earlier in the Yosemite forum. In there, it was suggested I run Font Book's "Restore Standard Fonts" and clear caches. No joy, and not even any changes, because last Sunday the 22nd I wiped my disk clean and loaded up fresh El Capitan, and this problem has been around since day 1, I am fairly certain. In fact my user font directory is empty. Now.

I said "now" because I also installed the latest MS Office, and they peppered my user folder with over a hundred fonts, so I moved them to an external disk and now my user fonts folder is empty.

I'm not going to worry much about this, since it is so uncommon; in fact, I can't even recall where I saw it other then the Get Info.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1), 8 GB

Posted on Nov 28, 2015 11:50 AM

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Answer 1

leroydouglas

Level 10

200,634 points

Nov 28, 2015 12:27 PM in response to Tim Murray2

Do you see this in all get info panes or just the textwrangler doc?

Here is what I see, in comparison.

What happens if you open a guest account and test?

What happens if you do a Safe Boot and test? SafeBoot http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564

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Answer 2

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,510 points

Nov 28, 2015 12:56 PM in response to Tim Murray2

I said "now" because I also installed the latest MS Office, and they peppered my user folder with over a hundred fonts, so I moved them to an external disk and now my user fonts folder is empty.

Sounds like you emptied the wrong folder. The latest version, Office 2016, doesn't install fonts anywhere on the drive other than within its own application packages. Office 2011 was the last version of Office to install fonts to the root /Library/Fonts/ folder. It creates a subfolder name Microsoft and puts all of its fonts there. So if this the Fonts folder you emptied, you removed all of the Microsoft Office 2008 or 2011 fonts they install, along with everything OS X installs to that folder. If this is correct, put those fonts back.

To check your user account Fonts folder, click anywhere on the desktop so Finder shows as the foreground app at the upper left next to the Apple logo. Hold the Shift key down and from the menu choose, Go > Library. This will open the Library folder within your user account. Open the Fonts folder within that. If there's anything in it, move them all to a new folder on the desktop. Restart and test again.

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Answer 3

Tim Murray2 Author

Level 1

122 points

Nov 28, 2015 2:32 PM in response to Kurt Lang

The folder I emptied is user/Library/Fonts. I have four log-in names (for example, I have a girl friend who can't sync to save her life, so I keep her up to date, another for working in the office, etc.), and all of them have empty user fonts folders. At first I would think I got all those fonts because I got backup items from Time Machine, and maybe those were included . . . except I have always been one to keep clean fonts folders. And just now I created a new user, and the user/Library/Font folder is empty.

By the way, I found another one:

The operating system would not require one in the user's folder, and it is empty so there is no collision there. Maybe when I have nothing to do some weekend I will do this all over again and track what happens -- if the glyphs appear and what installed those fonts. I have a good backup and a written backup/restore plan, so it's not a big deal other than time.

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Answer 4

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,510 points

Nov 28, 2015 3:08 PM in response to Tim Murray2

With the fresh install of El Capitan on an erased drive, the user account Fonts folders empty, and all other standard cleaning or reset procedures done, that pretty much leaves a reinstall of the OS. Or at least all of the supplied fonts. If you saved a copy of the El Capitan installer, you can use Pacifist to reinstall just the fonts.

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