02-25-2008, 10:47 PM

I am having trouble opening the special characters palette in any application that offers it (iChat, Pages, TextEdit, etc.) by going to Edit > Special Characters. I know that using option + letter can do it for some characters, but I want to be able to see the map. Does any one know why it will not open? I'm using a MacBook with OSX 10.5.2 on it.

02-26-2008, 05:10 PM

It won't open through the Font Palette either. Does anyone know of a system file that I could look for to see if it's there?

03-05-2008, 03:55 PM

Anyone?

03-05-2008, 09:25 PM

Maybe check in the International tab in System Prefrences and make sure Character Palette is checked on in the Input Menu.

Other than that, I don't really know what to tell you. Sorry.

03-23-2008, 02:32 AM

Thanks. It still doesn't work, though. Any other ideas?

03-25-2008, 03:15 PM

Yes. I have had this exact same problem as you on my nearly identical MacBook to yours with OS X v10.5.2 and possibly previous versions. A workaround solution for the problem is to go to your Applications folder and pull up the Get Info pane for the app in question and check the box next to "Open using Rosetta". Since the system apps in Leopard and many third-party apps are Universal this is a great way to see if the PPC code works better for whatever reason when you have a problem with only a slight speed penalty.

05-10-2008, 01:56 PM

Originally Posted by yerfspd

Yes. I have had this exact same problem as you on my nearly identical MacBook to yours with OS X v10.5.2 and possibly previous versions. A workaround solution for the problem is to go to your Applications folder and pull up the Get Info pane for the app in question and check the box next to "Open using Rosetta". Since the system apps in Leopard and many third-party apps are Universal this is a great way to see if the PPC code works better for whatever reason when you have a problem with only a slight speed penalty.

Thanks, that does work for TextEdit. There is no "Open Using Rosetta" checkbox for the iWork suite, however, which is what I need the palette for. Does anyone know of a third party palette that I could use?

05-10-2008, 11:27 PM

I would bet that iWork is not a universal binary for whatever reason. If it doesn't have a PPC binary included on your install then it doesn't have anything to run with Rosetta. I don't know for sure about the technical license issues but what if you get a PPC version of the iWork software from someone and just use that instead of the copy you have?

09-11-2008, 06:56 PM

Originally Posted by yerfspd

Yes. I have had this exact same problem as you on my nearly identical MacBook to yours with OS X v10.5.2 and possibly previous versions. A workaround solution for the problem is to go to your Applications folder and pull up the Get Info pane for the app in question and check the box next to "Open using Rosetta". Since the system apps in Leopard and many third-party apps are Universal this is a great way to see if the PPC code works better for whatever reason when you have a problem with only a slight speed penalty.

THANKS! This information is so useful

03-05-2009, 10:29 PM

I later found something else that worked as a weird solution: restoring my system from a Time Machine backup. After updating my Time Machine backup, I used the OS X install DVD to reformat the drive and restore the system from the backup. After this, the special characters palette worked flawlessly in all circumstances. This was an unexpected solution given that Time Machine backs up about everything. Whatever changed, everything else seemed to have restored flawlessly but not the problem.

06-21-2009, 08:34 AM

Hi,

I had the same issue on an old ibook. It took me like 2 hours to figure out the solution, so you can save the time ...

I tried to reinstall TextEdit but it didn't help, as i later realized that "Special Characters" isn't part of TextEdit, but it's part of the shared components in osx, and his name is CharPaletteServer.

So the root problem is that the CharPaletteServer is frozen. So you just have to kill it, nad it will be restarted next time you want to use the Edit/Special Chcaracters menu.

So open up ActivityMonitor form /Application/Utilities. Choose "All Processes" in the process filter at the top right corner, than type "CharPaletteServer" into the filter box. Select the process and click "Quick Process" and than "Force Quit". Next time you choose Edit/Special Characters it will work fine again.

12-03-2009, 04:53 AM

The CharPaletteServer did freeze when I was using Pages, now it keeps opening and closing when any window opens in any software. It flashes on in the activity monitor, but closes too fast for me to force quit it. Any ideas on how to stop this from happening?
When it opens, the window has characters in the title bar but the actual window is blank.
When I try to open directly from Pages, it tries to open but flashes off quickly.

06-01-2010, 12:12 AM

Originally Posted by elsahc

The CharPaletteServer did freeze when I was using Pages, now it keeps opening and closing when any window opens in any software. It flashes on in the activity monitor, but closes too fast for me to force quit it. Any ideas on how to stop this from happening?
When it opens, the window has characters in the title bar but the actual window is blank.
When I try to open directly from Pages, it tries to open but flashes off quickly.

I've had exactly the same problem, which persists even after restarting (MacBook, 10.5.8). The problem started when I chose 'Special Characters' when using Keynote (version 3.0.2). A temporary solution is to uncheck 'Characters Pallet' in 'International' in System Preferences, but returns if I choose 'Special Characters' again.

Opening Terminal I find these lines (minus date / time info):
com.apple.launchd[69] ([0x0-0x185185].com.apple.CharPaletteServer[10318]) Exited abnormally: Trace/BPT trap
CharPaletteServer[10315] An uncaught exception was raised
CharPaletteServer[10315] *** -[NSCFArray insertObject:atIndex:]: attempt to insert nil
CharPaletteServer[10315] *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '*** -[NSCFArray insertObject:atIndex:]: attempt to insert nil'
followed by 'Stack' and a list of numbers

I only occasionally use special characters - I know the short cuts for the accents I use - so not a serious problem for now, but don't have a Time Machine backup available.

08-04-2010, 11:40 PM

Tried lalyos' suggestion, but "CharPaletteServer" doesn't even appear in my activities monitor. Neither does Character Pallete appear to be available in the International panel. And I can't check the Rosetta button in the Info window because it's grayed out.
I have a C2Duo MB running OS 10.5.8. Probably not binary anymore? This is frustrating because I don't have the keys memorized. Luckily I have InDesign and am able to access its Glyph pallete, but it would be nice to just be able to launch the Special Characters pallete from whatever application I'm in. Any other suggestions would be useful, thanks.

07-24-2011, 04:33 PM

There's a great Mac maintainence utility called OnyX that, among many other wonderful things, gives you a way to launch the Mac OS/X "Character Palette" utility directly. I don't know why Apple doesn't give you an accessible app to launch in order to do this. But install Onyx, and your get an easy way to do it (among other useful tools). OnyX is available free from Titanium's Software, Titanium's Software Home I have version 2.2.8. And you can find the button to launch the character palette under the Utilities | Applications menu.
Have fun!