Member Avatar for inphoenix

I don't know what I've done to my incoming mail. The body text is a font that is so hard to read. I was using Font Navigator, came with corel products, and that is a wonderful tool but after I moved most of my C:\windows\fonts to a separate folder the incoming email is using a designer font. I can change the font of outgoing msgs but not incoming msgs. I don't know if anyone else uses Netscape mail but the Help doesn't help and I've contacted Netscaep several times last year and no help. I did get it to change once but since I've had to re-build Netscape I cannot remember how I fixed it.
Thanks in advance,
inphoenix

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Dani AI

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A few common causes and fixes for the unreadable incoming text you describe (WinXP + Netscape 7.1): when a font manager moves or deactivates system fonts the mail renderer can no longer find the font requested by the message and will pick an available “designer” or decorative font. That explains why you can change outgoing/composed fonts (those are your compose settings) but not the display of incoming HTML messages (those use message-specified fonts or fallbacks).

Steps that reliably fix this kind of problem:

  • Re-enable or reinstall the missing system fonts so they are actually installed in C:\Windows\Fonts. Use Font Navigator to reactivate them or copy them back and use Control Panel → Fonts → Install. Reboot after reinstalling.
  • In Netscape preferences look under Mail/Display/Appearance (Preferences → Mail & Newsgroups → Fonts or similar). Set clear defaults (e.g., Verdana/Tahoma for proportional, Times New Roman for serif) and disable any option like “allow messages to use their own fonts” if you want to force readable fonts.
  • If fonts still render oddly, rebuild Windows’ font cache by removing FNTCACHE.DAT from the Windows\System32 folder (or boot Safe Mode to delete it) and reboot; Windows will recreate it. Back up before deleting.

Extra notes and cautions: keep core UI/web fonts (Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Courier New) installed and avoid permanently removing them. Editing registry entries such as FontSubstitutes can help in edge cases but requires a backup. This advice ties back to ’s platform question and explains the typical resolution for what ran into — the issue usually comes from fonts being unavailable to the OS rather than a Netscape bug.

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Member Avatar for kc0arf

Hello,

What platform are you using? Mac? Windoze? Linux? What version of netscape are you working with?

Thanks,

Christian

Member Avatar for inphoenix

Thank you Christian for your reply. I'm sorry forgot to state Win XP Pro, Netscape 7.1

Member Avatar for inphoenix

I figured it out!!!! Wonderful, now I can read my incoming mail.

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