Font book error messages

Font Book's validation routine is almost entirely useless. Only if a font is marked in red (serious issues) should you avoid installing it. Anything marked with a yellow caution symbol means nothing.

As a test, I once installed OS X from scratch on an erased drive. Font Book of course said every font was clean. I then moved all of the fonts in the /Library/Fonts/ folder to a new folder. Being on the same drive, a move did nothing more than change all of the file table entries to note the new location of the fonts. The fonts themselves weren't rewritten in any way, so it was literally impossible for them to be damaged in any manner. I added them back into Font Book as a new set and ran validation again. It reported every "moved" font with a caution symbol. That's how useless Font Book's validation routine is.

What Font Book marks with caution symbols can be just about anything. There are lots of various tags in fonts. Some are deprecated (old methods that aren't supposed to be used anymore). That doesn't make them bad, just old methods that are still completely harmless and still completely usable. In the above case, the "fault" was nothing more than the permissions had changed on all of the fonts by moving them out of an OS controlled folder. That's hardly the same as damaged.

It is not recommended to install fonts from third party as they might conflict with system fonts or corrupt font book application.

So what do I do with the thousands (literally, thousands) of third party fonts I have and use, and the uncountable number of third party fonts clients have sent me to use with their projects over the years?

To suggest that every person in the world should only, and ever use the limited number of fonts supplied with OS X is implausible. Please learn more about the subject you're trying to help with before making such absolute statements.

Although Apple moderates, runs, and maintains these forums, all advice is user to user. It's up to you then to either believe, disbelieve, accept, or ignore any responses.

I don't know what response of yours was removed as I didn't see it, and this is currently your only visible post in this topic.

Since your response is to user, appreciate, I'll have to presume that's what you're commenting on as "technical advice". The first three responses by appreciate are very generic. Not helpful since the command Restore Standard Fonts will move all third party fonts out of the three standard Fonts folders, which will disable them. This will not help the user fix or find a way to use third party fonts. Two also include links to standard Apple support pages about using Font Book. Also no help for the question at hand.

The last is, in part, completely wrong: It is not recommended to install fonts from third party as they might conflict with system fonts or corrupt font book application.

The initial part of the sentence is true. Yes, you can install fonts that may conflict with those already installed by the OS. If you install an old Type 1 PostScript version of Helvetica, then yes, it will conflict with the Helvetica font installed by OS X. However, a newer OpenType version of Helvetica will not since it does not have conflicting internal names. Both can be active on your Mac without any issues.

The latter part of the sentence is pure bunk. A corrupt font cannot in any way corrupt the Font Book application. Not even slightly. What a severely damaged font can do is cause Font Book's database to be corrupted. FB will then act very strangely. The fix is to remove the damaged font, or fonts from the drive, and then reset Font Book by throwing out its database. It will then create a new one the next time it's launched.

Open font book > font book preferences check the boxes for options resolve duplicates by moving files into the trash , automatic font activation

For resolving duplicate fonts : choose edit > look for enabled duplicates .

Green icon - passed , yellow icon - warning , red icon - failed .

An apple article is there: Font Book (El Capitan): Restore standard fonts

Thank you. This solved my issues.

Thanks! This solved my issue.

Try deleting the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist and then log out/in.

The ~ is short for your Home Directory. If you have trouble locating the right Library, read this:

http://macdrug.com/access-the-user-library-folder-in-mac-os-x/

How is it possible? The only reasonable answer to me is Font Book isn't working properly.

Agreed. The same font can't suddenly go from okay to mangled. At least, not normally.

When you add fonts to Font Book in the default manner, it copies all fonts you add to the Fonts folder within your user account. Uninstalling your test font removed that copy of the font. So while I would lean towards unlikely, the reinstalled font may have indeed come from a damaged source, and Font Book is telling you so.

Test Font Book. Download any font from Font Squirrel. The owners of this set vet all of the fonts they make available. Read - no junk.

Add that font to Font Book and validate. If it says the font is okay, right click on the font to both deactivate and delete it. Add it again. If Font Book now says the same font, which hasn't changed in any way between adding it the first and second time, has serious issues, Font Book is doing something wrong.

But then, that may also be a sign the OS itself has issues and is not writing the copies correctly, or the drive has serious issues and is causing the corruption. It can be difficult to single these things out.

No, the Restore Standard Fonts command wouldn't have helped at all. Nothing it does could change the behavior of fonts being declared as seriously damaged by Font Book.

As per my suggestion, I can't know what you mean by "It worked fine." Not enough info. What worked fine? A test font from Font Squirrel worked fine no matter how many times you added and removed it, but it's your other third party fonts that always come up as bad?

Try resetting Font Book entirely.

Quit Font Book and all other apps you have running. Open the Preferences folder in your user account. One way to get there is to click anywhere on the desktop so Finder is shown as the foreground app next to the Apple logo at the upper left. Then hold the Option key and from the menu, choose Go > Library. This opens the Library folder in your account. Then open the Preferences folder in that. Put these two files in the trash:

com.apple.FontBook.plist

com.apple.FontRegistry.user.plist

One holds Font Book's basic preferences and a database of what fonts are active. The other, which fonts you've deactivated. So you may not find both. Once placed in the trash, restart the Mac.

When you're back at the desktop from the restart, do not launch Font Book yet. Go into your user account again with the Go > Library command. Open the folder FontCollections and put all of the items you find there in the trash. None of these are important. Not even the ones that came with OS X. They are there as examples of how to use sets. Nothing more. The reason for this is corrupt collections can cause all sorts of havoc for Font Book. Empty the trash.

Now launch Font Book and test with some of your fonts.

Quite honestly, the solution is to delete Font Book from the drive and use a professional font manager. I would recommend either of the following above any and all other third party offerings.

Suitcase Fusion

FontExplorer X Pro

Both can be downloaded and used for a 30 day trial period. Be sure to completely remove one before trying the other.

Apple support, this comment above. Is this technical advice? You removed my prior comments based on that explanation. If I copy/paste instructions on how to open the Font Book app. That being technical advice, it will fall under the terms & conditions and be green lit?

Point being, it does not answer any part of any question in this thread & is pointless.

An apple article for guidance is there : Mac Basics: Font Book - Apple Support

Open font book via spotlight > click on file > validate fonts , after validating if yellow exclamation mark is found in front of fonts , remove them carefully .