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Firefox looking strange. Help?

I recently updated my SpyBot S&D (because adaware sucks now) and AVG to v8. Anyway, I'm not sure what caused it since I did both at the same time, but now almost everything is italicized. None of the forums seem to be effected by it, but Google, gmail, ebay, etc....all (or the vast majority) of the text is in italics. I'm sure I just did something stupid and its an easy fix, but uhhhhhh I'm lost, and it's irritating.

Thanks in advance.
 
I don't know why Spybot would have changed your font settings but on my Firefox:

From menu

Tools - Options - Content tab -

Default Font - Times New Roman Size: 16

Click "Advanced" button -
Fonts For "Western"
Proportional "Serif" Size: 16
Serif: Times New Roman
Sans-serif: Arial
Monospace: Courier New Size: 13
Checked - Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above
Default character encoding: Western (ISO-8859-I)

Note you may have to play with the font size depending on your screen resolution and personal preferences.

HTH
 
That's what mine says too...but it's still italic lol. Guess I'll have to just get used to it or delete/reinstall it.
 
I doubt it will do anything but you can try clearing the cache - Tools - Options - Advanced - Network tab - click "clear now".
 
Ok, instead of deleting and reinstall you can first try creating a new profile which should start from the firefox defaults:

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing+profiles

On XP click the start button - run - and enter:

firefox.exe -ProfileManager

Create a new profile and switch to it. If all is clear you can copy the bookmarks.htm file from your old profile. You'll lose stored passwords and form complete data though. You can go back into the profilemanager and delete the old profile if this works.
 
Does it only do it in Firefox, or does in happen in Internet Explorer too?

It's often due to a corrupted font:

I found a solution to this which I believe should work for most of you. First find out which font is being shown in italics. For me it was Arial, but it is likely to be Courier New or Times New Roman. Then go to Control Panel and copy-paste these font files to your desktop (or any other location) After you back them up, delete the files in the Fonts folder in Control panel. Reboot, if required (in my case was not required) and then reinstall the fonts back from desktop (or wherever else you backed them up) The way you reinstall fonts is to copy them back into the fonts folder in Control panel. Windows XP will reinstall automatically. This should fix this random bug.
 
Does it only do it in Firefox, or does in happen in Internet Explorer too?

It's often due to a corrupted font:

Or just download the Powertoy TweakUI from Microsoft which can rebuild/repair the font folder, shortcut Icons as well as fine tune the Windows UI. Recommended for all Windows tweakers.
 
Which one fixes the fonts? There are like 10 different things on the right. Is it the cleartype tuning control panel?
 
In TweakUI on the bottom of the list "Repair" - in the drop down of the Repair dialog pick "Repair Fonts Folder".
 
  • #10
Well...that didn't work either lol. I wonder how to figure out what font to reinstall? I think I have the ones that are listed in FireFox that it uses.
 
  • #11
If you have the Firebug plugin installed you can use it to inspect the HTML and Style Sheets to see what fonts the sites that are coming out funny are using.

Or you can from the Firefox menu - View - Page Source (ctl-u) and wade through the raw HTML.

I don't have an XP install disk handy at work so I can't tell you offhand where to look for the fonts on the XP disk.
 
  • #12
Nobody said this was going to be easy :)

Ok on the XP install disk the default fonts will be in the folder i386. They are compressed so you have to use the EXPAND command to uncompress them.

First try to determine which fonts may be corrupted.

Then
1) create a folder "Fonts" on the root of the C: drive
2) Place your XP disc in the CD/DVD drive. Hold down the shift key while you do this until the disc loads. This prevents autoplay. If you get some warning about holding down the shift key just click on cancel. If autoplay kicks in anyway just cancel out of the screens.
3) Click the start button and pick "Run" - in the box type "cmd" (without the quotes)
4) This should open a command line box that should say "CMD.EXE" somewhere in the title.
5) at the ">" prompt in command box type "expand d:\i386\*.TT_ C:\Fonts\" without the quotes and press enter (substitute D: with whatever your CD/DVD drive is if not D: e.g. E: )
6) then type "expand D:\i386\*.fo_ C:\Fonts" without the quotes and press enter
7) Type "cd \fonts" etc.
8) type "ren *.tt_ *.ttf" etc.
9) type "ren *.fo_ *.fon" etc.

Ok, this will expand all the stock fonts from the install disk most of which you probably don't have installed.

Go back to the Fonts folder from the Control Panel and delete the corrupted fonts then from the "File" menu of the Fonts folder pick "Install New Fonts" and find the C:\Fonts folder you created earlier. Hold down the control key and pick the fonts you want to install (make sure the "Copy to Fonts Folder" box is checked). Click "Ok" and the fonts should be installed.

Possible snag: Font(s) may be in use when trying to delete them. In that case you'll get an error message. We'll cross that bridge if that happens.

Note: you need admin rights to delete and add fonts.
 
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