Fix font issue in Safari for Windows
Jun 12th, 2007 by Jared SchwagerYesterday Apple released a Safari 3 Public Beta for Windows. After installing it, I am greeted with a browser that displays absolutely no text.
I quickly find that I am not the only one with this problem. The problem happens if you have a large amount of fonts installed on Windows. After hours of digging through comments on blogs of people having the same problem with no solution, I decided to try my hand at fixing it myself. Eventually I found a way to fix the issue, so here’s how to do it.
First, navigate to the following directory. You should see a file named Fonts.plist, though it may not exist in every case.
- C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari (Windows XP)
- C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Apple Computer\Safari (Windows Vista)
Download this Fonts.plist and replace your old one with the one you just downloaded. Now, open the Properties for the Fonts.plist file and set it to “Read-only”.
If some fonts still don’t show up correctly, open your Fonts.plist in Wordpad (uncheck Read-only in the properties first) and edit the locations of the fonts to match the location of the fonts on your computer. Make sure to set the file to “Read-only” when you’re finished editing, otherwise Safari will overwrite it the next time you launch it.
If you followed this tutorial closely and edited everything correctly, Safari should look something like this.
If you’re still having problems with fonts showing, navigate to C:\Program Files\Safari\Safari.resources and make sure there are two fonts files named Lucida Grande.ttf and Lucida Grande Bold.ttf. If they do not exist, download this ZIP of the fonts and place them in the Safari.resources directory.
Update (06/14/2007):
If you have updated Safari to version 3.0.1 you may need to replace your Fonts.plist file again and set it to read-only.
Update (06/22/2007):
Apple has just released Safari version 3.0.2 which fixes the font issues. Please make sure the read-only option on your Fonts.plist file is unset. Go download the new version!
Indeed. Nice. Thanks.
J
The fonts are blurry compared with those in FF/IE. Any idea?
Safari uses a different method for smoothing fonts. It’s a feature of Safari, not a bug.
Nice fix - worked a treat. Thanks very much.
Thanks man, at last after hours of failure installation, you save my day man. Thanks
Safari must improve its font-rendering to replace FF/IE.
NYTimes.com still doesn’t with this fix, any suggestions?
@Michael Bennett: Re-download the file and see if it works.
[…] how I fixed the font issues: Fix font issue in Safari for Windows » Grupenet __________________ Nothing is never "no […]
Tried your fix, but my site still doesn’t render properly. O.o
Whoops. Forgot to add, The fonts on my site is still missing. The Fonts.plist file did not exist for me, so I dunno if Safari is even reading it. O_o
@Sephiroth: My Fonts.plist actually didn’t exist either. Do most other sites work besides yours?
Even with your fonts.plist any bold text doesn’t show. Notable exception: The Apple website. (Running Safari on Windows Vista).
Funny thing is: Under XP running in VMware Safari doesn’t have these problems. I didn’t even have to create a fonts.plist. What gives?
I went to the fonts.plist and found that it was at 64kb with my fonts and it wasn’t loading in Safari. So I changed it to what you gave me, saved it, and saw it change to 3kb. I then opened Safari, everything was blank again and the file sized changed back to 64kb… Any suggestions? I do have a LOT of fonts.
@Mike: Did you set the fonts.plist file to read-only? If it’s not set to read-only, Safari will overwrite it each time you launch it.
Also, to everyone who says the folder doesn’t exist, you’re looking in the wrong spot! You must go to My Computer>C:>Documents and Settings>(your username)>Local Settings (folder is hidden, so show hidden files)>Application Data (also hidden)>Apple Computer>Safari
Ohh I read wrong! I thought it said if it says read-only, uncheck it. But now it wants me to save as, then I over wright, but then it says access denied?
@Mike: Whenever you need to overwrite or edit your fonts.plist file, you will need to uncheck read-only first. After you are finished editing it, then you must set it back to read-only.
I dunno what else could be wrong… I have everything good, but nothing is showing up..
@Mike: Make sure your fonts.plist is still the same one you downloaded from this post. If not, download it again and replace it. Make sure to set it to read-only before launching Safari. Whenever you launch Safari and your fonts.plist is NOT set to read-only, Safari will overwrite it.
Yeah it is still the same one because when I uncheck it it overwrites, so it has to be that file.. its read-only after the changes are made but Safari still doesn’t display text.
@Mike: Navigate to “C:\Program Files\Safari\Safari.resources” and make sure there are two font files named “Lucida Grande.ttf” and “Lucida Grande Bold.ttf”. If they are not there, that’s probably why you’re having trouble.
yay it worked
[…] http://grupenet.com/2007/06/12/fix-font-issue-in-safari-for-windows/ […]
Didn’t work for me. And yes, the font paths are correct, and yes, I made it Read-Only.
I did note that there was no “Fonts.plist” file at all in my Safari settings folder prior to putting yours in. My Windows XP Pro SP2 system has 683 fonts, .NET Framework 3.0, and Office 2007 installed, if that makes any difference (I know that Office 2007 adds a slew of new core fonts that normally come only with Vista, such as Consolas, Segoe UI, Cambria, etc.).
I also noted that your file left out several of the Microsoft Core Web fonts often used on websites, including Andale Mono (four styles), Arial Black, Arial Narrow (four styles), Comic Sans MS (regular & bold — quite popular for a casual look), Courier New (regular & bold — unless you have either that or Andale Mono or perhaps Consolas or Lucida Sans Typewriter, your Safari will be unable to display monospaced text such as used by the ‹tt› and ‹code› and ‹pre› tags, not to mention ‹font face=”monospaced”›, at all!), Impact (very popular for use in headers), Symbol (needed for a variety of symbols), Wingdings (Microsoft near-equivalent of Zapf Dingbats), and Webdings (various icon shapes). In the late 90s and early 2000s, Microsoft pushed these fonts heavily to Web developers, and made them freely available.
Also, it includes Tahoma, which is likely only to be found on Windows systems with Microsoft Office installed (it is NOT one of the Core Web fonts, nor does it come standard with any version of Windows of which I’m aware, and if you were to include Tahoma, you should also include other Office fonts such as Curlz, French Script, Felix Titling, Haettenschweiler [like Impact but more compact], Old English Text, etc. etc. etc., as many Web developers do use those as first-choice fonts [though smart ones always provide Web Core alternatives, and of course the standard HTML generic font class alternatives as a last choice]). What would Safari do if a font listed in Fonts.plist were missing?
Oh, and yes, the two Lucida Grande .ttf fonts are indeed in the Program Files\Safari\Safari.resources folder. Still no text. At all.
Hello !
I’m under Vista (sorry guys…), I change the fonts file, read it (OK !) and set it read-only but it doesn’t work on all web sites…
The fonts directory is OK, and I’ve checked all of them : they are all here…
But the bookmarks work great now with the change of all English/en occurences in French/fr ! Thanks !
@Joel: I added a bunch of those fonts you suggested. I’d add Segoe UI, but not many using WIndows XP have that font. And if I list it in the fonts.plist file, Safari will think the font exists, which isn’t good if you have any “fallback” fonts in your CSS.
@Manson: Try re-downloading the fonts.plist file and replacing your again. I just added some new fonts.
solved the problem but washington post is still invisible…the text and drop down menus work though
I got Safari showing in Windows Vista the way it should by editing my Fonts.plist file (In Vista: C:Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Apple Computer\Safari\Fonts.plist) and copying the Lucida Grande.ttf & Lucida Grande Bold.ttf from the C:Program Files\Safari\Safari.resources folder to the C:Windows\Fonts folder.
My Windows Vista installation renames the .ttf fonts to Lucida Grande_0.ttf & Lucida Grande Bold_0.ttf so I reference that in the Fonts.plist file:
——————–
Lucida Grande
C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\Lucida Grande_0.ttf
Lucida Grande Bold
C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\Lucida Grande Bold_0.ttf
———————
I also made sure there were references to the Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, Georgia, Trebuchet fonts in the Fonts.plist file (including bold, italic and bold-italic). Be sure to go into your Windows Fonts folder and check the names of the font files to make sure they match your Fonts.plist file.
For my XP box, I did the same steps but referenced the C:Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari\Fonts.plist location. XP kept the names as they appear in the C:Program Files\Safari\Safari.resources folder. So, I added these lines to my Fonts.plist file:
——————–
Lucida Grande
C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\Lucida Grande.ttf
Lucida Grande Bold
C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\Lucida Grande Bold.ttf
———————
Hope this helps.
Genius - worked for me on my desktop but on my laptop I can’t even find the plist! Both running Vista Home Premium but the directory structure is not the same on them both!
@topofall: The fonts.plist doesn’t exist in every case. Mine actually didn’t exist either. Just place the fonts.plist you downloaded from this post into that Safari Application Data directory.
Found the folder on the laptop - it was hidden!! The solution works fine on there now, thanks very much - go work for Apple!
Hi there,
Just a thing about the directory in c:\documents and settings\…..
It appears only after you lunch one time the browser, here is why you can’t find it i hope ^^
For me, after replacement, no change, still no fonts on website… :’(
Thx for helping ^^
It seems that only fonts used as link are have problems…
Here’s what worked for me. Pretty far fetched, but it actually did the trick:
1. Close Safari.
2. Go to the windows/font folder (usually located at the c drive) and move the common web fonts (arial, verdana, trebuchet etc.) to a temp folder.
3. Delete the fonts from the windows/font folder.
4. Move back the fonts to the windows/font folder, from the temporary font folder.
5. Launch Safari and pray!
This worked for me after trying all of the other fixes mentioned. Strange thing is that I can completely erase the content of the much mentioned fonts.plist file and still have the browser render the text.
Good Luck!
Hey, thanks Bub, works fine here….you’re a hero.
Worked for me, great fix. What exactly was wrong with safari then? And how the hell did you find out how to fix it?
@Bruce: It has to do with the number of fonts installed on your computer. For some reason Safari can’t handle a large amount of fonts. I found out how to fix it by just adding the necessary fonts to the fonts.plist file. This way your fonts.plist file is much smaller and Safari doesn’t see any other fonts it doesn’t need.
Thank you for this fix.
It didn’t work for me until you said we had to “show hidden files”
Never had problems like this on the Mac.
I like Safari, and hope it works as advertised on Windows, too.
Thank you! Your fix worked like a charm. I just realized I have about 650 fonts in my Windows directory which I’m sure I don’t regularly use a tenth of. Time to install a font manager.
Worked great thank you!
Thank you for the fix!
Now let’s see if it can replace my SeaMonkey…
WOW! Thanks, been trying for a couple of days to fix this.
[…] Check it out […]
Sweet it finally works
Thanks a lot
[…] Thanks for a blog post here, Safari is now working fine (I wrote this from Safari […]
thanks man ur a life saver if u dont mind can i put this on ym webstie pcplanet.cjb.net and ill put ur name and stuff reply to web@pcplanet.cjb.net
Great. I kept searching for a missing menu bar and wasn’t having much success. It did the trick.
Definitely fixed the problem!! great help, the apple folks should fix this problem.
Cool fix. Now all the text shows up. Thanks.
Your fix worked like a charm, thanks so much.
Apple’s Safari browser on Windows: First Report…
Apple today released a beta version of their Safari browser for Windows. It’s apparently a very beta beta. The screen above is what Safari is showing on my Windows XP SP2 box. Not a whole lot — it’s a……
You nailed it! I read another article addressing scrambled fonts with some of the information that you suggested. Now that I see how it all comes together, if I want to add or delete fonts from the “Fonts.plist”, I can use your structure as an example. I have a lot of fonts and that was causing the ‘visibility’ problem, I suspect. my new Fonts.Plist is 5.79kB, the original was 69kB.
It works!
Good solution, thanks!
Hi! Thank you for this information…I just knew something was askew with the fonts in Safari…Running Vista Ultimate…I must say Safari is ultra fast using my Fios connection…Thanks again! Great Information!!
WOW, you’re a lifesaver. Thank you so much for posting this.
[…] otros problemas como que desaparece texto y la gente siguereportando otros problemas mucho […]
Aha! It worked - thanks so much
[…] these instructions worked for me on both 3.0.0 and […]
Had the same problem. The fix works well.
I just wanted to say thanks for the fix. It worked great and now I can preview Safari.
Vince
damn.. i thought it was an OS issue, i installed in my office notebook (XP Pro), and everything was fine! then i download again at home, on my other notebook which is XP Home, i got this bug! i assume they dont give a damn about XP Home yet, and since it’s a beta release, we should expect some bug like this..
after reading the article from sitepoint newsletter, now i realize that im not the only one with this problem. it’s true, my machine at home have a lot of fonts since i use it for designing, coding..etc
thanks guys! im gonna try this solution at home later..
[…] Apple is offering a public beta of the Safari web browser.  You can download Safari for Windows here. Safari chokes on systems that have a large number of fonts installed, but you will find information on how to fix that problem here. […]
[…] Luckily there is a solution (discovered by Grupenet.com) which, I will precis below: […]
Tried everything in this post - double checked - installed re-installed fonts - checked path names, even checked cases sensitivity… NO way it’s working on my XP machine… do have a lot of fonts and installed Safari in a different folder -
I’m giving it up here for the moment, will wait a more mature install which I’ll embrace gracefully as finally there’s hope to have a tool to check website design against the mac platform from a pc
Something I noticed when running through the tutorial:
On Windows XP, there might be some confusion of folder structure.
\Document and Settings\[Username]\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari
\Document and Settings\[Username]\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari
Both directory structures exist on my OS and I did find Fonts.plist in the first directory structure. To those people that say Fonts.plist didn’t exist before and Safari still isn’t working, maybe they are going to the wrong directory structure. Just a thought.
I had the same problem of the menu bar not showing up and lots of blank space, and my problem is now fixed after running through the tutorial. My webpage looks a little different than it does on other browsers (IE, Firefox, Netscape, and Opera), so I am going to play around with some settings and check out Fonts.plist to see if I am using a font on my website that isn’t supported in the Fonts.plist or if maybe the fonts are being rendered differently (like a post above said). As a web designer, I want to test my site on different major browsers, so I appreciate that Apple is releasing Safari on Windows.
Oh, and yes, it definitely seems to be a “too many fonts” issue. I have about 800 fonts on my system. The Fonts.plist file that Safari installs is much bigger and tries to list many fonts (if not all) compared to the basic set listed in the Fonts.plist from this tutorial.
BRIAN!!! You’re a genius. I was looking in the wrong folder. Thanks to all…
Thanks, worked for me!!!
Thanks but I think it would be easier to just recommend that you edit the Fonts.plist file yourself in notepad, simply amend the font locations.
I installed to d drive and tried your replacement fonts.plist file but this didn’t work. I then simply edited the file, replaced the location paths from c to d drive and it now works a treat.
So it may be just easier to open fonts.plist and just do this.
sorry i was talking rubbish, you can only edit the file once you have replaced it with yours.
This worked great. thanks for the resource!
Thank you! I wasn’t able to “download” your fix file (except as an xml), so I copied the text into my file (which I saved as a different file first of course, just in case!) and edited out the spaces, etc. Seems to work now, but I’m not sold on it as a web browser just yet - all this hard work does just not seem worth it.
Thank you!
Helped a lot.
THANKS!!!
If you didn’t see the Fonts.Plist file it may be cause you are in the wrong directory. There is an Application Data under your username in the C:\Documents and Settings\%Username%\ directory. This is not the Application data you need even though it has a apple computer folder. You need to go to C:\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings then Application Data. It seems like a minor oversight, I missed it my first time too. But it’s possible all who have had problems with not finding the Fonts.plist may have looked in the wrong folder.
I have Safari installed on drive D: and the solution did not work until I corrected the path for the Lucinda faults to the D: drive in the fonts.plist I downloaded from the listed link.
Sorry for the help, but it STILL doesn’t work me. Perhaps they’re gonna release iGoggles that will let us use Safari on Windows!
Thanks I downloaded the new version and it worked. Thanks!
It worked
[…] 1) Fix per caratteri non visualizzati: Qui […]
You need to fix 1 font issue too. Then you give no errors
The text says
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can i use these If some fonts still don’t show up correctly, open your Fonts.plist in Wordpad (uncheck Read-only in the properties first) and edit the locations of the fonts to match the location of the fonts on your computer. Make sure to set the file to “Read-only” when you’re finished editing, otherwise Safari will overwrite it the next time you launch it.
This article really helped me out. Damn Apple for doing this to us Windows users.