Discussion:
detecting corrupt fonts
(too old to reply)
Nomen Nescio
2008-08-04 00:40:05 UTC
Permalink
About 10 years ago (under Win95) I had a program which checked
fonts and told you if any were defective.
Which was possible when you donwload hundreds from all over
the WWW. I don't have that old PC any more, or the programs
on it.
Anyway I wonder if there is something better now, that
will check OTF as well as TTF?
I have downloaded a few freeware utilities, but they only
display your installed fonts. I don't get any warnings
that any fonts are a few sausages short of a barbeque.
Is there a free or cheap program that finds bad fonts?
macropod
2008-08-04 09:01:37 UTC
Permalink
Hi Nomen,

If a TTF or OTF file was corrupt, I'd expect Windows would probably be unable to display the characters within.

On a more general note, many font files have only a limited character set, not even all the 127 lower-ASCII series may be present
with some.
--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]
Post by Nomen Nescio
About 10 years ago (under Win95) I had a program which checked
fonts and told you if any were defective.
Which was possible when you donwload hundreds from all over
the WWW. I don't have that old PC any more, or the programs
on it.
Anyway I wonder if there is something better now, that
will check OTF as well as TTF?
I have downloaded a few freeware utilities, but they only
display your installed fonts. I don't get any warnings
that any fonts are a few sausages short of a barbeque.
Is there a free or cheap program that finds bad fonts?
Character
2008-08-04 12:55:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by Nomen Nescio
About 10 years ago (under Win95) I had a program which checked
fonts and told you if any were defective.
Which was possible when you donwload hundreds from all over
the WWW. I don't have that old PC any more, or the programs
on it.
Anyway I wonder if there is something better now, that
will check OTF as well as TTF?
I have downloaded a few freeware utilities, but they only
display your installed fonts. I don't get any warnings
that any fonts are a few sausages short of a barbeque.
Is there a free or cheap program that finds bad fonts?
Any FONT MANAGER, either free or not, will allow you to view fonts, or
lists of fonts, that are NOT installed but in other folders. They will
show which ones aren't acceptable to the operating system. Note that
this applies to font managers, not font VIEWERS. When looking at font
managers, make sure that they support all Open Type fonts as well as
Truetype. Commercial examples include Printer's Apprentice, MainType,
Extensis Suitcase, Typograf, and more. Free managers include

There are different levels of 'corrupt'.

Windows XP and later will show many previously OK fonts as being
invalid, because the newer OS's require a closer adherence to font
specs. Such fonts can be repaired easily - just opening them in any of
a number of font editors and saving them is usually sufficient.

- Character
grammatim
2008-08-04 16:52:53 UTC
Permalink
Post by Character
Post by Nomen Nescio
About 10 years ago (under Win95) I had a program which checked
fonts and told you if any were defective.
Which was possible when you donwload hundreds from all over
the WWW. I don't have that old PC any more, or the programs
on it.
Anyway I wonder if there is something better now, that
will check OTF as well as TTF?
I have downloaded a few freeware utilities, but they only
display your installed fonts. I don't get any warnings
that any fonts are a few sausages short of a barbeque.
Is there a free or cheap program that finds bad fonts?
Any FONT MANAGER, either free or not, will allow you to view fonts, or
lists of fonts, that are NOT installed but in other folders. They will
show which ones aren't acceptable to the operating system. Note that
this applies to font managers, not font VIEWERS. When looking at font
managers, make sure that they support all Open Type fonts as well as
Truetype. Commercial examples include Printer's Apprentice, MainType,
Extensis Suitcase, Typograf, and more. Free managers include
You stopped just when it was getting interesting ...

David A Karp, *Windows Vista Annoyances* (O'Reilly, 2008), names
www.PigFontViewer,com.
Post by Character
There are different levels of 'corrupt'.
Windows XP and later will show many previously OK fonts as being
invalid, because the newer OS's require a closer adherence to font
specs. Such fonts can be repaired easily - just opening them in any of
a number of font editors and saving them is usually sufficient.
- Character
Suzanne S. Barnhill
2008-08-04 19:20:56 UTC
Permalink
I figured the implication was there are no free ones.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Post by grammatim
Post by Character
Post by Nomen Nescio
About 10 years ago (under Win95) I had a program which checked
fonts and told you if any were defective.
Which was possible when you donwload hundreds from all over
the WWW. I don't have that old PC any more, or the programs
on it.
Anyway I wonder if there is something better now, that
will check OTF as well as TTF?
I have downloaded a few freeware utilities, but they only
display your installed fonts. I don't get any warnings
that any fonts are a few sausages short of a barbeque.
Is there a free or cheap program that finds bad fonts?
Any FONT MANAGER, either free or not, will allow you to view fonts, or
lists of fonts, that are NOT installed but in other folders. They will
show which ones aren't acceptable to the operating system. Note that
this applies to font managers, not font VIEWERS. When looking at font
managers, make sure that they support all Open Type fonts as well as
Truetype. Commercial examples include Printer's Apprentice, MainType,
Extensis Suitcase, Typograf, and more. Free managers include
You stopped just when it was getting interesting ...
David A Karp, *Windows Vista Annoyances* (O'Reilly, 2008), names
www.PigFontViewer,com.
Post by Character
There are different levels of 'corrupt'.
Windows XP and later will show many previously OK fonts as being
invalid, because the newer OS's require a closer adherence to font
specs. Such fonts can be repaired easily - just opening them in any of
a number of font editors and saving them is usually sufficient.
- Character
Character
2008-08-04 21:25:57 UTC
Permalink
Post by grammatim
Post by Character
Post by Nomen Nescio
About 10 years ago (under Win95) I had a program which checked
fonts and told you if any were defective.
Which was possible when you donwload hundreds from all over
the WWW. I don't have that old PC any more, or the programs
on it.
Anyway I wonder if there is something better now, that
will check OTF as well as TTF?
I have downloaded a few freeware utilities, but they only
display your installed fonts. I don't get any warnings
that any fonts are a few sausages short of a barbeque.
Is there a free or cheap program that finds bad fonts?
Any FONT MANAGER, either free or not, will allow you to view fonts, or
lists of fonts, that are NOT installed but in other folders. They will
show which ones aren't acceptable to the operating system. Note that
this applies to font managers, not font VIEWERS. When looking at font
managers, make sure that they support all Open Type fonts as well as
Truetype. Commercial examples include Printer's Apprentice, MainType,
Extensis Suitcase, Typograf, and more. Free managers include
You stopped just when it was getting interesting ...
I meant to delete that line ...

No Suzanne, I didn't mean that there absolutely weren't any, but there
aren't any that I know of or could find quickly that would do an
adequate job.

A free trial of one of the others would probably work for a one-time
pass to locate font files that don't work.

- Character
Post by grammatim
David A Karp, *Windows Vista Annoyances* (O'Reilly, 2008), names
www.PigFontViewer,com.
Post by Character
There are different levels of 'corrupt'.
Windows XP and later will show many previously OK fonts as being
invalid, because the newer OS's require a closer adherence to font
specs. Such fonts can be repaired easily - just opening them in any of
a number of font editors and saving them is usually sufficient.
- Character
Tom Ferguson
2008-08-04 21:50:11 UTC
Permalink
In the spirit of "this might be of some use"—

There is Microsoft's own Font Validator. It is for Windows 2000 and XP.
Vista is not mentioned. I have not tried it with Vista.
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/FontValidator.mspx

It is intended as a "professional" tool. It gives output on many different
error types. Problem often is that the font will perform well despite many
of the errors reported and it is difficult to know ahead of time, without
some experience with it, which errors cause problems.
--
Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007
Post by Nomen Nescio
About 10 years ago (under Win95) I had a program which checked
fonts and told you if any were defective.
Which was possible when you donwload hundreds from all over
the WWW. I don't have that old PC any more, or the programs
on it.
Anyway I wonder if there is something better now, that
will check OTF as well as TTF?
I have downloaded a few freeware utilities, but they only
display your installed fonts. I don't get any warnings
that any fonts are a few sausages short of a barbeque.
Is there a free or cheap program that finds bad fonts?
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