Mail keeps crashing when I want to access the Fonts

Question

I am using Mail 4.5 on a MacMini running 10.6.8
Every time I compose a message and would like to change thefont, no matter which methods I choose to access the font library (either via aright click in the body of the message or from the Format pull down menu– and itdoesn’t matter if I have text in the body of the e-mail or not) – mail justcrashes.  Luckily it will save thee-mail in the drafts folder, but I have had to compose messages in Word andthen cut and paste it into Mail to ensure I get the formatting I want.
Any suggestions as to how to smack some sense back intoMail?

Answer 1

Further delving in the HELP arena I found this (which is what I am seeing):
If a warning symbol appears next to a font name
A yellow warning symbol next to the name of a font in Font Book indicates that you have duplicate copies of that font installed. Duplicate copies of a font may be installed when you install applications, such as those in Microsoft Office, which contain some of the same fonts already installed on your computer. You can easily resolve this problem by disabling any extra versions of the font.
To resolve duplicate fonts:
Select the version of the font you want to use.
If you’re not sure which font to use, choose Preview > Show Font Info to see information about each font.
To see all your duplicated fonts, choose Edit > Select Duplicated Fonts.
Choose Edit > Resolve Duplicates.
The selected version of the font is turned on and all other versions are turned off.
HOWEVER - the options listed above are all grayed out - I cannot select "Show Info" nor "Resolve Duplicates" from the respective pulldown menus