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I have seen this happened before with a co-worker using Stuffit's outdated compression app.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]

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.