Clear font caches
Operating systems and applications use cache memory to store information about the fonts installed on your computer. Sometimes these files can cause unusual font problems. Then it’s best to remove them, preferably with external software.
If you run into problems with fonts, the first thing you wanna do is to clear font caches. These will automatically be rebuilt when needed. For the freaks amongst us, there’s also a manual way to do this.
Clear Font Caches in Mac OS X
Font cache files can sometimes get corrupted for a number of reasons. But luckily, deleting these font cache files can resolve many issues you may experience.
There a several ways to clear font caches:
- From the Terminal, enter the following command string and hit return: sudo atsutil databases -remove.
This will remove old font databases and caches from the OS X system and users.
When the Terminal script has finished running, you might want to repair permissions in OS X. Enter the following command string and hit return: sudo diskutil repairPermissions / - What works best is to use external software to remove the font caches for you. We recommend FontNuke that is available for free.
Clear Font Caches in Windows
To remove the font cache, delete the following file:
C:\Windows\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT
Adobe applications use their own cache .lst-files to store font information. To manually clear this applications font cache, you have to search these files and delete them. Teaching a blindfolded monkey to build a rocket is easier than searching files on a PC. Here’s a helping hand:
- Go to Start > Search > Files and Folders.
- Choose ‘Files and Folders’ and type ‘Adobefnt*.lst’ into the Name-text field.
- Make sure to activate the checkboxes ‘Search in system folders, Search for hidden files and folders’ and ‘Search in subfolders’. Then click on ‘Search’.
- Delete all .lst files listed.