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Made by Symbol
Participant
Oct 26, 2026 6:06 PM UTC
In Development

Variable font won't show in AE. Works fine in InDesign and Illustrator

I can’t get a variable font to work in AE, yet it works fine in InDesign and Illustrator.

The font is https://www.fontshare.com/?q=Cabinet%20Grotesk

The standard OTF versions work fine in AE, but the variable TTF will not show at all (but shows fine in InDesign and Illustrator).

I’ve tried uploading through Adode fonts and no luck. Have restarted the system, applications, cleared caches etc and nothing works!


Mac Studio running Tahoe and AE 26.5.

 

Any suggestions?

    4 replies

    David.Arbor
    Community Manager
    David.ArborCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    Nov 6, 2026 7:07 PM UTC

    Hi ​@Made by Symbol , I have some good news! We were able to get a fix in that allowed this font to load, even though it’s technically broken. This fix is currently in the public beta of 27.1x37, which you can grab from the Creative Cloud desktop app.

     

    One thing to note: scrubbing the Weight axis to the font’s default value—900 (Black)—causes both the value and style to jump back to 700 (Bold). So if you scrub from Bold toward Black, it snaps back to Bold as soon as you reach 900. InDesign and Illustrator behave the same way.

    For this specific font, you can work around this by animating from 700 to 899. That will look like an animation from Bold to Black without triggering the jump at 900.

     

    -David, After Effects Engineering Team 

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    David.Arbor
    Community Manager
    David.ArborCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    Oct 26, 2026 8:54 PM UTC

    Hi ​@Made by Symbol , thanks for reporting this. I can also reproduce the issue and have filed a bug on our side.

     

    -David, After Effects Engineering Team

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      Made by SymbolAuthor
      Participant
      Oct 26, 2026 9:55 PM UTC

      Thanks, David. 

      I’m working on a client video with that font and would love to implement some variable weight animation, so please let me know if there’s a quick fix! :)

       

      Thanks

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      David.Arbor
      Community Manager
      David.ArborCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      Oct 27, 2026 4:45 PM UTC

      I heard back from one of our font engineers, and unfortunately, this font is a bit broken. The font’s default weight is Black, but its internal names incorrectly identify it as Bold. That mismatch is causing a conflict.

      Unfortunately, the font’s license requires written permission from Indian Type Foundry to make any modifications, including metadata changes.

       

      -David, After Effects Engineering Team

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