Q: Why is it that when I use a particular font, an application will crash?\
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A: Invariably, an application will not behave properly if a specific font does not have read access for the user. A specific case that will cause problems is the updated Helvetica font that Adobe released on the PlusPack (in early '90). This font does not have read access for everyone. TopDraw displays the problem because it uses Helvetica as its default font. So if you launch TopDraw as any user other than root, you will get the following message on the console:\
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\f2 Missing standard system fonts
\f1 \
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and then the program will quit.\
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We've also seen the Font Panel get messed up, and the current application eventually crash after trying to set a font that can't be read. This happened when a font was installed with no read permission for "other" on the server, and the file system was exported so that root was equivalent to "other". The pasteboard server (pbs) runs as root, so it couldn't read the file.\
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To fix the problem, as root, make sure that Read is On for Owner, Group, and Others for all of the font files. Check the files in ~/Library/Fonts, /LocalLibrary/Fonts, and /NextLibrary/Fonts. In particular, make sure that all of the afm files are readable. \