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

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.

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.

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."

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?

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.

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