Some pages display in Greek text

M

MidnightJava

Registered
I;ve had this problem now and then for years and have not found a solution for it. Certain documents and certain web pages from time to time display completely in Greek characters. I've tried every different encoding setting that makes even remote sense, and I just can't get teh Greek to go away.

Currently I'm trying to look up something in the SVN book on line, and it's all Greek characters. If I view page source, the characters are displayed in the proper font. Google searches show several others having this problem, but no one had a solution. Someone posted a solution here, but it was redacted for some reason and the only part that makes sense is that I should but a product called Suitcase Fusion. I refuse to pay money to make my Mac stop displaying characters in Greek font at random. In some circles that can be considered extortion. :)

Does anyone have a solution to this bizzare problem?
 
No, don't buy Suitcase. Get the free Linotype FontExplorer: http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorer. :)

Then deactivate all fonts in FontBook (apple's font program) and shut it down for good.

Use FontExplorer to Tools/Manage System Font Files and move all your non system fonts out of system/fonts library/fonts. All your user fonts should be in a folder inside your hard drive, not in any system folders.

Should work. Also, make sure Helvetica isn't your default font in your browser. Use Tahoma, Verdana, or Georgia. Maybe Arial. :)
 
Thanks for the tip on FontExplorer. I checked into it, and it seems to be a fine app. Further background, my wife is the primary Mac user, for her design business. I use it occasionally and serve as her sys admin, but something like choice of a font management tool I'll leave to her.

I googled FontExplorer and saw pretty much only stellar comments about it, and many people having problems with FontBook and Suitcase. But my wife says she's never had any problems with FontBook, and she's not too keen on changing. I sent her the link on FontExplorer, and I'll see if that makes her decide to go for it.

In case she doesn't, I checked the other things you mentioned as well. I did have Helvetica as the default font in Firefox, so I changed it as you suggested. For each of the three you suggested, the Subversion Book showed up with Latin characters, mostly. However, some of the headings are rendered in what appears to be numbers garbled together. (The offending text is in a table header (<th>) html element, but it's also defined as a class in a style sheet I don't have access to, so Idon't know what other formatting they're doing on it.) But the book is mostly readable, so that's a workable solution for me if my wife doesn't let me change her font manager.

Also, all the user fonts are in Library/fonts rather than ~/Library/fonts. I probably won't get to change that unless she also asks me to install FontExplorer.

Thanks again for your help.
 
Well, glad you're on the right track, sounds like you have it sorted. I would say, though, that after 13 years of design work I've never, ever, used FontBook. It's too slow and buggy for anything but the most basic font uses.

Anyway, good on ya!
 
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