OS X: mixed up and missing letters in Finder, Safari and other apps

Hi,

When I turned up my brand new macbook air this morning, letters were mixed up.

Examples:
If I click on the top left apple, instead of Force Quit... and shortcut, I see "Quit orceF..."
If I open mail, and start to type, the first sentence is fine, then the second comes out in complete gibberish/mix up of letters.
Safari is a mix of clear sentences and completely unreadable content, on any site.

Chrome seems impervious to the issue. I'm writing this message from there. A couple of other apps (such as evernote) also seem ok.

I am just a recent windows switcher so don't know MAC tricks well yet, so all help as to how to fix such an issue will be appreciated. Thanks

Fabrice

PS: I did not install anything weird, or anything at all for that matter, in the past few days. My system runs pretty much factory software, with MS Office 2011 installed, and a dozen apps I installed 6 or 7 weeks ago when I received it and nothing more since then.

Sounds to me like a trip to the Apple store would be a good idea.

Give this a shot. Download and install Onyx - make sure you get the specific version for your version of OS X.

Head for the Automation tab. Put a check in:
Rebuilding - Launch Services
Cleaning - Font Cache

You can go ahead and check everything under Maintenance and Cleaning if you want. Read the items under Cleaning before you check them off. I do this maybe once every 2-3 months.

Thanks. Apple Store it is

Thanks to both for your answers.

Onyx didn't work (tried all the cleaning and maintenance options), Sophos didn't catch anything, will try the Apple store and keep the post updated in case someone faces the same thing.

Pretty weird issue.

F.

That sounds like a keyboard failure of some sort. Let Apple sort it out for you since it's still under warranty.

sorted

archived and installed again, and it works. Professional people at the Apple store were however as puzzled as me as to the nature of the issue, so no idea where it came from.

we'll see if it ever appears again, for now it is sorted.

Cheers to all.

Fabrice

Tip: uninstall Sophos (or don't re-install it if it's off there now). No Mac viruses = nothing for Sophos to do but suck resources.