Firefox 3 and the mysterious missing font

December 18, 2008 5:16 PM

Why does Firefox 3 no longer allow me to choose Times New Roman as the default font, even though it is installed on my Vista system? Trivial but annoying.

This is a very standard Vista Home Premium SP1 system, and I haven't messed with any of the font files themselves. The Firefox 3.0.5 default font was set to Times New Roman [Options/Content/Default Font], until I changed it to something else earlier today. When I went to change it back, Times New Roman was not on the list of available fonts.

There are about 40 other fonts listed there, but TNR is not one of them (nor is Calibri, which I use as the default in Word).

I checked Control Panel/Fonts and found Times New Roman (file is times.ttf and it's located in C:\Windows\Fonts). There are also several dozen other fonts listed there that don't show up in Firefox. Verified that I can use Times New Roman in Word without issue.

So, any idea why Times New Roman no longer shows up in Firefox when it was there before? Or for that matter, why I can't select other fonts like Calibri that are installed on my system?

posted by iamisaid to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Response by poster: One more detail: if go to Advanced font options in FF, Times New Roman IS available in the Monospace font drop-down, along with Calibri and lots of others (which is odd because I don't believe either of them are monospace fonts, although someone can correct me if I'm wrong). Neither of them are available in the Serif drop-down, however, which is where they should appear.
posted by iamisaid at 5:32 PM on December 18, 2008

Response by poster: Ok, I was able to use about:config to restore Times New Roman as the default by resetting the font.name.serif.x-western preference. It is now selected in the FF default font drop-down menu option and the advanced serif option, but it still doesn't appear within either of those lists themselves and disappears once I change them to something else. Odd.
posted by iamisaid at 5:53 PM on December 18, 2008

Why? Taste.

Seriously: have you tried resetting or temporarily removing your Profile? Corruption there is a prime cause of Firefox oddness. Ruling it out first is advised.
posted by bonaldi at 6:26 PM on December 18, 2008

This sounds like a case for bugzilla.mozilla.org but more than likely is a profile issue and/or has already been patched in the FF3.1 betas.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:27 AM on December 19, 2008