Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Mac Musings

Inexplicable Cocoa Ligature Problem Solved

Dan Knight - 2006.05.09 - Tip Jar

Last week I explained a problem I was having with GyazMail and a few other Cocoa apps. I would type "f" followed by "i" or "l", and my eMac would automatically replace "fi" with fi and "fl" with fl. It would also use smart quotes.

This had been going on for months, and I couldn't find any way of changing this behavior. It didn't impact my classic apps or Carbon programs, only software that used Cocoa.

I received dozens of emails in response to Cocoa Ligature Behavior Can Drive You Crazy, and most of them made the same two suggestions:

  1. Use a different font - one that doesn't support ligatures.
  2. Open the Font Panel (cmd-T, shown below), select my font, click on the gear, choose Typography (second image below), and turn off Common Ligatures.

The Font Panel

The problem with the first suggestion is that the font I was using, Lucida Sans, says it doesn't support typographic features such as ligatures. And the problem with the second suggestion is that because GyazMail is a plain text only email program, its author has no need to support the Font Panel.

Ny typographic features found

I was stymied - and then I received an email from Lyle Eslinger that simply stated, "You have probably run across this post, but in case not: http://lists.apple.com/archives/Cocoa-dev/2005/Apr/msg02212.html"

That article, Re: 'fi' ligatures [solved], pointed me to the solution. Ricky Sharp wrote:

"Thanks to an off-list tip that I may be using a different font than others, I tracked the problem down to having two sets of Courier and Monaco in my Font Book. Specifically, I saw two entries for Regular and two for Bold. Deleting one of them removed the problem; I was able to view all my mail messages as they should be (i.e. 'f' and 'i' never combined anymore)."

Font Book

I went to Font Book and discovered that I also had two (and rarely three) versions of the same font, one on my OS X partition and another one being accessed from my OS 9 partition. Disabling the pre-OS X versions of these fonts immediately solved my problem.

Disable selected fontsIf you open Font Book, you'll see fonts with multiple copies marked with a dot (see above). If you open the marked fonts, you'll see the older versions of these fonts also marked with a dot. Select them (opt-click) and then click the disable button (a boxed check mark, see image on right). Confirm this, and problem solved.

I later discovered an even easier way to disable duplicates. Select a bunch of the font names with a dot behind them (option-click them), open the Edit menu, and select Resolve Duplicates. It's a lot faster.

No explanation as to why OS X is doing this weird stuff, but at least there's a way to fix the problem.

If you're running into weird type problems, like the ones I was seeing with ligatures, give the Font Book a try. Apple's free tool just might do the job. LEM

Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Mac Musings

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2010 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Low End Mac's Amazon.com store

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.