If a website suddenly shows strange symbols or unreadable characters instead of normal text, you’re likely dealing with a font or encoding issue in Chrome. It can happen on just one site or across multiple tabs. In this guide, we’ll show you how to fix it step by step.
What’s Happening?
Instead of regular letters, you might see blocks, question marks, or odd characters like this: ä, �, or ®. This usually means Chrome isn’t decoding the text correctly—either the site is misconfigured, your browser is missing a font, or an extension is interfering.
Let’s fix it.
1. Refresh the Page (Simple but Works)
Sometimes it’s just a temporary loading glitch. Click the reload button or press Ctrl + R (Windows) / Cmd + R (Mac). If it’s a one-time issue, this might be enough.
2. Try Another Browser
Open the same website in a different browser like Firefox or Edge.
- If the text displays correctly there, Chrome is the issue.
- If the problem exists in all browsers, it’s likely a problem with the website itself.
3. Clear Font Cache (Mac and Windows)
Corrupt font files or cache can cause text to render incorrectly.
On Windows:
a. Press Windows + R, type services.msc and hit Enter
b. Find Windows Font Cache Service and stop it
c. Go to C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\FontCache
d. Delete all files in that folder
e. Restart your PC
On Mac:
a. Open Finder > Go > Go to Folder
b. Enter ~/Library/Fonts
c. Move any recently added custom fonts to another folder temporarily
d. Restart your Mac
4. Force Chrome to Use UTF-8 Encoding
Some sites might not declare their text encoding properly, causing Chrome to guess wrong.
To manually change it:
a. Open the page
b. Right-click and choose Inspect
c. Click the three-dot menu in DevTools > More tools > Rendering
d. Scroll down to Emulate a focused page encoding
e. Set it to UTF-8 and reload the page
This forces Chrome to display text in the most common encoding.
5. Disable Extensions
A badly behaving Chrome extension can interfere with how text is displayed.
To test:
a. Go to chrome://extensions/
b. Turn off all extensions
c. Reload the site
If it fixes the issue, turn extensions back on one at a time to find the one causing the problem.
6. Reset Site Permissions
Sometimes, corrupted site data affects fonts.
a. Open the problem site
b. Click the padlock icon in the address bar
c. Choose Site settings
d. Click Reset permissions
Then reload the page.
7. Reset Chrome Settings (If Nothing Else Works)
This puts Chrome back to default settings without deleting bookmarks or passwords.
a. Go to Settings > Reset settings
b. Click Restore settings to their original defaults
c. Confirm
Only use this if other fixes don’t work.
Bonus Tip: Update Your Fonts
If you’re on Windows and using a custom theme or font pack, consider reverting to system defaults:
a. Go to Settings > Personalization > Fonts
b. Click Font settings
c. Choose Restore default font settings
Summary
If the issue happens on only one site and none of the fixes help, the problem is likely with the site’s backend. You can contact their support or just open the page in another browser for now.
Questions? Let me know in the comments section below.
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