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Mavericks ........font deformation

Avatar John Nicholas
I have not yet done much with Mavericks but have encountered first problem in Pages.

Several Fonts (Mona Lisa, Jazz Let,Blackmoor Let but could be others) are deformed/ altered since upgrading from Mountain Lion to Mavericks.

Mona Lisa is fine on 12, but increasing to 24 compresses the letters together and it requires 3 spaces between each letter to look about right.

Blackmoor Let requires, in addition to the above, a letter key 5 spaces earlier in the alphabet to produce the right letter but after Z what the hell do I do ?

Jazz let requires 6 letters ditto.

Existing Pages documents which were fine when last accessed on ML, now open in the deformed style. Oops.

Re: Mavericks ........font deformation

Avatar Mick Burrell
I've just tried those fonts and they seem to be fine here.

Euan will be along in a minute - he's the font guru but in the mean time you could continue to use the old version of Pages which will still be in your Applications folder.

Re: Mavericks ........font deformation

Avatar Euan Williams
Hi John, sorry about your font experience. Mick obviously has special access to the NSA and quite probably Edward Snowden ;-) My Mac background is in page layout and setting using inDesign and Quark Xpress — so here are a few suggestions.

Your notes offer a general impression of the problem which seems to be some very unsatisfactory letter spacing (rather than actual distorted letters) and having to use the “wrong keys” to type particular letters.

These are general pointers, although you can get in touch (through Mick).
———————————

1. Did you do a clean install of Mavericks on an erased partition and then import all your previous work and settings, or did you install it “on top of” an existing ML setup?

2. Did you do a “safe boot” (startup with the LH shift key held down until the progress bar appears, followed by a “normal” restart) before doing the installation?

3. After installing Mavericks did you go to the App store to download and install the new editions of iWork apps? The iWork installers leave the original iWork apps in your Applications folder safe and sound, just adding the new October 2013 versions. The new versions have lost several facilities (and gained others) as part of the fundamental code rewriting that is going on to bring OSX and iOS apps into better alignment. This may be irritating in the short term, but is essential for the long term.

These three are fundamental questions for the following reasons:
1. Clean installs followed by data import can avoid misery due to corrupted caches and much else. Font caches are also prone to corruption, as well as fonts themselves. Years ago I output an A3 sheet of expensive bromide at a bureau, to find to my horror that the only vestiges of my pages were a spattering of small black dots near the bottom of the bromide. “Hmm”, said the staff member, “corrupt font.” It was one of the Frutiger family, we replaced it and all was well. Since then I have come across corrupted fonts and caches a few times and these are the one thing people seldom suspect.

2. “Safe boot” clears most caches, including (we believe, although Apple are cagey about this) the font caches, and washes away a whole heap of mixups. Just don’t forget to restart “normally” afterwards. the process is slow, don’t panic. Your first startup afterwards will be slow too.

3. I have checked the fonts you mentioned and both editions of Pages to see if your experience could be reproduced here, whether with ML or Mavericks. All is well, and there is no sign of the issues you mention.

You should check that your keyboard preferences are properly set to British English, just in case:
System Preferences > Keyboard > Input sources > British
(Were you to have chosen a US English keyboard input, the bs and vs would be misplaced.)

Now do a “Safe Boot” to see if your problem is corrupt caches. If this makes no difference all is not lost, but a more thorough clearing up will be required.

I’m pretty certain that the issue has nothing to do with Mavericks as such, but with some sort of corruption that may have pre-existed the upgrade but not have become apparent.

It's also worth mentioning (but without snobbery) that not all fonts are of the same quality as regards letter spacing etc. High quality fonts are pricey, but the results prove they're worth it. If you are interested, look up "Erik Spiekermann" on line.

Let us know how you get on.

Re: Mavericks ........font deformation

Avatar John Nicholas
Euan.....Are the Fonts I mentioned "standard" Apple fonts or did I download them from elsewhere? I remember downloading a couple of fonts some years ago (but which ones? ) but I certainly do not do this habitually.

The affected things on Pages are brand new documents, historic Mountain Lion pages documents, and converted Appleworks drawing documents which were ok on ML. So the effect/affect seems to be across the board.

Yes I got updates to iWorks from App Store when prompted to do so. This was the same time that the App Store offered me the free upgrade to Mavericks. The update to iWorks occurred with ML and afterwards when done referred to a few incompatible (but unspecified aspects). Then the upgrade to Mavericks was done. when I revisited the App Store to check out what further needed to be updated on iWorks, it said 'fully uptodate'.

Partions..........no I know how highly you recommend / insist on this Euan, so I set out to do this but when I asked Solutions to set my iMac up with partitions in summer 2012 when purchasing it, they said it was totally unnecessary and did not do so.

Mavericks was an upgrade from App store straight over ML.

At this point Euan says........duh brain........told you so.......nobody listens. But I did, but got overridden by Solutions.


At this point I pause for reflection and advice, because particularly without partitions (but have and external unpartitioned HD running time Machine) I need my hand held as how to proceed and at every step. I could say bugger the affected fonts I'll just use others, let's keep going until something more important / critical causes me to sort it out ?

Re: Mavericks ........font deformation

Avatar Mick Burrell
The majority of people (including me on three machines here) just update over an existing installation and don't have issues. Neither Euan nor Solutions is wrong, they just have differing views on how they like to upgrade. However, I do make sure I'm thoroughly backed up first so if the worst happens I can go back.

Have you tried the old version of Pages to see if it's the same? If it is, I'd suggest it points to a font problem. If it's cured then a (new) Pages problem.

Re: Mavericks ........font deformation

Avatar Euan Williams
Hmmm. Looks like we have been completely sidetracked by “partitions” and Solutions which is daft.

So let’s try again, slowly…

The fonts you mentioned came with Pages, probably when you installed it originally.

The three Questions I asked (1-3) all relate to the possibility of a font cache corruption not being fixed before, during or after the update to Mavericks.

The three Explanations (1-3) seems to have gone unread. Maybe I should have labelled them 1a to 3a …

Have you tried the first remedy suggested, checking your Keyboard input preferences?

Have you tried the second remedy suggested, restart your Mac with the shift key held down until the progress bar appears (Safe Boot). Followed by a normal restart and a check to see if the problem has disappeared?

Let me know.

——————————————
Partitioning your Mac’s internal drive takes time, and I guess Solutions felt it was a service too far and not cost efficient or whatever jargon people use these days. But this issue is completely irrelevant to your font behaviour.

Re: Mavericks ........font deformation

Avatar Mick Burrell
Euan, my main point was to try the old version of Pages. I've had issues with the new one which are not there in the old.

Re: Mavericks ........font deformation

Avatar John Nicholas
I had checked Keyboard which was still "British".

I had cleared Font Caches, trashed offending Font, downloaded new version of the font.

No improvement.

Then I safe Booted which caused personal alterations to some preferences to revert to factory settings, and the display to "shake".

Googling "Pages version with Mavericks" brings up fierce criticism of what Apple has done to iWorks. The new version of pages appears at first glance to require the user to get up to speed, and now a dialogue box announces with some filed documents, that font so and so has gone and I may notice some difference to the document when opened !!! I do.

Am too busy at moment due to family illness to take Euans & Micks advice further at moment. Am not ignoring you chaps, but will return to the fray in due course.

Re: Mavericks ........font deformation

Avatar John Nicholas
Opening the newer version of Pages, I see that the Font list does NOT include Mona Lisa, Blackmoor LET, or Jazz LET. I have yet to do a full comparison to see what Fonts I have lost, and what if anything to do about that.

Re: Mavericks ........font deformation

Avatar John Nicholas
Seem to be making progress, although rather blindly.

After the Safe Boot I suffered from flickering in Safari and when using mouse or trackpad with many applications. However, a further "Restart" seems to have stabilised matters.


Many fonts remained "missing", but when I went to Font Book there was the original list. Right I thought, let's compare the longer list of fonts in the (I assumed) old Font Book with the much shorter list in new Pages. Reopened new Pages to do this, and lo the fonts have reappeared and even better work correctly.

But Googling my experience shows that there are still a lot of other users across the globe who have been troubled similarly and Not found a cure and are awaiting an Apple Fix.

Re: Mavericks ........font deformation

Avatar Euan Williams
Glad you're back, John. The myriad complaints that result from a new System introduction too frequently result from less than careful preparation. "It just works" is sometimes used as an excuse to avoid being sensible. Having said that, the veteran Ted Landau's summary of the rather few bugs is here:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/macsoftware/news/?newsid=3476885&pagtype=allchandate

For a thorough review of Mavericks try John Siracusa in Ars Technica here:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9/

If you dislike the updated iWork apps for some reason, (think iMovie and Final Cut Pro code re-writes a few years ago) the App Store leaves the earlier ones in your Applications folder.
 
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