Missing or scrambled text in Steam menus

http://support.steampowered.com/cgi-bin/steampowered.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=44

This is almost always a Win98 problem when you have a missing or damaged font, typically the Tahoma Font. This can happen in almost any Operating System though.

This help page is in Arial just in case your Verdana font is damaged.

This font problem can also be caused by a bad or damaged Steam Skin installation as well.

Of course, the problem is you might not be able to see the Steam Menus to change the skin so we can't rely on that as a solution to fix your problem.

Assuming that the problem is a bad or missing font, the easiest solution is to install a known good font set.

Tahoma and Verdana Fonts are the important ones, so let's install them.

1. Download SteamFonts.zip
2. log out of Steam entirely, and close all other programs that might be trying to use these fonts.
3. You might also have to temporarily disable "System Restore" for this to work: control panel > system > system restore > then check "turn off system restore"
4. After downloading the zip file use a zip utility such as winzip to unzip the file(s). XP has a native unzip, just right-click on the zip and "explore" and drag and drop the files into a temporary directory.
5. Then, click on the 'Start' button on your desktop, go to 'Settings', then 'Control Panel' and double click on 'Fonts'.
6. Now, choose 'File' and then 'Install New Font'.
7. Finally, remember where you put the unzipped fonts and go to that directory.
8. Select the font and choose 'OK'.

The next time you start Steam you should be able to see all the text again.