An open community 
of Macintosh users,
for Macintosh users.

FineTunedMac Dashboard widget now available! Download Here

Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Getting all these questions about fonts
#12250 10/07/10 04:39 PM
Joined: Dec 2009
kevs Offline OP
OP Offline

Joined: Dec 2009
Suddenly Mac is asking all these questions about installing fonts in Firefox, Entourage, and other apps.
what's going on? never seen this before, it's crazy.
see screenshot. thanks!

http://tinypic.com/r/vzgdqf/7

Re: Getting all these questions about fonts
kevs #12252 10/07/10 04:54 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Offline

Joined: Aug 2009
you may have a problem with your font cache or local fonts. If you open a document that uses a font that's not installed, and the OS knows where it's at, it will offer to install it. It's a one shot thing, it won't ask for that font again if you allow the installation. It's harmless. But it may indicate other problems.

If for some reason a common font got removed, you may get the same font warning in multiple places rapidly, until you replace it.

Check Font Book and see if it lists the fonts its looking for, or perhaps displays some sort of a notice or warning about the condition of your fonts.


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: Getting all these questions about fonts
kevs #12255 10/07/10 05:14 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 16
Moderator
Online
Moderator

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 16
If V1's suggestion does not work out try running OnyX, Cocktail, TinkerTool System, or any other utility you prefer and flushing your font caches being sure to include the Microsoft font caches as well.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Getting all these questions about fonts
Virtual1 #12256 10/07/10 05:30 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 3
Moderator
Offline
Moderator

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 3

Quote:
If you open a document that uses a font that's not installed, and the OS knows where it's at, it will offer to install it. It's a one shot thing, it won't ask for that font again if you allow the installation.

I don't think that's quite what's happening here. I think these messages result from opening a document that uses a font that's installed but not activated; the OS is offering to activate that font, and if you agree, the font stays activated until you quit the application.

In theory, you can control this behavior in Font Book's prefs (although Google reveals that it was problematic in early versions of 10.5): there's a checkbox for Automatic font activation and, below that, one for Ask me before activating. It sounds like kevs' system is behaving as if the second box is checked as well as the first. However, I get these font dialogs from time to time, and Ask me before activating is not checked in my Font Book prefs, so the whole automatic font activation thing may still be flakey.

The many discussions at Apple on this topic seem to have in common the label "This question is not answered."



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: Getting all these questions about fonts
dkmarsh #12257 10/07/10 06:27 PM
Joined: Dec 2009
kevs Offline OP
OP Offline

Joined: Dec 2009
Thanks Guys,
now recently, I've been trying to install some fonts to make a photoshop file work that my designer sent me.
I still don't know where to put her fonts, and the PHotoshop file, still says it need good fonts.
Is this the culprit of this? Totally unrelated to Firefox and Entourage, but who knows.
And where do Photoshop fonts go? my library or Mac library, or app: Font Book Add Fonts? so confusing.
and what should I do about this new issue, Cocktail? what else? thanks!
BTW does name of font folder matter? can have spaces?

Re: Getting all these questions about fonts
kevs #12258 10/07/10 07:16 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 16
Moderator
Online
Moderator

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 16
The easiest way to install fonts is to open Font Book and either press Command+O or click on File > Add Fonts then navigate to the font files you want to add and double click on them or select them and click on Open.

To manually add fonts, where you put them depends on the scope of access you wish them to have. If these are fonts that will only be used by you then place them in ~/Library/Fonts (where "~/" is Unix shorthand for your home folder), if you wish the font to be available to every user account on your computer place them in /Library/Fonts at the drive root. As a general rule, never put fonts in or remove fonts from /System/Library/Fonts, those are system fonts only.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Getting all these questions about fonts
joemikeb #12259 10/07/10 10:12 PM
Joined: Dec 2009
kevs Offline OP
OP Offline

Joined: Dec 2009
thanks, actually, Fontbook, add fonts did not work at all.
But dragging folder to home, libary, fonts worked.


Moderated by  alternaut, dkmarsh, joemikeb 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.4
(Release build 20200307)
Responsive Width:

PHP: 7.4.33 Page Time: 0.019s Queries: 28 (0.013s) Memory: 0.6016 MB (Peak: 0.6743 MB) Data Comp: Zlib Server Time: 2024-03-28 16:39:20 UTC
Valid HTML 5 and Valid CSS