diff --git a/internal/check-packet-render.mjs b/internal/check-packet-render.mjs
index 6a0173efd..2291be92f 100644
--- a/internal/check-packet-render.mjs
+++ b/internal/check-packet-render.mjs
@@ -58,6 +58,24 @@ const lang = await page.evaluate(() => document.documentElement.lang || 'en')
 // the bug it is, and no other assertion here would notice.
 const RTL = new Set(['ar', 'he', 'fa', 'ur', 'ps', 'sd', 'yi'])
 const dir = await page.evaluate(() => document.documentElement.dir || 'ltr')
+// SCRIPT FONT. Some languages need a face the system stack does not carry — Hindi
+// renders as tofu boxes in Georgia/Palatino/serif. When the packet declares one,
+// it must actually LOAD; a declared-but-failed @font-face is silent, and the page
+// then prints as empty rectangles with every other assertion still green.
+//
+// ⚠ This asserts the FONT LOADED, not that glyphs are correct. A general tofu
+// detector was attempted and abandoned: comparing shaped width against a missing
+// font false-positives on every system-covered script (Cyrillic, CJK, Arabic all
+// legitimately measure the same in both stacks), and an ink-profile heuristic
+// scored CORRECTLY-RENDERED Devanagari the same as tofu, because its baseline bar
+// gives a uniform column profile. A detector that blocks working packets is worse
+// than none. Read the pixels for that; this covers the mechanical half.
+const fontStatus = await page.evaluate(async () => {
+  await document.fonts.ready
+  const faces = [...document.fonts]
+  return { declared: faces.length, loaded: faces.filter((f) => f.status === 'loaded').length,
+           names: faces.map((f) => `${f.family}:${f.status}`) }
+})
 // The catalog sits beside the generator that produced this packet, so derive it
 // from the packet's own path rather than hardcoding a machine-specific location.
 const catalogPath = process.env.PACKET_STRINGS
@@ -145,6 +163,10 @@ if (r.rhythms !== r.rhythmsTotal) fails.push(`only ${r.rhythms}/${r.rhythmsTotal
 if (!r.hasMark5) fails.push('Mark 5:1-20 is NOT printed in full (Driver requirement for point 4)')
 if (r.metacamp !== 2) fails.push(`${r.metacamp} metacamp.org attributions, expected exactly 2`)
 if (r.mapFaults.length) fails.push(`map: ${r.mapFaults.join('; ')}`)
+if (fontStatus.declared && fontStatus.loaded !== fontStatus.declared) {
+  fails.push(`a declared @font-face did not load (${fontStatus.names.join(', ')}) — `
+    + 'text in that script will print as empty boxes')
+}
 if (RTL.has(lang) && dir !== 'rtl') fails.push(`lang="${lang}" is right-to-left but dir="${dir}"`)
 if (!RTL.has(lang) && dir === 'rtl') fails.push(`lang="${lang}" is not RTL but dir="rtl"`)
 if (translated === 0) {
@@ -162,6 +184,7 @@ console.log(`  Mark 5 in full   : ${r.hasMark5}`)
 console.log(`  metacamp.org     : ${r.metacamp}`)
 console.log(`  map              : ${r.mapFaults.length ? r.mapFaults.join('; ') : 'palette resolves, not black'}`)
 console.log(`  page size        : ${boxes[0] ? boxes[0].join(' x ') : '?'} pt`)
+console.log(`  script font      : ${fontStatus.declared ? fontStatus.names.join(', ') : 'system stack'}`)
 console.log(`  language         : ${lang} (dir=${dir})  (${r.rhythms}/${r.rhythmsTotal} rhythms in ${lang}`
   + `${translated === null ? '' : `, ${translated} strings translated`})`)