All text in Finder has vanished

Hi,
My father-in-law is having problems with his G5 running Tiger; all of the text seems to have vanished from the Finder. The names are missing from his login window, and he can't see what he's typing, but he can log in. All the icons are on his desktop but without names.
I've suggested reinstalling the system software. Any suggestions for a less involved solution? It's hard for him to run any applications given that he can't read anything...
Any help is appreciated!

Still no joy-- text was still missing in Safe Boot mode. Also, it's not confined to his user account: he logged into the Admin account on his machine and observed the same problem. When he did so it seems like Disk Utility popped up and was giving him alerts-- with no text in any of the boxes or buttons, it was hard to figure out what was going on. Even harder to do all of this diagnosing over the phone.
I've sent him off looking for his Tiger install disk, which he has not been able to locate (you'd know why if you saw his computer room-- anyone else have an in-law like that?). The problem seems to extend beyond a corrupted font; his menus drop all the way down to the bottom of the screen, and are completely blank. I've not encountered anything like this before.
Thanks for all your help!

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