# Text Rendering in MacOS 10.14 showing weird symbols

**URL:** <https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602>\
**Category:** General JUCE discussion\
**Created:** [March 23, 2025, 1:47pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602 "2025-03-23T13:47:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![facua1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4da419/32.png) [@facua1](https://forum.juce.com/u/facua1)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 1:47pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602/1 "2025-03-23T13:47:48Z")

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Hey there,  
so I decided to add support for MacOS 10.13 and 10.14 and everything works and looks great in those versions except for the text written using the Inter font.

The text looks fine on 10.15 and above.

 ![wrong text](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/juce/original/3X/d/9/d944c4fed2e9c4ef8022f670399ed96a88163c6b.png)

I am adding the fonts to the Binary Data of the plugin as to not rely on the fonts installed on the customers’ system.

I looked at a bunch of different posts on the forum but couldn’t really find a solution.

I tested different font formats (ttf and otf), same results.  
Any ideas?  
Thanks!

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**Author:** ![DaveH](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.juce.com/daveh/32/4924_2.png) [@DaveH](https://forum.juce.com/u/DaveH)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 4:20pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602/2 "2025-03-23T16:20:34Z")

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All I know is that quite a lot of fonts, free and otherwise, don’t have a full character set. Some only have a standard English alphabet.

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**Author:** ![facua1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4da419/32.png) [@facua1](https://forum.juce.com/u/facua1)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 4:22pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602/3 "2025-03-23T16:22:44Z")

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Yup, but it’s supposed to be in english and it looks as it should in MacOS 10.15 and up. The issue arises in any Mac OS version below that.  
So it has to be something related to those OS versions, right?  
IDK, I’m a bit lost.

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**Author:** ![DaveH](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.juce.com/daveh/32/4924_2.png) [@DaveH](https://forum.juce.com/u/DaveH)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 4:35pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602/4 "2025-03-23T16:35:28Z")

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Ok. It’s hard to tell what your screenshot is supposed to display.  
I’ve never had problems with wrong characters, unless a font is fucked somehow.  
I compile the earliest OS version I can with Xcode. What happens if you draw some text in paint() with a standard g.drawText()?

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**Author:** ![Toddler-Boy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.juce.com/toddler-boy/32/2007_2.png) [@Toddler-Boy](https://forum.juce.com/u/Toddler-Boy)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 6:18pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602/5 "2025-03-23T18:18:54Z")

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We use the same font in our cloud app and Nexus. Works fine even down to 10.11

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**Author:** ![otristan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f0a364/32.png) [@otristan](https://forum.juce.com/u/otristan)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2025, 9:39am UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602/6 "2025-03-24T09:39:01Z")

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do you use the right deployment target ?

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**Author:** ![facua1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4da419/32.png) [@facua1](https://forum.juce.com/u/facua1)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2025, 11:45am UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602/7 "2025-03-24T11:45:07Z")

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Ok. Then it must have something to do with how I’m implementing the fonts, I assume?  
Could you tell me how you implement them?  
I add them to my binary data and then do this:

```auto
    static const Font getInterFont()
    {
        static auto typeface = Typeface::createSystemTypefaceFor(MyBinaryData::Inter_ttf, MyBinaryData::Inter_ttfSize);
        return Font (typeface);
    }

//and then I use it in my Look & Feel like this

//constructor
font = Font(Utility::getInterFont());
font.setHeight(14.f);

//drawRotarySlider
g.drawText(slider.getName(), nameBounds, Justification::centred);

```

Also, deployment target is 10.13, so it should work in 10.14.

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**Author:** ![reuk](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.juce.com/reuk/32/21494_2.png) [@reuk](https://forum.juce.com/u/reuk)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2025, 12:52pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602/8 "2025-03-24T12:52:19Z")

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I’d be interested to know which JUCE version you’re using. There were a lot of changes to font handling in JUCE 8, so if you’re using an older version it’d be worth updating and checking whether the problem persists.

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**Author:** ![facua1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4da419/32.png) [@facua1](https://forum.juce.com/u/facua1)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2025, 1:13pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602/9 "2025-03-24T13:13:16Z")

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I have JUCE 7 right now.  
I haven’t tested this in JUCE 8 but it might be worth checking out.  
I tested GUI performance in JUCE 8 and it was MUCH better on Windows, so I might end up upgrading.

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**Author:** ![Toddler-Boy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.juce.com/toddler-boy/32/2007_2.png) [@Toddler-Boy](https://forum.juce.com/u/Toddler-Boy)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2025, 10:53pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602/10 "2025-03-26T22:53:46Z")

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For our “Cloud” app we use JUCE7 (for compatibility with Windows 7) and for NEXUS5 we use JUCE8. Both render the “Inter” fonts just fine, using very similar methods to get the binary data, etc. like the OP.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![facua1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4da419/32.png) [@facua1](https://forum.juce.com/u/facua1)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 2:57pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/text-rendering-in-macos-10-14-showing-weird-symbols/65602/11 "2025-03-28T14:57:18Z")

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Sorry for the delay all.  
So, it turns out the issue was just the Inter font I was using. I downloaded a different one and that seemed to do the trick.  
Thanks for the help
