04-09-2012, 02:57 PM

I have been a graphic/commercial designer for 15 years - on pc and on mac - and I have never seen this problem before. Currently I am on a Mac Pro that is about one year old.

My fonts on the entire adobe creative suite (CS5) are.. well look at the darn things. http://i.imgur.com/IBdEh.jpg



Helvetica Neue - first example (All the sans serifs look like this)- looks like a freaking rollercoaster along the top line. And appears pixelated as if anti-aliasing isn't on (setting it to sharp, crisp, smooth or strong doesn't matter.) 18px size here - Optical and all settings at at 100%

2nd image is the same- just blown up 30% so you can see it up close.

3rd image is Helvetica Bold - same thing.. whoopsy there goes my lunch.

And last is Kepler - Regular (from the full pro Kepler set) not as 'rollercoastery' top line but look at the anti-anti-aliasing and the spacing - between the r and m in 'information' for example.
Again, changing the formatting or anti-alias settings makes no difference.

It just started doing this about 2 weeks ago. No changes were made to hardware/software or anything on my system. I use Fontcase App to turn fonts on and off.

I specialize in Typography and explore it as a major design tool. I am freaking out. Anyone who can help me figure out a fix will have my undying gratitude.

04-09-2012, 03:54 PM

I've seen this before, but it wasn't on my machine. It was one of the Machines that I was using at school. Thankfully all I had to do was move to a different computer.

I would try validating the fonts to see if they are corrupted or have any issues.

04-09-2012, 04:30 PM

All fonts validate. The machine you said was doing the same - was it a Mac?

Mine is Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro4,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.26 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8

And the Graphics Card I am using: NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 (have been using this for the past year.)

04-10-2012, 12:50 PM

Is this in all applications in CS5?

04-11-2012, 03:12 PM

Originally Posted by Benedictine

All fonts validate. The machine you said was doing the same - was it a Mac?

Mine is Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro4,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.26 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8

And the Graphics Card I am using: NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 (have been using this for the past year.)

Check for any duplicated fonts. I remember an issue similar to this where a duplicated Ariel font was the cause of it.

04-15-2012, 10:13 PM

I see it a lot in InDesign for small type. It goes away as soon as I zoom in though. Never noticed it in any other program, except perhaps Acrobat.

04-17-2012, 02:22 PM

Originally Posted by Chris....

Is this in all applications in CS5?

Yes I have the CS5 creative suite.

04-17-2012, 02:24 PM

Originally Posted by MacGandalf

Check for any duplicated fonts. I remember an issue similar to this where a duplicated Ariel font was the cause of it.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head. I went through my fonts and isolated duplicates and removed them. Now the problem seems to have gone away. Thanks! I still don't know how fonts got duplicated - that's a head scratcher. But things look better from here now.
You have my undying gratitude. That and a buckfifty will get you a cup of coffee. But you have it, regardless.

04-17-2012, 02:37 PM

Originally Posted by Benedictine

I think you may have hit the nail on the head. I went through my fonts and isolated duplicates and removed them. Now the problem seems to have gone away. Thanks! I still don't know how fonts got duplicated - that's a head scratcher. But things look better from here now.
You have my undying gratitude. That and a buckfifty will get you a cup of coffee. But you have it, regardless.

I'm glad it seems to be sorted now, Benedictine. I seem to remember that the original person who had this problem said it had been duplicated via one of the Office programs installed on his machine via an update.

04-17-2012, 03:05 PM

Originally Posted by MacGandalf

I'm glad it seems to be sorted now, Benedictine. I seem to remember that the original person who had this problem said it had been duplicated via one of the Office programs installed on his machine via an update.

Ahah! That is probably exactly what happened.