Expert: Amy - 11/19/2004

Question
Working on a Mac G5 -OSX 10.3.2--Illustrator 10.0.3
When I go to the overhead menu  Windows>Swatch
Libraries, there are no items listed next to the black
triangle.: No side window opens up with the swatches. The
Brush, Style and Symbol Libraries are fine, and say "Other
Library at the bottom of the list. But nothing even opens up
for the Swatch Libs. When I try to open a swatch library by
going to, say, the Brush Library window and clicking "Other
Library" at the bottom and navigate to a swatch or pantone
library + select it, Yes, a correctly titled swatch library
window opens up, but it contains NO swatches!Blank. I
already tried deleting the AdobeFnt.lst files, trashed the Ai
prefs files, re-installed 10.0 and run Disk Utility,etc. I
launch directly from Illus. 10.03 (I upgraded in an attempt
to fix this prob but it's still there) Any ideas? My only
workaround  has been to open a Pantone file, directly,
which just has a blurb from Pantone on the page,( but the
'Swatches' palette has the proper swatches) I delete the
Pantone blurb, and Save it as, let's say, "Pantone Solid
Template" or Pantone metallic Template etc. Then when I
want to start a project with a certain palette, I open that file,
re-name it and start working...BUT--I do not want to have
to do this with ALL the swatch files...HELP!

Answer
Hi Michael.

If you are launching Illustrator from an alias, throw it away and create a new one (or try opening from the real application icon to test this).

But most likely, it's a corrupt font.

You are right to have deleted the lst files; you can safely delete all the adobefnt.lst files you find on your machine... but don't delete the adobefnt.db files!

You're going to have to figure out which font is damaged and delete/replace it.  Oh, and now is a good time to mention that whatever font management software you use might also have a database file that will need to be deleted. And of course you'll need to trash the lst files after you find the bad font.

It's been awhile since I've had to do this on a Mac.

What kind of font management software do you run? If you do have something for font management, see if it has a diagnostic component.

Here's a list that includes most everything out there for font management. http://www.allgraphicdesign.com/fontutil.html

Check this out - there's a free trial for Font Doctor:
http://www.extensis.com/en/products/product_family.jsp;jsessionid=XPWWTLQZZEGGFL...

Font Agent Pro also has a free trial:
http://www.insidersoftware.com/FontAgent/fontagentpro/

Maybe one of these actually functions well enough to let you know which font is bad.  You could try downloading one of those programs.

If you have Norton, Norton Disk Doctor can identify corrupt fonts.

Last resort is to pull all the fonts out to a new folder and drop them back into the fonts folder a handful at a time, launching and quitting Illustrator in between handfuls to see which ones trigger the problem.  I don't envy you, especially if you collect fonts like most of us.

Good luck to you!
Amy Pace