How do I reset font book?

Fontbook keeps hanging on me everytime I launch it and there are a number of fonts that have been disabled for some reason that previously were enabled. Is there a way to reset it?

Find the FontBook preference file and move it to the Desktop.
It should be in this path: User > [yourname] > Library > Preferences > com.apple.FontBook.plist
To get to the Library folder, hold down the Option key and select Library from the Go menu in the Finder.

Similar Messages

How can I get Font Book to install new fonts with Lion OS X without crashing?

Font Book is unresponsive using Lion 10.7.1. When I click on Font Book icon in the dock, I get "Application not Responding". Can't install any new fonts. Anyone else having this issue?
I can get to the open Font Book window if I click on Mission Control to get there, but once there I see spinning wheel, which does not stop.
Any suggestions on how to get Font Book to work well on Lion?

Quick update... I removed all non System fonts from ~/Library/Fonts and deleted com.apple.fontbook.plist from ~/Library/Preferences.
Now FontBook doesn't crash when launched.
I think I'm going to use a 3rd party application to manage all non Apple/System fonts. Hopefully that will avoid any future problems.

How do I organize Font Book fonts?

I want to get all my variations of a font into one font family in font book. For example, I want my light font, bold font, extra bold font ect. to all go under one name(under one side arrow) in font book instead of having each varitation its own arrow. When I use adobe illustrator I want to have it so there is only one name and then I can arrow over to look at all the different varations. How do I do this?

Could be many things, but it's best to start with these two steps, which may fix it also...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Tiger Mac OS X Install disc , then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, *you must select your language first.)*
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
Then Safe Boot , (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it finishes.
Safe Boot... holding Shift key down at bootup. Safe Boot is a special way to start Mac OS X 10.2 or later when troubleshooting.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107392

How do I return Font Book back to it's install condition?

I accidently dropped a couple of thousand fonts into Font Book. (Big clumsy hands, me)
What is the best way to get Font Book back to it's install default condition?
I will get TimeMachine up and running - next time I won't have this problem.

Success. But if there is a next time around I will trash them directly from the Fonts folder in my user folder, as it took an age (overnight) for Font Book to delete them.
Now, where did I put that Time Machine tutorial ... ?

How do i reset mac book to original settings

I have an old mac book (white) and want to clean everything off of it and give it away, how do I do that?

     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed Quit the installer. Be sure to include the
         installation discs.

Font book not starting up

when i start font book, the color wheel keeps on spinning and i have to force quit because it becomes unresponsive, how do i reset font book's database or restore it back to default?

Hopefully you have a backup. Your hard drive may be failing. I'd try a few things:
if you have any peripherals, like mice or keyboards, unplug them and try again.
try a SMC reset Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
a safe boot Mac OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?
boot to your recovery partition and repair your hard drive and permissions When to Run First Aid in Mountain Lion's Disk Utility - For Dummies
if that doesn't work, try internet recovery OS X: About OS X Recovery
if you can get your computer booted in one of the recovery modes, but it can't be repaired successfully enough to start into the regular boot partition, you may need to erase the drive and start over with a clean installation.
You might be able to get your hard drive to mount in target mode on another mac, which would let you back up any files that you want to save on the drive: OS X Mountain Lion: Transfer files between two computers using target disk mode
if you can't get any of this to work, then the drive quite possibly is failing, and should be replaced.

How to Permanently Enable Fonts in Font Book?

Until recently, all the fonts I have installed have been permanently enabled then a few days ago, I opened Pages and was informed that some of the fonts I regularly use in most of my documents, Optima Bold, Optima Italic, Optma Bold Italic, were not active - Optima Regular was.
I went into Font Book and found that there were many fonts which were no longer enabled. I enabled them all and carried on with my work.
But now, I have discovered that every time I reboot, these fonts are disabled again. Surely there must be a way to permanently enable fonts.
Can anybody help, please?

Thank you for the link, it was much appreciated. However, I looked through it but as far as I could see it does not address the issue I am having. I have already tried deleting the font cache and Font Book's preferences.
Also, since my first post, I have run a number of font utilities and several problematic fonts have been removed.
I tried resetting Font Book as per the advice on the site and then deleted the font cache once more - as it advises - but there is no change.
I find it curious that all the Optima fonts are in the same suitcase yet only one of them remains enabled.
Something must have happened on my system in the last week or so to cause this but I can't figure out what.

Fonts disabled in Font Book all still on in applications (after SL upgrade)

I've successfully upgraded to Snow Leopard on my 2Ghz intel mac. I had some initial problems with fonts but all now working except that despite fonts being disabled in Font Book they are still active in all applications. As I have 500+ this is really annoying.
I've run Disk Utility. What else? - any ideas how to sort this out???

The database for Font Book is in a completely different location in Snow Leopard. The update doesn't seem to always do the hand off correctly as I've seen a fair number of posts stating the same problem. Resetting Font Book's database should fix it.
Restart your Mac and immediately hold down the Shift key when you hear the startup chime to boot into Safe Mode. Keep holding the Shift key until OS X asks you to log in (you will get this screen on a Safe Mode boot even if your Mac is set to automatically log in). Let the Mac finish booting to the desktop and then restart normally.
This will clear Font Book's database and the cache files of the user account you logged into in Safe Mode. Any font sets you have created will be gone. Also, all fonts in the three main Fonts folders (System, Library, your user account) will now be active, regardless of their state beforehand.

Corrupted fonts Gone from Font Book / problem remains

_I have spent all day paying for the recklessness of installing fonts willy-nilly , I have now learned of font valication, and dozens of new things but, after using advice from Dr.Smokes' eBook & other sources, I still get such pages as the Apple start-up full of upside-down looking junk !
Can anyone help my addled, swollen brain, & point me towards the next step, or where to find it
~~TIA~~ --=Dave t_

Hi, Dave:
1. You've not provided any of the useful details needed to help solve your problem. For example:1.1. What fonts did you install?
1.2. How and where did you install them?
1.3. What fonts have you since removed?
1.4. How, and from where, did you remove them?The people answering questions here are not clairvoyant. WIthout such details, there's little to nothing that can be done to help you.
2. If I assume you installed them via Font Book, and did not change Font Book's default preferences for where fonts are installed, then:2.1. The fonts you installed are probably in your Home > Library > Fonts folder. If so, either trash them or create a new folder on your desktop and drag all the fonts in your Home > Library > Fonts folder to such. Assure your Home > Library > Fonts folder is empty.
2.2. Then, clear your font cache: see my "Undoing Font Book" FAQ or the "Reset Font Book" section in my book.
2.3. Also, clear your browser's cache. If you are using Safari, then press Command-Option-E.3. If none of the above helps, or if you may have trashed system-related fonts, then the next thing I would suggest is performing an Archive and Install of Mac OS X. See either the "Archive and Install" chapter in my book or my "General advice on performing an Archive and Install" FAQ for some important tips on this process.
You know how to reach me if any of the above requires further clarification.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

How is it that fonts in the Mac system can be damaged?

How is it that fonts in the Mac system can be damaged?
It does not hapen in PC systems, ever!
How do we go about replacing the damaged fonts?
I treid to delete and reinstall but no sucess.
Also, Mac systems can only have active about 250 fonts.
PC systems can have up to 1,000 fonts and run very smoothly with any hitches.
Any sloutions or recommendations?
Looks like I made a wrong choice.
I thought that Mac systems was very stable when it comes to graphic related applications, but it seems that I was WRONG.
A simple font base also Mac system cannot handle as well as a PC based system.
Sorry if I have offended other Mac users.
But, I would really like to continue using my Macbook Pro.
Cheers and Merry Christmas, everyone!!!
Kelvin LEEmy

How is it that fonts in the Mac system can be damaged?
As ds store noted. Any file on any part of the drive can be damaged at any time. This is true of any OS, not just the Mac.
It does not happen in PC systems, ever!
Why in the world would you think that's true? I used DOS/Windows for years. Fonts on PCs get damaged too, for pretty much the same reasons.
How do we go about replacing the damaged fonts?
You can replace just the fonts from your Snow Leopard installation disk. See the bottom of my article, Font Management in OS X for instructions.
I tried to delete and reinstall but no success.
Not enough info. Reinstalled from where?
Also, Mac systems can only have active about 250 fonts.
I don't know where you read or heard that, but it's 100% wrong.
PC systems can have up to 1,000 fonts and run very smoothly with any hitches.
And I've had as many as 8500 active (for testing, I would never do it day to day). Do I win?
Any solutions or recommendations?
The most likely reason, assuming you replaced the fonts with known good copies is Font Book. Put bluntly, it's one of the worst font managers available. It's database is easily corrupted. When that happens, fonts that are marked as active in its interface won't appear in some, or all apps. You'll find you can't activate or deactivate fonts. Use these steps to clean Font Book up so it works.
Restart your Mac and immediately hold down the Shift key when you hear the startup chime to boot into Safe Mode. Keep holding the Shift key until you see a progress bar towards the bottom of the screen. You can let go of the Shift key at that point.
OS X asks you to log in (you will get this screen on a Safe Mode boot even if your Mac is set to automatically log in). Let the Mac finish booting to the desktop and then restart normally. This will clear Font Book's database and the cache files of the user account you logged into in Safe Mode.
After the Mac finishes booting back to the desktop from Safe Mode, do the following to clear the rest of the font cache files.
Close all running applications. From an administrator account, open the Terminal app and enter the following command. You can also copy/paste it from here into the Terminal window:
sudo atsutil databases -remove
Terminal will then ask for your admin password. As you type, it will not show anything, so be sure to enter it correctly.
This removes all font cache files. Both for the system and the current user font cache files. After running the command, close Terminal and immediately restart your Mac.
Looks like I made a wrong choice.
As opposed to what? Dealing with viruses each and every day?
I thought that Mac systems was very stable when it comes to graphic related applications, but it seems that I was WRONG.
Boy, you sure know how to make people want to help you.
A simple font base also Mac system cannot handle as well as a PC based system.
Also flat out wrong. Fonts are simple. You add them and use them. Turn them off when you don't want them active. Learning and understanding a new OS is usually a good idea before you start trashing it.
If problems return soon after resetting Font Book with the notes above, then you most likely installed junk fonts. Free fonts are worth what you paid for them and are the number one source of such problems on both Macs and PCs.
Secondly, get rid of Font Book. If you use and manage fonts every day, get a professional manager. Suitcase Fusion 4 and FontExplorerX Pro are your best choices.
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Reinstall of corrupt fonts in font book?

I tried researching my issue, but came up with too many different scenarios and also need more specific step by step remedy.
Running Map Book Pro
OS X 10.6.8
Traveling for business and holiday until Jan.
Working in Adobe Cloud, specifically In-Design and Adobe Pro I discovered that certain fonts weren't rendering properly for colleagues.
Online advice said to go to system font book and verify my fonts, then delete corrupt ones.
There were 32. (They are still in my trash, as I was afraid to delete entirely without a restoration remedy.)
So, I can't get to my original install materials, but I also can't work without some of these basic fonts missing for the time being.
How did my fonts get corrupted? (Do I have other issues such as a virus to look for?)
Can I temporarily fix things without the original disks?
Can a Apple Genius do this at a store?
What's the step by step process to fix this for good?
Any recommendation or help appreciated!
< , \/
< ' /\

Should I put back the fonts i removed to my trash can back first?
In case any of them actually are bad, no. Not that it would matter if you did, since retrieving them from your OS X install disk as outlined in the article will replace all of them with fresh copies anyway.
Do these steps in the order shown.
1) Follow the article's instructions to reinstall all of the fonts in the /System/Library/, and /Library/Fonts/ folders. This will replace all fonts with fresh copies from the DVD.
2) Reset Font Book. Restart your Mac and immediately hold down the Shift key when you hear the startup chime to boot into Safe Mode. Keep holding the Shift key until you see a progress bar towards the bottom of the screen. You can let go of the Shift key at that point.
OS X asks you to log in (you will get this screen on a Safe Mode boot even if your Mac is set to automatically log in). Let the Mac finish booting to the desktop and then restart normally. This will clear Font Book's database and the cache files of the user account you logged into in Safe Mode.
3) Since step two does not clear the system font cache files, you need to do this next.
Close all running applications. From an administrator account, open the Terminal app and enter the following command. You can also copy/paste it from here into the Terminal window:
sudo atsutil databases -remove
Terminal will then ask for your admin password. As you type, it will not show anything, so be sure to enter it correctly.
This removes all font cache files. Both for the system and the current user font cache files. After running the command, close Terminal and immediately restart your Mac.
That's it, you will have all known good copies of your fonts, and newly created font cache data. At this point, if you always use only the fonts supplied with OS X and don't ever add, remove or manage your fonts (turn them and or off), there's no need for you to ever launch Font Book. Heck, you could throw the app in the trash if you wanted to (but don't in case you need it at some point).

How do YOU manage fonts in OSX?

I have not yet found the magic solution that lets me reliably manage large font libraries in OSX.
If anyone has got a solution, or is even merely coping, please pass on some tips.
Thanks,
P.

I have tried Font Book more than once. It is extremely slow, last shot a few days ago it sat hours without showing any signs of progress until I force quit it. This totally screwed my fonts, particularly in Safari.
This is consistent behavior for Font Book when you're trying to handle a lot of fonts. It just isn't very good at that task. Every single font you open with Font Book gets copied to the Fonts folder you chose in its preferences. Since both are considered "always on" folders by the underlying Unix system, Font Book also keeps a database of all installed fonts to determine which should be enabled and which are not. If this database gets damaged, fonts that Font Book says are enabled still don't show up in lists, causes long hangs at startup and other problems.
I did an archive and reinstall of OSX which introduced further problems, now some fonts are missing that were there before and others that aren't part of v10.5.6 seem to be installed.
You can reinstall just the fonts that came with OS X without having to resort to an Archive and Install. See my article which baltwo first linked to above. Any other fonts you've added should have remained where they were. They probably are still there, but a damaged Font Book database is likely keeping them from appearing. You can reset Font Book. Follow the steps in Undoing Font Book. Note that you will lose any font collections you have created. Doing this will also clear the font cache files for your user account. Since Font Book's database is reset, all fonts will in your Fonts folders will be active, regardless of their state beforehand.
I have also tried Suitcase (not for a while) it was also slow and somewhat unpredictable.
Versions X and X1 weren't the best, but Fusion is very stable.
Linotype Font Xchange looks nice but I can't figure out how it is interacting with fonts in Font Book and there seems to be issues with open fonts not showing up in applications.
I have to assume you mean FontExplorer X, since there is no such title as Font Xchange. Big mistake though that a lot of people make. Font Book is just another font manager. It has no special ties to the OS. If you do decide to use a different manager, delete the Font Book application from your hard drive. It's always best to have one, and ONLY one font manager on your system at a time.
Truth to tell I have never overcome the problems of font management in OSX. Is there no way of at minimum just coping with the problems of OSX fonts and at best getting back to the relatively smooth management of Mac Classic?
I find font management just as easy in OS X as OS 9 was. Well, once I learned why there were so many different folders all called Fonts, and why they are separated the way they are. Once you get that, it's a piece of cake.
I believe that is what we are supposed to have, which is the fonts linked (via a Font manager), but not open, and either opened as we need them manually or automatically as the application calls for them.
Agreed. Both Suitcase Fusion 2 and FontExplorer X work that way (actually, you need to tell FEX to use that method). While FEX is free, I still much prefer Suitcase. The biggest reason being that it ensures the same version of a font will be used the next time you open a document in an application that supports auto activation. That I know of, FEX can't do that. It has an auto activate feature, but if you use a different version of Bookman, it can't tell the difference. It sees Bookman and assumes all is okay.
Also there is no way of knowing in some apps whether you have just opened a TrueType .otf or PostScript .otf.
Almost all professional apps tell you the difference. TrueType fonts will be shown with a blue double T icon. OpenType with its green and black letter O. Type 1 PostScript with a red letter A. The only confusion comes from OpenType. Those can be created in TrueType or PostScript versions. The PostScript ones have .otf as their extension. TrueType versions have the same .ttf extensions as the original TrueType fonts of years ago. While you can of course see the difference between them by file name, programs don't differentiate them. They both get the same green/black letter O icon in font lists. There's no way to tell if it's a TrueType or PostScript OpenType font from there.
I can not do what I did in Classic which is have all the font variations in one suitcase and open and close them in one click.
Both Suitcase Fusion 2 and FontExplorer X will open complete sets in one click.
You can download FEX and play around with it as much as you want, being free. If you want it to open fonts in place, just make sure when you first launch it to choose the option "Don't manage fonts" (or something like that). It's kind of a strange way to state the option, but that's the one you want. Suitcase Fusion 2 can be downloaded and used as a fully functional demo for 30 days. It's only method is to open fonts in place. That or open in place and add the fonts to its Vault (the default). I personally see no use for the Vault and use only the open fonts in place option.

Fonts...font manager....font book

Hi,
Okay....I know that quite a bit has been written on this subject in these forums, but finding the exact problem I have, has been quite difficult. Here's the scoop-------
1) Situation: I want to install Font Agent Pro. In fact I bought it and it is already done deal. To me this is a very cool app.
2) Problem: I need/want to disable Font Book.
3) Why it seems to be a problem: When I follow the steps to disable font book......well frankly it just doesn't work. The darn thing is STILL there working!
4) Other things I have tried: I trashed font book (as recommended in these forums). Unfortunately this caused a beachball from Hades to spin eternally near the Spotlight menu bar area.
5) What to do: I just want to disable font book w/o any problems. Any ideas????????
Just some suggestions would be really welcome. Thanks
jabberwock

Hi jabberwock,
The only way to disable Font Book is to delete it, which you did. While the issue with Spotlight certainly seems to be related, since it started right after you trashed Font Book, that just shouldn't happen.
When you say trashing Font Book caused the spinning beach of death, did you then put Font Book back on your system? If not, it could be that OS X is trying to enable/disable the fonts that were being controlled by Font Book's database. But can't because the main application is missing.
Follow the steps in Undoing Font Book. This will remove/reset Font Book's database. Doing this will also clear the system's font cache files.

Font Book Disappeared - Help!

I'm not sure how or why, but Font Book seems to have disappeared from my Applications folder and my Mac in general. Is there any place I can go to download the Font Book application??

No, you cannot download OS X components, but you can reinstall them from your OS X Installer DVD. See the following:
How to Use Pacifist to Replace Deleted or Missing OS X Components
Insert the OS X Installer DVD into the optical drive. Use a simple utility like TinkerTool to toggle invisibility so you can see invisible items. Alternatively, open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder and at the prompt enter the following:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles Yes
Press RETURN.
To turn off the display of invisible files repeat the above command substituting No for Yes.
The install packages are located in the /System/Installation/ folder on the DVD.
Download the shareware utility Pacifist from VersionTracker or MacUpdate. Use it to extract a fresh copy of the missing item(s) from the file archives on your OS X installation DVD. The file archives are in the /System/Installations/ folder (use Go to Folder option in the Go menu of the Finder.)
Here are Four Basic ways to use Pacifist (courtesy of George Orville.)
A. Drag a .pkg icon onto the Pacifist window .....proceed to step 7.
B. Click on “Open Package ....” and navigate to package desired and click “Open” in the open/save window.....proceed to step 7.
C. Insert Mac OS X installer CD and when it mounts, navigate to .... Menu->Go->Go to Folder.
In the path field enter or paste ....
/Volumes/disc name/System/Installation/Packages (where disc name is the name of the CD/DVD that you inserted.
• Click on the "Go" button .....
• Drag a .pkg to Pacifist..... proceed to step 7.
The package you'll need will have to be discovered by trial and error, but for most applications you should start with the Essentials.pkg and/or Additional Essentials.pkg.
D. Insert your Mac OS X install disk 1 .... and open Pacifist.
1. In Pacifist, select "Open Mac OS X Install Packages" ... dialog may appear asking for disk 2, then disk 3 and finally disk 1 again.... {if DVD is not used)...If “Stop Loading” is selected...the procedure will stop!!!
2a. When loading is complete, a new window appears, click the triangle to display contents of each package...Select item and proceed to step 7.
2b. or click the “Find” icon in the Pacifist window and type the name of the software you need.
3. In the list that comes back, click the top most entry for the item that you want. ..... that is the one for the English language.
4. On the top of the Pacifist window, click “verify” .... you will probably be prompted for your password.
5. Enter checks for.... “verify permissions” and “verify file contents.” and click “verify” ....enter password when prompted.... you will get back output which may look like this:
20 files were scanned.
20 of 20 files were present on the hard disk.
0 of 20 files had file permissions that did not match those specified in the package.
0 of 20 files had checksums that did not match those specified in the package.
6. Click “close”. Go to step 7.
Extract or Install........
7. In the Toolbar (upper left), you now have the option to extract or install. Click a file in the lower list and those two icons will be enabled.
8. If “Extract to...” is selected.... navigate to the location where the file will be placed, select “choose”, select “extract” in new dialog that appears,authenicate , if prompted, click “OK”.
9. In the next dialog, click “Extract”.
10. If “Install” is selected... dialog will appear with the location/path of the installed software. Click “Install”
11. Type in your password, click “OK”
• Pacifist will begin to extract files.
12. In steps 8/10ß.... you also have the choice to “cancel”
Notes.....
• Pacifist may find that a file it is installing already exists on the hard disk. Pacifist will present you with an alert panel....
Stop
Leave original alone
Update ..... Default selection
Replace .... Replace option should only be used on full install packages

I want to access my font book fonts in Mac Pages

Anyone know how to access the font book form Mac Pages app?

Font Book is an application available to all accounts.
There are three Font folders (provided by OS X)
/System/Library/Fonts
Contains fonts essential to the proper working of the OS and various included applications.
/Library/Fonts
Contains the standard set of fonts provided with the OS version, and is where you should put any fonts that you want to be shared by all accounts
~/Library/Fonts
Is the folder in each account. Fonts in here will be available only to that account.
Log into your old account and transfer the fonts from
~/Library/Fonts to /Library/Fonts
"/" indicates the root (Macintosh HD), "~/" is shorthand for your user folder.

How do I reset font book?

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