LazDivaz:Making revisions on a Quark 6.5 file. When I open the file, which had been created with Tiger OS, on my new mac, running Leopard, I get an alert that there is a missing font. Zapf Dingbats. I replace with Zapf Dingbats from the font pull-down list. The characters are then invisible in the file.
What happened?
Thanks for any help.
Leopard and system fonts is a little different than any of the previous OS's were.
here is the poop on Leopard and fonts-
In the past, pro font users tended to remove problematic system fonts such as Helvetica or Zapf Dingbats, because they tended to conflict with the users' own preferred fonts of the same name. These "required" system fonts were (and still are) stored in:
/System/Library/Fonts
In Tiger and earlier systems, you could delete such fonts by selecting, deleting, then authenticating as an admin. No problem (well, there were sometimes cache-related problems, but those were easily solved by adding back or enabling your own version of the deleted font, and before Tiger you probably had to clean the font cache as well).
In Leopard, however, if you delete a "required" font like Helvetica this way, it will delete fine, but then you'll see a dialog that says "The system font 'Helvetica' was removed. This font file is required by Mac OS X to display onscreen text. It has been restored." And shazam, the font miraculously reappears in /System/Library/Fonts.
So, NO WAY to get rid of such fonts? Not to worry, there's a solution:
Navigate in the Finder (or your favorite file manager substitute) to:
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ATS.framework/Versions/A/Resources/ProtectedFonts/
Here you'll see a copy of key fonts needed by the system. Delete the font from this directory first, THEN you can delete it from the /System/Library/Fonts folder.
You've essentially just broken Leopard's ability to repair itself as far as that particular font goes. But, in a pro publishing environment where your Helvetica is not the same as Apple's choice, that's something you sometimes have to do.
As far as I know, the major font managers have not yet been updated to deal with this change.
WARNING: don't try this at home if you're not sure what you're doing. This technique should only be used by experienced design/prepress users who simply MUST control their font destiny. If you remove Helvetica (for example) in this way, IMMEDIATELY replace it with the Helvetica of your choice PostScript, OpenType, TrueType -- but don't put it in the /System/Library/Fonts folder, instead put it in a higher-level place, like /Library/Fonts.
And in NO case should you ever remove the Lucida Grande, Keyboard, LastResort fonts.
Thanks to Chuck Weger at Printplanet for that one.