Safari and garbled font display?
Melanie
Safari and it will display just fine. Then I go to another page within the
same site and the text will become garbled. The site that I see it happen
in most often is www.capecod.com, although it is not limited to that site.
It just happened on Amazon. And the more bizarre thing about it is that part
of the text appears normally and some of it is garbled, sometimes even
within the same line. I look at the same pages in Explorer and everything
displays the way it should.
What is going on with Safari?
melanie
matt neuburg
Are you using a font manager such as Extensis Suitcase? m.
--
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Dave Balderstone
<mjl...@cbmmag.net> wrote:
Odds are your font caches are confoozled. Are you loading fonts with
Fontbook, Suitcase, FontAgent, et al?
djb
--
"The thing about saying the wrong words is that A, I don't notice it, and B,
sometimes orange water gibbon bucket and plastic." -- Mr. Burrows
Tacit
> I'm running 10.3.8 on a G5 and there are times when I look at a page
> in Safari and it will display just fine. Then I go to another page
> within the same site and the text will become garbled.
Garbled how?
There are four kinds of ways I've seen fonts become garbled in Safari:
1. Many characters are replaced by what looks like fractions. This will
happen if you have an older version of the font "Helvetica Fractions"
installed. Remove it.
2. The type is replaced with normal looking, but random, letters; for
example, you may see "ghr wfcs cwd" instead of "the brown cow." This may
be related to corruption in the font cache. There is a font cache
cleaner application available from Versiontracker.com which will solve
this problem.
3. The type is garbled in the sense that many characters are replaced
with accented or foreign-language characters. This is usually because
the Webmaster has not specified a character set or has specified the
wrong character set on the Web page. Se if the View->Text Encoding menu
item helps--try choosing different text encodings. If that works, the
problem is an error made by the Webmaster; send the Webmaster an email.
4. The letters are replaced with hollow boxes or rectangles. This
usually indicates a corrupt font, or a problem with the font manager
software (such as Suitcase) you are using.
Melanie
"matt neuburg" <ma...@tidbits.com> wrote:
> Melanie <mjl...@cbmmag.net> wrote:
>
>> I'm running 10.3.8 on a G5 and there are times when I look at a page in
>> Safari and it will display just fine. Then I go to another page within the
>> same site and the text will become garbled. The site that I see it happen
>> in most often is www.capecod.com, although it is not limited to that site.
>> It just happened on Amazon. And the more bizarre thing about it is that part
>> of the text appears normally and some of it is garbled, sometimes even
>> within the same line. I look at the same pages in Explorer and everything
>> displays the way it should.
>>
>> What is going on with Safari?
>
> Are you using a font manager such as Extensis Suitcase? m.
Yup. Pretty much.
And some computers in the office display it the way it should be, some
computers display it with what appears to be characters for a foreign
language. Since I am now finding this happens on only some computers in the
office and not others, I find it difficult to believe this is a website
coding error. So what NEW problem am I having with Extensis (besides not
auto-activating without getting hit with a 2x4?)
Melanie
"matt neuburg" <ma...@tidbits.com> wrote:
> Melanie <mjl...@cbmmag.net> wrote:
>
>> On 02/18/2005 4:48 PM, in article 1gs6m1q.1m9k4tmrjlt34N%ma...@tidbits.com,
>> "matt neuburg" <ma...@tidbits.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Melanie <mjl...@cbmmag.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm running 10.3.8 on a G5 and there are times when I look at a page in
>>>> Safari and it will display just fine. Then I go to another page within
>>>> the same site and the text will become garbled. The site that I see it
>>>> happen in most often is www.capecod.com, although it is not limited to
>>>> that site. It just happened on Amazon. And the more bizarre thing about
>>>> it is that part of the text appears normally and some of it is garbled,
>>>> sometimes even within the same line. I look at the same pages in
>>>> Explorer and everything displays the way it should.
>>>>
>>>> What is going on with Safari?
>>>
>>> Are you using a font manager such as Extensis Suitcase? m.
>>
>> Yup. Pretty much.
>
> That's why I asked. I had to stop using Suitcase because of this and
> other problems. I recommend you try FontAgent Pro, or no font manager at
> all. m.
>
Unfortunately we are a publishing company and we handle thousands of fonts,
so not using a manager is not an option. Not even considering the insanity
of changing everyone over, I will need another reason to justify changing to
FontAgent Pro other than browsing problems. Does anyone have a work-around
or an insight into why Extensis does this or is it just that buggy?
matt neuburg
> On 02/18/2005 4:48 PM, in article 1gs6m1q.1m9k4tmrjlt34N%ma...@tidbits.com,
> "matt neuburg" <ma...@tidbits.com> wrote:
>
> > Melanie <mjl...@cbmmag.net> wrote:
> >
> >> I'm running 10.3.8 on a G5 and there are times when I look at a page in
> >> Safari and it will display just fine. Then I go to another page within
> >> the same site and the text will become garbled. The site that I see it
> >> happen in most often is www.capecod.com, although it is not limited to
> >> that site. It just happened on Amazon. And the more bizarre thing about
> >> it is that part of the text appears normally and some of it is garbled,
> >> sometimes even within the same line. I look at the same pages in
> >> Explorer and everything displays the way it should.
> >>
> >> What is going on with Safari?
> >
> > Are you using a font manager such as Extensis Suitcase? m.
>
> Yup. Pretty much.
That's why I asked. I had to stop using Suitcase because of this and
other problems. I recommend you try FontAgent Pro, or no font manager at
all. m.
matt neuburg
I know what you mean. I used to work in the same sort of environment. To
me, the browsing problems are an indication of deeper problems with
Suitcase, and this is why I stopped using it. FontAgent Pro does have
some features that might appeal (font sharing across the local network
with Rendezvous is cool). But I do understand that a move to a different
font enabler is unlikely in a corporate environment where you've got a
system with mission-critical stuff and things are working well enough -
even though, as you've discovered, there are bugs. In that case your
only option is to live with it. Try a different browser. :) m.
Melanie
>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm running 10.3.8 on a G5 and there are times when I look at a page in
>>>>>> Safari and it will display just fine. Then I go to another page within
>>>>>> the same site and the text will become garbled. The site that I see it
>>>>>> happen in most often is www.capecod.com, although it is not limited to
>>>>>> that site. It just happened on Amazon. And the more bizarre thing about
>>>>>> it is that part of the text appears normally and some of it is garbled,
>>>>>> sometimes even within the same line. I look at the same pages in
>>>>>> Explorer and everything displays the way it should.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What is going on with Safari?
>>>>>
>>>>> Are you using a font manager such as Extensis Suitcase? m.
>>>>
>>>> Yup. Pretty much.
>>>
It was suggested that I run Applejack and clear the font cache. That
cleared it up and all is well. If you don't have it,
http://applejack.sourceforge.net/
Melanie
Darla
I am fortunate enough to work in a me-only environment, so the
suggestion of removing Helvetica Fractions was as easy one to take.
Now, for the first time in YEARS, I no longer have the problem of
garbled font displays in Safari! I can't thank you enough. In fact, I'm
going to quit kissing the screen now so I can go tell PayPal to make a
contribution to help support this wonderful site.
Darla, a grateful newbie
--
Darla
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