Undoing Font Book

Using the procedures specified in this FAQ, you can "undo" almost everything done by using Font Book except:

  • Restoring fonts you have Removed.
  • Putting fonts you moved back where they belong.

This FAQ addresses:

Additional advice on fonts and Font Book can be found in the "Fonts" and "Font Book" chapters, respectively, of our book, Troubleshooting Mac® OS X.

Avoiding problems with Font Book

Most problems related to Font Book arise from:

  • Misunderstanding its default preferences.
  • Disabling, moving, or removing System fonts.
  • Resolving duplicate fonts incorrectly.

Accordingly, we recommend the following:

  • Thoroughly familiarize yourself with Font Book before using it:
    • Understand Font Book preferences. In Font Book, select Font Book > Preferences
    • Review Font Book Help. In Font Book, select Help > Font Book Help.
  • Familiarize yourself with font management in Mac OS X by reviewing the documents in the Related links section of this FAQ.
  • If you plan on using Font Book in conjunction with a third-party font-management solution, we recommend reviewing the documentation of the third-party solution, or contacting the vendor, concerning any potential conflicts between the two.

Undoing Font Book in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

If you are the only user of your Mac, restarting in Safe Mode will clear your font cache, thereby resetting disabled fonts in Font Book. Note that starting up in Safe Mode also resets the font cache of every user account defined on the Mac, meaning that fonts disabled in Font Book will again be enabled in every account.

If you want to reset Font Book for a single user:

1. Log in to the affected account.
2. Quit (Command-Q) all open applications.
3. Trash the com.apple.FontBook.plist file in the Home > Library > Preferences folder.
4. Empty the Trash.
5. Open Terminal, located in the Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities folder.
6. At the Terminal prompt, type the following command exactly as written:

atsutil databases -removeUser
7. Press Return. Terminal responds with Removing: followed by the path to the user's font cache folder; atsutil is the system font-registration utility.
8. At the Terminal prompt, type exit and press Return.
9. Quit (Command-Q) Terminal.
10. Log out, then log back in to the affected account.
11. Open Font Book.
12. Choose Font Book > Preferences and reset Font Book preferences as desired.

How disabled fonts are handled in Font Book 2.2 under Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard includes Font Book 2.2, again changing how disabled fonts are handled:

  • Disabled font information is saved in a com.apple.FontRegistry folder within a -Caches- folder deep within a user-specific subfolder of the /private/var/folders/ directory.
  • Restarting in Safe Mode resets these font caches for all user accounts on the Mac. After restarting normally, fonts disabled in any account will be enabled the next time a user logs in to their account.

Undoing Font Book in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Please read this entire procedure before use. Perform the following steps in the order specified:

1. Quit (Command-Q) Font Book if it is open.
2. Trash the fb.db file in your Home > Library > Application Support > Font Book folder.
Note: the fb.db file contains all information concerning both disabled fonts and font libraries you have created. Deleting this file will result in enabling all disabled fonts and the loss of any font libraries you have created. Note that font libraries are not font collections. Font collections that you create are saved in your Home > Library > Font Collections folder.
3. Trash the com.apple.FontBook.plist file in your Home > Library > Preferences folder. This file contains are your preferences for Font Book.
4. Empty the Trash.
5. Open Font Book.
6. Choose Font Book > Preferences and reset Font Book preferences as desired.

How disabled fonts are handled in Font Book 2.1 under Leopard

Leopard includes Font Book 2.1. This again changes how disabled fonts are handled:

  • If you disabled fonts using Font Book under Tiger, Font Book 2.1 ignores these settings. When you first start up in Leopard, all fonts that you disabled under Tiger are enabled.
  • Information concerning disabled fonts and any font libraries you create is saved in the fb.db file in your Home > Library > Application Support > Font Book folder.
  • Leopard introduces the concept of protected fonts, which are specific fonts that cannot be disabled or removed without taking extraordinary steps.
  • Starting up in Safe Mode loads only a select set of System fonts, i.e. fonts in the Macintosh HD > System > Library > Fonts folder. Any fonts that were disabled before starting up in Safe Mode remain disabled in Safe Mode. However, upon restarting and logging in, either normally or via a Safe Login [2], all disabled fonts are enabled except those that were also disabled in Safe Mode. Other previously disabled fonts must be disabled again. A good workaround for this is to create a Disabled Fonts collection as discussed in "How disabled fonts are handled under Font Book 2.0 under Tiger."

Undoing Font Book in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

Please read this entire procedure before use. Perform the following steps in the order specified:

  1. Startup in Safe Mode.
  2. Log in to your account. This will result in your current font cache being moved to the Trash. Only System fonts are available in Safe Mode.
  3. Log out of your account.
  4. Restart your Mac normally, i.e. do not restart in Safe Mode.
  5. Log in to your account. All previously-disabled fonts will be enabled and load. If you've installed hundreds or thousands of fonts, many of which had been disabled with Font Book, this could result in very slow performance of your Mac until all previously-disabled fonts are again disabled.
  6. Empty the Trash.
  7. If you have Mac OS 9 installed and use the Classic Mac OS font library, launch Font Book and see if the Classic Mac OS collection is listed in the top half of the Collection column in Font Book. If not and you need this font library: [1]
    1. Quit Font Book.
    2. Launch System Preferences.
    3. Select the System Folder for Classic in the System Preferences > Classic > Start/Stop tab.
    4. Quit System Preferences.
    5. Launch Font Book to confirm the Classic Mac OS font library is listed in the top half of the Collection column.

How disabled fonts are handled in Font Book 2.0 under Tiger

Tiger included a number of font-related changes, including Font Book version 2 (Font Book 2.0). In particular, the handling of disabled fonts changed considerably:

  • If you disabled fonts using Font Book under Panther, Font Book 2.0 ignores these settings. When you first start up in Tiger, all fonts you disabled under Panther are enabled. Font Book 2.0 ignores the disabled fonts list from Panther, which was saved in the com.apple.ATS.plist file in your Home > Library > Preferences folder.
  • Information concerning fonts disabled with Font Book 2.0 is saved in your font cache.
  • Any of the following actions will result in your account's current font cache either being placed in the Trash or deleted outright. As a result, all disabled fonts will be enabled after you log out of your account or restart your Mac:
    • Startup in Safe Mode: If you startup in Safe Mode and log in to your account, your font cache will be moved to the Trash. This explains why, after step 2 in the procedure above, the Trash will contain the last font cache folder from your account. A new font cache is created for your account as part of step 2. Additionally, only System fonts are available when you startup in Safe Mode.
    • Safe Login: If you perform a Safe Login [2] to your account from the Log In window, your font cache will also be moved to the Trash and a new font cache created for you. As with Safe Mode, when you perform a Safe Login, only System fonts are available.
    • System cache cleaning: If you perform a System-level cache cleaning, your font cache may be removed by your cache-cleaning utility.
  • Each account's font cache is saved in a folder within the Computer > Macintosh HD > Library > Caches > com.apple.ATS folder (the /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/ directory).
  • The file name of the font cache folder for a specific account is the NetInfo Manager uid setting for that account. By default, the first account defined under Mac OS X has uid 501, the second has uid 502, and so forth. For example, if your account was the first account defined under Mac OS X, your font cache is the 501 folder in the com.apple.ATS folder. [3]
  • To quickly disable previously-disabled fonts after:
    • starting up in Safe Mode;
    • performing a Safe Login; or
    • performing a System-level cache cleaning
  • we recommend you create a new font collection called Disabled Fonts and place all fonts you regularly want disabled in this collection. After performing any of the tasks which enable disabled fonts, you can quickly disable fonts in the Disabled Fonts collection as follows:
    1. Launch Font Book.
    2. Control-click on the Disabled Fonts collection.
    3. Select "Enable Disabled Fonts" from the resulting contextual menu. This enables the collection, but has no effect on the fonts it contains since these fonts are already enabled.
    4. Control-click on the Disabled Fonts collection again.
    5. Select "Disable Disabled Fonts" from the resulting context menu. This will disable both the Disabled Fonts collection and all fonts in that collection.

Undoing Font Book in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther

Please read this entire procedure before use. Perform the following steps in the order specified:

1. Quit (Command-Q) Font Book and all other open applications.
2.

Open your Home > Library > Preferences folder and trash the following files:

  1. com.apple.FontBook.plist
  2. com.apple.ATS.plist

The first is the preferences file for Font Book. The second specifies the fonts you disabled in Font Book: fonts listed therein are not loaded when you log in to your account.

After deleting com.apple.ATS.plist, all previously-disabled fonts will load when you next log in. If you've installed hundreds or thousands of fonts, many of which had been disabled with Font Book, this could result in very slow performance of your Mac until all previously-disabled fonts are again disabled.
3.

Delete your font cache using one of the following procedures:

  1. Manually delete your font cache:
    1. Open the Computer > Macintosh HD > Library > Caches > ATS folder.
    2. Locate and trash your font cache folder:
      1. If you are the first user defined on your Mac, you will find a folder therein named 501. Trash it.
      2. If you are the second user, your font cache would be the folder named 502. Trash it.
      3. Continue accordingly. [3]
    3. Note:
      1. If you use Fast User Switching, there may be several 501.xxx, 502.xxx folders within the ATS folder that you need to trash.
      2. If requested to authenticate trashing any of these folders, provide your Admin password.
  2. Delete your font cache with Font Finagler.
  3. Perform a full System-level cache cleaning. See Step 4, "Perform cache cleaning," in our "Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption" FAQ.
4. Restart your Mac.
5. Log in to your account.
6. Empty the Trash. Do not empty the Trash before this step.

Related links

Notes

[1] The disappearance of the Classic Mac OS font library appears to be a bug in Font Book under Tiger.

[2] By Safe Login we mean that you log in to your account from the Log In window while holding the Shift key. This prevents your account-specific Login Items from opening.

[3] You can find the uid for any account as follows:

  • Launch NetInfo Manager, in the Applications > Utilities folder.
  • Select users in the middle pane of the top half of the NetInfo Manager window.
  • Select the desired user in the right pane of the top half of the NetInfo Manager window. The selected user's information, including their account uid, will display in the lower pane of the NetInfo Manager window.
Did you find this FAQ helpful? You will find a wealth of additional advice for preventing or resolving Mac OS X problems in Dr. Smoke's book, Troubleshooting Mac® OS X.
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