I just downloaded the new version for Intel Mac - I'm on Ventura so 1.3 should work ok.  Unfortunately all the text in the dialog boxes is what looks like United squares.  I figured out how to get Preferences up and change the language, but that didn't help.  It changed the language (I do actually need English) but the unicode boxes are still there.

Hi. What language is the computer using ?

I'm experiencing the same problem. I just downloaded Inkscape. I'm in the US and the language is English. OS 11.6 Big Sur.

What font am I supposed to have loaded so I can read this?

Can you check if you have "Helvetica Fractions" installed - if so please disable it and restart Inkscape. Fingers crossed.

I checked and I don’t have Helvetica Fractions installed.

However, I didn’t have Helvetica Regular activated either. (I use font management software on this Mac.) I turned on that font and now it reads correctly. Thank you, one and all.

Activated Helvetica regular in Mac Font Book and it seemed to make it worse!

I think it's a bug in Inkscape that's causing these squares.

I need to add to this: with a font manager like Universal Type Server, it worked. On MY Mac at home, with only Font Book, it doesn't work and I still have squares.

So yeah, this is still a problem. Arial exists, Inkscape. Give it a try.

Thanks for the info. After purchasing a brand new Mac mini with Ventura and not a new font manager to go with it, deciding to just try Font Book, I once again see that Font Book still sucks and that I'm going to have to fork out more bux for Font Explorer Pro. I still have Adobe Creative Suite 6 on my old mini and thought it was a PITA to disconnect and reconnect cables just to use it. But I see now its much easier than messing with Inkscape's incompatibilities.

I use an ancient macbook pro (2012) and previously an equally ancient macbook air (also 2012, I think). Over several Inkscape and macos updates, I never encountered this problem. Lucky me! But this is a repeated issue here in the forum. Maybe it's a problem for more modern macs or maybe there's a conflict with some common software that I haven't installed (yet).

Is there a way to track down the culprit?

@barefootartist For my part I don’t find Font Book to be particularly troublesome but I’d imagine one’s experience varies depending on what it’s being used for/with. I would certainly hope you’re not spending a fortune on a font manager just to use a freeware vector art program. Have you tinkered with the Affinity suite at all? Less expensive (and a one time purchase), Mac & iPad comp and about 80% as good as the Adobe apps.

After using Font Explorer, FontBook is just sad and difficult to work with. However, I do not plan to buy a newer version of FEX just to go with Ventura or to use with Inkscape. I will look into Affinity. I have a purchased version of Adobe creative suite 6 that I've been using forever, but it's not compatible with my new Mac mini that has Ventura. So I was hoping for an open source that could do most of the same thing as Illustrator rather than disconnect and reconnect cables between old Mac mini that has CS6 and new Mac mini that doesn't.

@barefoot As clunky as it might be, maybe you could connect your new Mac to your old one via some Remote Desktop setup, allowing you to use the software on the old Mac on your new one. Since both would be on the same network perhaps there’d be very little latency… 🤷🏻‍♂️

I meanwhile use Parallels Desktop to run a PC version of CS6 I glommed from my job’s dumpster on my Mac when I’m in need of non-CC Adobe software.

Does anyone from the Inkscape dev team monitor these forums? I just installed Inkscape v1.4 on Mac OS 10.15 and I have this issue. I do not have Helvetica fractions, and I do have Helvetica Regular installed. Over a year from the last post in this thread... does anyone know if this has been resolved?

Not by devs. Appears in the forum once a week at least: https://inkscape.org/forums/questions/strange-font-characters-when-launching-inkscape/

Well, in the meantime I found the closest solution available... it's an issue with the Inkscape UI referencing a font that is not installed in Mac OS. The temporary solution is to open the UI CSS file:

/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/share/inkscape/ui/style.css

and add:

*{
    font-family: "system-ui";
}

You can read the entire discussion here: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/3532

There is also a user.css file that you can add the code to, and it will probably work... but I haven't tried it. The style.css will probably get overwritten in a software update.

You would think that after over a year, the developers would have resolved this. Either reference a known system font, or install the referenced font along with the software.

progfx

You would think that after over a year, the developers would have resolved this.

Maybe it's not so easy, and AIUI, Mac devs are in short supply.