This usually happens when you have Fonts Caches (or actual Fonts) that are corrupt. I would do the following, to not only clear the caches, but also to verify your Fonts.
Clearing the font cache - you have a few options (Onyx is just easier).
- Use a tool like Onyx, which can do this and many other maintenance tasks for you.
- Manually remove the cache with the command line
atsutil
utility. You basically would do astutil databases -removeUser
then sudo astutil databases -remove
, then astutil server -shutdown
, then astutil server -ping
. I would recommend restarting after this.
- Choose from various other utilities like Onyx that clear just the font cache.
- Some people also recommend clearing out the
/Library/Caches
folder, but I am not sure how well this works. There also used to be some older ways to clear the cache but I cant find them (and I am pretty sure it was tools before Mac OS 10.5).
Verifying Fonts
- Open up Font Book (in
/Applications/
)
- Select All
- Go to the File Menu and select
Validate Fonts
.
- Resolve any issues this may present, but those may be specific to your machine.

Usually clearing the Font Cache works. I used to see a similar problem all the time with Microsoft Office 2004, and it had its own cache that we even cleared weekly. I haven't seen the Mac OS mess its cache up that often, but when it does, usually a quick fix. I have even seen a reboot sometimes clear it up (in very minor cases).