Short answer: when a website shows boxes, question marks, or strings like ä and ® instead of normal letters, Chrome is either failing to load the right font or the site is sending text in the wrong character encoding. Start by opening the same page in another browser. If the text is fine there, the fault is on your machine, and clearing the system font cache or disabling extensions usually fixes it. If it is broken everywhere, the website itself is at fault and there is nothing you can change locally.
Before You Start
Applies to: Google Chrome on Windows and macOS. Not version specific. Difficulty: easy to medium. Some steps need permission to stop a Windows service or delete files in a system folder, so you need an administrator account on Windows.
Why does Chrome show weird symbols instead of text?
Garbled text has two very different causes, and telling them apart saves you a lot of wasted effort.
- A font problem. You see empty rectangles, tofu boxes, or plain question marks. Chrome knows what character to draw but has no working font file to draw it with. This is a problem on your computer.
- An encoding problem. You see readable Latin letters arranged into nonsense, like
äwhereäshould be, or’where an apostrophe should be. The site declared the wrong character set, so Chrome is decoding the bytes correctly according to bad instructions. This is a problem on the website.
Character encoding is the map between the raw bytes a server sends and the letters you see. UTF-8 is the modern standard and covers nearly every writing system. When a page claims one encoding but was actually saved in another, every accented character comes out wrong.
How do I tell whether it is Chrome or the website?
Do this first. It decides which half of this guide is relevant to you.
- Reload the page once with Ctrl + R on Windows or Cmd + R on a Mac. A one-off loading glitch clears here.
- Open the same address in a different browser, such as Firefox or Microsoft Edge.
- Open the same address in a Chrome Incognito window, which runs without your extensions.
If the text is correct in the other browser, your Chrome installation or your system fonts are the problem, so work through the sections below. If it is correct in Incognito but broken normally, an extension is doing it. If it is broken in every browser, the website is sending bad markup and no local fix will help.
How do I clear a corrupted font cache?
The font cache is a stored index of the fonts installed on your computer. If it becomes corrupt, applications draw the wrong glyphs or none at all. Rebuilding it is safe: the system regenerates the cache automatically on the next restart.
Warning: the Windows steps stop a system service and delete files from a protected system folder. Delete only the contents of the FontCache folder named below, and nothing else.
On Windows
- Press Windows + R, type
services.msc, and press Enter. - Find Windows Font Cache Service in the list, right-click it, and choose Stop.
- Open
C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\FontCache. - Delete everything inside that folder.
- Restart your PC. Windows rebuilds the cache on its own.
On macOS
- In Finder, choose Go > Go to Folder.
- Enter
~/Library/Fontsand press Return. - Move any custom fonts you installed recently to a folder on your desktop, so you can put them back later.
- Restart your Mac and load the page again.
If the text is readable now, one of the fonts you moved was damaged. Add them back one at a time to find it.
Can I force Chrome to use UTF-8?
No, and this trips a lot of people up. Chrome removed its manual character-encoding menu years ago. The browser now detects the encoding from the page’s own headers and markup, and there is no supported setting to override it.
That means a genuine encoding fault is the website owner’s to fix, not yours. If a site you rely on is affected, your practical options are to read it in another browser, or to contact the site and tell them their pages are not being served as UTF-8.
How do I find the extension causing it?
Extensions that restyle pages, swap fonts, translate text, or block content can all break how characters render.
- Go to
chrome://extensions. - Turn every extension off using the toggle on each card.
- Reload the problem page.
- If the text is correct, turn the extensions back on one at a time, reloading after each, until the symbols return.
The last extension you enabled before the problem came back is the one to remove or replace.
What if only one site is affected?
Corrupted stored data for a single site can interfere with the web fonts it loads. Resetting that site’s permissions clears it without touching anything else.
- Open the affected page.
- Click the icon at the left edge of the address bar and choose Site settings.
- Click Reset permissions.
- Reload the page.
How do I reset Chrome as a last resort?
Resetting returns Chrome’s settings, startup page, and new tab page to their defaults and turns off all extensions. Your bookmarks, history, and saved passwords are kept.
- Open Settings from the three-dot menu.
- Choose Reset settings.
- Click Restore settings to their original defaults and confirm.
On Windows, if you use a custom theme or font pack, it is also worth opening Settings > Personalization > Fonts and choosing Restore default font settings before you go this far.
Frequently asked questions
Why do I see ä or ’ instead of accented letters?
That specific pattern means UTF-8 text is being read as a single-byte encoding such as Windows-1252. It is an encoding mismatch declared by the website, not a fault on your computer, and only the site owner can correct it.
What do the empty boxes mean?
An empty rectangle, sometimes called tofu, is what a browser draws when no installed font contains that character. It usually points to a missing or damaged font on your system rather than a problem with the page.
Does clearing the font cache delete my fonts?
No. The cache is only an index. Your installed font files stay where they are, and the system rebuilds the index automatically after a restart.
Can a virus cause garbled text in Chrome?
It is very unlikely to be the cause on its own. Font and encoding faults are ordinary rendering problems. If you are also seeing pop-ups, an unfamiliar search engine, or redirects, treat that as a separate issue and check your extensions first.
If the problem happens on only one site and none of the fixes help, the fault is on the site’s end. Open it in another browser for now and let the owner know. Questions? Let me know in the comments section below.
Last verified: 2026-08-10
