Tired of El Capitan Font Issues

Have you had a look at

http://www.jklstudios.com/misc/osxfonts.html

Hi Tom,

This bit:-

Apple Gothic

If the font AppleGothic.dfont is not installed, the following problems occur:

a) You will find that the Adobe CS line of applications will not install in Leopard or Tiger (the CS2 and later applications do not appear to be affected). When trying to install them, you only get as far as entering your administrative password, and choosing your language. The installer then quits. The CS applications run fine once installed. It is only the installers themselves that are affected by the absence of AppleGothic.dfont.

b) The retail version of OS X Tiger itself has an issue if AppleGothic.dfont is not available. When the DVD is inserted, the disk begins to automatically open, but the Finder then closes the DVD file window and resets before even seeing the contents.

c) In Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac OS X, previous to version 11.2, PowerPoint will complain that four of the Asian fonts are missing if you are using the short list of fonts mentioned in section one. One error message for each of the four fonts that you need to dismiss. It doesn't effect the operations of PowerPoint, just an annoyance that it insists on telling you that fonts you don't need (as an English speaking user) are missing. You can eliminate this problem by updating to 11.2.x (11.2.1 being current at the time of writing). If you have already attempted to run PowerPoint after updating to 11.2.x without AppleGothic.dfont active, then you have already discovered that PowerPoint crashes after clicking the Open button at the Project Gallery. To fix this problem, activate AppleGothic.dfont. Run PowerPoint again. This time, after clicking Open in the Project Gallery, you will get a message that certain Asian fonts are missing. Turn on the check box at the lower left to tell PowerPoint to never check for those fonts. PowerPoint will thereafter start without errors, or display any messages about missing fonts. Such issues have been eliminated in Office 2008 and 2011. All of its applications will open without any error messages.

Apple Gothic isn't needed often, but given its importance to viewing and using installation disks and its effect on earlier versions of Microsoft Office, it is advised to have it enabled at all times.

Also needs to reflect that Messages will not run without it.

Messages is present from OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) onwards.

The app can fail to Launch.

I mention it as the Original Posts seems to show the bottom of the Messages chat window.

I am not sure though what the Apple Spell drop down uses which seems to be the issue.

8:46 pm Friday; January 8, 2016

BinsuJiro wrote:

I use Asian fonts, yet the article really does not address the placement of Asian fonts in the various folders of the El Capitan system.

The real question is:

Is there an application or utility to scan the various font depositories throughout Mac OS X El Capitan and ensure that the correct fonts are installed in the correct places.

I don't understand your concern about "correct places". As far as Apple apps are involved, regardless of the language, fonts can be in system/library/fonts, library/fonts, or user/library/fonts. As long as you do not remove the fonts installed by OS X in the first two places, everything should work ok. user/library/fonts is normally empty, and that is where the user would normally install his own fonts not supplied by Apple.

To access user/library/fonts, you need to hold the option key down while doing Finder > Go.

Fontbook > File > Restore Standard Fonts sometimes fixes problems caused by non-apple fonts, while a Safe Boot often fixes problems caused by corrupt font caches.

Are you using Adobe or Microsoft apps? I think they may sometimes have their own locations for fonts.

These are user/user help forums. I don't know of any better resource than the jklstudios link, it represents years of experience by one of the most expert forum volunteers. If you want to suggest improvements to Apple, the place to do that is at

http://www.apple.com/feedback

If you don't have the time to read something a member here provided for you in an attempt to help you with your problem, and if you're going to be dismissive of that help, what exactly do you want any of us to do?

The main point of the article is what the minimum fonts are you need in a given version of OS X. So no, it does not cover all of the OS X included fonts.

Personally, I am having no issues at all with fonts in El Capitan. However!, there is a known bug. And that is:

You cannot put Type 1 PostScript or older legacy Mac TrueType fonts into the root /Library/Fonts/ folder, or activate them in place with any font manager. If you do, they may, or may not appear in all, or any apps. They must be either placed directly into the Fonts folder of your user account (which is where Font Book will copy fonts to automatically when added in the default manner), or they must be added to your third party font manager's physical cache of activated fonts. For instance in Suitcase, that means adding them to the Vault, not activated in place. OpenType fonts do not have this problem.

No, there is no such software. If you want the system put back to the default fonts only installed by OS X, open Font Book and run the menu command, Restore Standard Fonts. This will move all third party fonts out of the System and root Library Fonts folders to a new folder which will be created next to each Fonts folder. If you have removed any OS X fonts that also exist in the hidden Recovery partition, those will be copied back to their normal locations. Any others will not come back without reinstalling them.

The command does nothing to your user account Fonts folder. So the last thing to do there is to move all fonts out of your user account Fonts folder to the desktop, or some other location where the OS will not see them. That is, not in any of the three working Fonts folders (System, root Library, the logged in user account).

Close all applications. In the Preferences folder of your account, put the file com.apple.FontRegistry in the trash and restart. That file is Font Book's database. Removing it and restarting will clear any possible issues with a corrupt Font Book database, which tends to be easily damaged.

Lastly, clear all font cache files from the system. Close all running applications. 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.

Barring any issues with the OS itself, or damaged fonts, this will clear up all font issues and thing should work as they're supposed to.

BinsuJiro wrote:

the issue illustrated in my screen shot

What app is that exactly? Seeing something like that is not so uncommon, although usually the symbols will have an A in them instead of a ? sign.

Hopefullly following Kurt's instructions regarding the fontregistry and cache cleaning will fix it.

I try to follow language issues in the forums: Have you run into any problems in El Capitan relating specifically to CJK fonts?

Oh! Forgot to thank you for this note, Ralph:

Also needs to reflect that Messages will not run without it.

Since I never remove Apple Gothic anymore, I didn't catch that one. I'll have to try and remember to add that minor note to the article.

I manage my user fonts with Linotype's FontExplorer X Pro, and I am running the latest version updated for El Capitan.

Very nice font manager. If I weren't already a long time Suitcase user (which I still prefer anyway), I'd be using that one.

That brings up a major point, though. Since you're use FEX, Font Book should never, ever be used. Not even launched. Once you do, it creates the file com.apple.FontRegistry. As soon as that happens, OS X will read it and try to maintain which fonts that database says are enabled or disabled whether you're using Font Book or not. Once you delete that preference file, you must never launch Font Book again. It's why in my article I strongly suggest deleting Font Book from the Applications folder if you're using a different font manager.

I have a partitioned disk with all NON Apple fonts located on a separate partition.

Same here. The only fonts on my startup drive are the minimal sets. Everything else gets activated from wherever they are. I occasionally see some members respond to user questions of, 'Should I partition my drive?' with a resounding, 'No, there is no reason to do that on the Mac.'

Really? Why not. I have all kinds of partitions for very specific and necessary reasons.

Understood.

8:01 pm Saturday; January 9, 2016