Finder Font Problem

Suddenly, the Finder is having trouble with its characters. The Finder headings and Menus and the file names all have an "a" or "at" sign with a box around them for the characters. One unique thing is that if you click on a file name to edit the name text, the correct text returns until you finish editing it.
THe operating system also seems to be growing unstable with programs crashing regularly.
It seems as though some font got corrupted somewhere. Is this a VIRUS? A disk problem? Anybody got an idea? Can I restore the fonts only or do I need to reload the operating system?
Mac Mini Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Hi, macjack and hi again, bmewolf —
I must've fallen into a rabbit hole while editing my post. Please forgive. Here's a revised version that, luckily, supplements macjack's suggestion — which I think would be a good 1st step:
Font-related issues can cause seemingly mysterious user-account or system-wide problems.
Please take a look at Mac OS X: How to troubleshoot a software issue — which summarizes a viable approach to troubleshooting many issues like this.
I also suggest that you read Dr. Smoke's "Undoing Font Book" FAQ to familiarize yourself with details about the probable context of your situation and ways to resolve it.
Summarizing ——»»
(1) Any recent changes? Have you recently installed or removed any fonts? Do you have a particularly large collection? use 3rd-party software to manage your fonts?
(2) Font Book. Is the behavior restricted to the Finder? I'm not familiar with the specific symptoms — so I can't say for sure, but...
Have you tried using Font Book?
Font Book is a utility can often solve such misbehavior — it's located in /Applications/. As is usually wise, read through Font Book Help before proceeding. In simple terms,
(a) Launch Font Book, then look in the column titled "Fonts." Any font/family denoted with a "•" beside it is duplicated — which may cause unexpected problems. Select one of these, then go to
Edit »» Resolve duplicates. Continue until they've all been resolved.
Check to see if this helps.
(b) If not, you may also want to use the File »» Validate font function.
(3) Safe Mode. If that didn't help — and check carefully after a restart — please see the KnowledgeBase Articles What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? and Starting up in Safe Mode. As you'll see from the former, booting into Safe Mode has some aspects that are unique in OS X 10.4.x Tiger — it will:
• "Disable all fonts other than those in /System/Library/Fonts
• Move to the Trash all font caches normally stored in /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/(uid)/ "
— in addition to the other troubleshooting steps described. Using a Safe Boot may thus be a helpful troubleshooting step for you situation.
If none of the suggestions help, please post back to discuss what you've tried and observed.
HTH!
Regards,
Dean
I edited this message...

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edit:
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Ooops, I misread your reply, and see that by changing the paper size it corrected the issue.
Message was edited by: littleshoulders

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Google for it and I am in no way affiliated with this program or
it's agents in any way. Just a Fireworks user desperate for a fix.
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Dave

Tazmun,
Have you tried a search within Fireworks 8' Techdocs through
Fireworks Support site?
If still problem, let us know. We can try and give you a tip
or suggestion to find some solution for you.
If I remember this correctly, not all of fonts are equally
installed into Font folder on your Mac. There are a couple of
Library folders on your System folder, plus users' Library folder
and sometimes inside software developer's application folders. It
varies from software developers to others. I don't recall that I
run into font problems with Fireworks or any other Adobe
applications on my Mac. let me take a look at Brush Script MT on my
Fireworks and see what happens.

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