Web Pages using Verdana not displaying

Question

Level 1

6 points

Web Pages using Verdana not displaying

Not a bad effort so far by Apple to infiltrate the browser market, but I am having one problem that has me perplexed - web sites using the Verdana font aren't displaying any of that text. This happening both on actual web sites and pages stored locally - I am a web designer.

This only happens with the Verdana font - all the others come up fine; even the simplest of web page coding causes the problem. Additionally, under Preferences - Appearance, if I change the Standard Font to Verdana, the field is blank. The Verdana that is installed is Opentype, so I'm not sure if Safari supports Opentype or not (I presume it does, since other Opentype fonts appear to be working)

Windows XP

Posted on Jun 11, 2007 4:43 PM

Reply

Answer 1

markm66

Level 1

0 points

Jun 11, 2007 4:50 PM in response to delerium

I have the same. I was wondering why some pages I use on the intranet wouldnt show and sure enough it is where ever I have used verdana. The webpage in one case was really really basic (3 links on a page). Pages render without issue in FF2, IE7, IE6 and Opera 9.

Acer 4234 Laptop Windows Vista

Acer 4234 Laptop Windows Vista

Reply

Answer 2

Jun 11, 2007 6:30 PM in response to delerium

This appears to be very closely related to this bug regarding UI text not displaying - if you have a moderately large (but still reasonable) number of fonts installed, Safari doesn't even get down to the 'V's when enumerating the available fonts; with a particularly large font collection, it doesn't even get to Lucida Grande, thus producing a blank interface. Definitely a bug.

PowerBook G4 1.6GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Reply

Answer 3

cupsdell

Level 1

0 points

Jun 11, 2007 7:19 PM in response to delerium

What I have found on my PC is that Safari 3 for Windows cannot render certain fonts. I can render Arial, but not Tahoma; Georgia, but not Times New Roman.

This inability to render fonts even extends (in my experiments) to the Edit Preferences dialog, when one selects the default fonts: the same fonts which cannot be rendered in web pages come up as blanks when they are selected as the default fonts in the dialog.

Reply

Answer 4

delerium Author

Level 1

6 points

Jun 12, 2007 6:43 AM in response to cupsdell

Ok, upon reading some other messages, it does appear that Safari isn't reading the entire font list. You can, however, fix it by modifying the Fonts.plist file, which is located in this folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari

Local Settings is usually hidden, so you will have to change your settings in My Computer (Tools -> Folder Options -> View -> Show hidden files and folders)

Add the following lines at the end of the font list that is already there:

<key>Verdana</key>
<string>C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\verdana.ttf</string>
<key>Verdana Bold</key>
<string>C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\verdanab.ttf</string>
<key>Verdana Italic</key>
<string>C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\verdanai.ttf</string>
<key>Verdana Bold Italic</key>
<string>C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\verdanaz.ttf</string>

Save the file (I did make a backup of it before I changed the file, just in case). Obviously this is only for Verdana; if you have others that are missing, add them in the same manner.

I also marked the file as read-only - it was mentioned elsewhere - not sure if that was required or not. It can be marked read-only under the file Properties.

Windows XP

Windows XP

Reply

Answer 5

bodash

Level 1

5 points

Jun 12, 2007 7:05 AM in response to delerium

verdana?

no problem

Reply

Answer 6

Jun 12, 2007 6:51 PM in response to delerium

Read only is required, otherwise Safari will delete any changes you make.

Reply