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Cleaning Font Caches


SeanC

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My first post, so let me first say how impressed I am with CCleaner -- a truly first-rate app that became one of my all-time favorites within moments of using it.

 

In addition to using CCleaner for basic system cleaning, I've also found it very useful for a more specific task -- clearing font cache files. Admittedly, not many of you will have a need to do this, but maybe some of you will. See, I develop commercial fonts for a living, and sometimes I find myself frequently installing and uninstalling fonts in various stages of development, a process which occasionally causes XP and the apps I use to test fonts grief. But thanks to CCleaner, I now have a quick way to clear font cache files. If you find yourself experiencing wierdness with font menus, font display or printing, you can add the following to your Custom files list in CCleaner:

 

C:\Windows\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT

 

If you regularly use Adobe apps (including Adobe Type Manager or ATM Deluxe), you may also want to add the AdobeFnt.lst files to your Custom files. You'll find these in various directories, depending upon which Adobe apps are installed on your system. Here are some examples:

 

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\Fonts\AdobeFnt10.lst

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\TypeSpt\AdobeFnt10.lst

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Fonts\AdobeFnt.lst

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Fonts\AdobeFntXX.lst (where 'XX' is a two-digit number)

 

You may want to first search your drive for "AdobeFnt*.lst" to see where they're all located and their specific 'XX' names. You can safely delete all of them (do not delete AdobeFnt.db files, however, but only the .lst files).

 

Note: If you add FNTCACHE.DAT to your Custom files, you will need to restart your machine after deleting it.

 

A suggestion for future versions of CCleaner: When adding files to the Custom list, it would be very helpful to have the ability to add a folder, but instead of deleting its entire contents (as this feature presently works), to be able to specify wildcards. For example, choose the Adobe\Fonts and Adobe\TypeSpt folders in the Common Files dir, and tell CCleaner to delete any *.lst files it finds there.

 

To the developer of CCleaner, many thanks for such a great utility. To any CCleaner users who might want more info about font caches, you can contact me via email (seanc at fontsite dot-diddly-ot com).

 

- Sean

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I wouldn't say it's "absolutely" safe to delete -- it is a system file after all, and is listed in layout.ini -- but it is generally safe to delete.

 

That said, I don't delete it regularly, but only after a period of installing and uninstalling a large number of fonts, specifically different versions of the same font, or whenever I notice slowdowns or strangeness in the appearance of menus, dialogs and other screen fonty things. Corruption to this file can occur whenever an installer (or manual action) overwrites any font registered with the system.

 

If, for some reason, a reboot doesn't recreate fntcache.dat, go to Display Properties, choose the Settings tab and click Advanced. Under the General tab, change the DPI setting from Normal to Large (or vice versa depending on your setup). Apply, then change it back. (Note: I've never had an instance where a simple reboot didn't recreate fntcache.dat, but changing the DPI setting forces this file to be recreated.)

 

- Sean

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  • 8 years later...

not recommended for people who use Microsoft Office.

I deleted date fonts I badly need, have to do my work but can't and now just hope to get stuff back by installing all of the Office service packs (which takes a while if you know that it's 3 huge Service packs for office 2007).

All other solutions I've found online failed.

So yup, bad mistake to have used the option 'cleaning font caches' :(

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  • Moderators

Jeez, you're eight years, two prime ministers, several operating systems and around 100 releases of CC out of relevance here. This thread died before Office 2007 was even released. If you have anything to say then open a new thread.

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