Corrupt Fonts

[RickWhiteman]

Not sure if this is a PC/Mac issue, or a ZIP/Stuffit issue, but I occasionally receive fonts from clients that unstuff as Zero KB Unix files. Everything else in the client's stuffed or zipped file expands correctly, but I get corrupt fonts. It doesn't happen with all the jobs we get in, and it doesn't always happen from the same clients. When I ask the client to restuff and resend the fonts, they come across okay.

Any ideas about what's happening here? Thanks!

 

[GinSu]

This most commonly happens when Mac fonts are compressed with a Windows app or when an AFP volume is mounted as a SMB/CIFS (or vice versa) before compressing. The data for type one fonts is in the resource fork, but when compressed using a windows app, the resource fork isn't included.

Fonts copied via AFP are not readable when mounted as SMB/CIFS (or vice versa).

I recommend always compressing Mac files from a Mac to prevent that from happening.

 

[Sherbert]

Aye we get that sometimes, as GinSu says =)

 

[Tech]

I have seen this happened before with a co-worker using Stuffit's outdated compression app. No matter how many times he re-compressed the font folder using Stuffit, it continues to show zero byte after unzipping it. After trying my suggestion of using Mac OS's default archive/compression instead, it resolved this problem.

Lesson here is not to use old apps that are no longer supported or you'll get inconsistent results.

 

[trondello]

Resource Forks

Resource Forks

Yes, this occurs when the fonts are stuffed on an operating system that does not retain resource forks.
As an example take your folder full of fonts and drop them on a Windows 2003 Server share.
You will see that the file size of your fonts is 0k.
This is an old issue with AFP. Swich to SMB on a newer Mac OS and you should have less issues.