[live4lax364]

This is my Dictionary widget. As you can see (should see), the font is mumbo jumbo. It used to work fine, but idk what happened, I get this in applications like ichat sometimes too. I don't know what activates it, what font it is, or how to fix it. Could you please help me get it back to normal?

[Hg2491]

When I had font problems I deleted the Fonts folder in User > Library > Fonts. Maybe that'll help you too.

[Thorzdad]

Clear/delete your font cache.
If you opt to delete your Fonts folder, be sure you back-up any fonts you have in there first.

[Cold Warrior]

Font Book will show you duplicates; it's a good idea to check for them on top of what hg and thorz have suggested.

[live4lax364]

I downloaded FontNuke and didn't get any results. If i delete the library>font folder, what will happen to my other fonts?

[Hg2491]

Only the fonts you've installed are stored in the Fonts folder inside your User's Library. The others will still be there.

[Big Mac]

But make sure that you're only deleting your user's Font folder and not /Library/Fonts/.

[live4lax364]

I have 1300 fonts, is that a lot? I don't want to delete them all unless it's completely necessary, does anybody know what font this is?

[JKT]

You have a font conflict. In this particular case, it looks like you have Times Phonetic installed and this is the source of your problem:

The Problem: If you have the Times Phonetic font installed, text in some applications may appear as greek symbols. This font substitution problem can effect many Mac OS X applications including Address Book, iChat, Safari, Mail and Microsoft Entourage.

The Fix: The short answer is to remove Times Phonetic from your font collection. Or if you can't entirely remove it, deactivate it manually when this problem occurs.

In practice, this may take a little hunting to accomplish. Sometimes Times Phonetic is included as part of a larger Times font suitcase and can't easily be removed without rebuilding those suitcases. The good news is that few designers use Times Phonetic in their daily work and this font generally won't be missed.

The above is taken from the following site which also describes the issues you will get for a few other font conflicts - I recommend bookmarking it:

http://www.creativetechs.com/iq/garb...ing_guide.html

[live4lax364]

THANK YOU SO MUCH JKT! It worked perfectly in all applications, I now have my readable fonts back! Times Phonetic was the problem. THANK YOU!

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by JKT 

The above is taken from the following site which also describes the issues you will get for a few other font conflicts - I recommend bookmarking it:

http://www.creativetechs.com/iq/garbled_fonts_troubleshooting_guide.html

Those particular tips That first tip (from 2006) seems to have been supplanted in 2007,
once CreativeTechs discovered Safe Booting: Use Safe Boot to Clear Font Caches

[JKT]

Clearing a font cache does not prevent a font conflict. As well as clearing caches, a safe log-in will stop third party fonts from loading. However, the next time you log-in normally, they will load again and you'll get the same problem as before - a font conflict.