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Answered

Fonts changing in files when opened in Illustrator 29.5.1

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
May 10, 2025
70 replies
47971 views

I've experienced this twice now, both times in the last month. I design beer labels and I'll often open an older label and use it as the template for a new one. When I open the older file (an .AI file), it will load, and most of the live text will have switched to a different font arbitrarily. Some fonts switch to OTHER typefaces that exist in the same document, others switch to different weights of the same font, and still others switch to defaults like times and myriad. Some of the switched fonts are stored locally, and others are served via Adobe Fonts. The file does this consistently even after I've restarted illustrator and restarted my computer.

I've attached a screenshot of one of the files with its original fonts (from an outlined version for print), as well as a shot with the changed fonts.

Has anyone else experienced this?

System:

2022 Mac Studio M1 Max

MacOS Sonoma 14.6.1

Illustrator v 29.5.1

Correct answer Anubhav M

Hello everyone,

Our team has attempted to resolve this issue in the latest Illustrator 30.x and 29.x releases. Kindly update to the latest version of Illustrator and try opening your files to see if the problem persists.

Anubhav

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Hyanri

Inspiring

A frustrating bug that keeps happening for like week now. 29.6.1 version updated ten days ago (Windows 11). I have no idea what's happening, but I just created a new file yesterday and I reopened it today to edit and a popped up appeared saying the illustrator file was made using the old version of Illustrator (it isn't, it's a new file created yesterday on an app updated ten days ago!) and the only option is "review" (does not help, did not flag the changes) and "cancel" opening the file altogether. All the text formatting changed - bold fonts changed to thin, thin changed to heavy italicized, spacing, etc. It made editing 1 day old files a burden to mix and match to what they were before. I do not think it is fixed yet. Finding fixes on community threads feels like wasting my time when there are deadlines to meet.

S

silveryblu

Participant

I have been having this problem for a few moths too - and today, I even had Illustrator *permanently change the fonts* to the random default fonts it assigned when I opened the file. The fonts were fine when I opened the file an hour earlier. After it changed them, my only recourse was to rebuild the file. I'm using the most recent Illustrator on a Mac with Extensis Connect. (Screenshots below - the super skinny font is the random defaulted one.)

blairr20152766

Participant

This just happened to me (strangely, while designing a wine label)! I am certain that it's not a mistake that I made, because I pasted the labels as smart objects into Photoshop directly from Illustrator, and those are all fine and perfect.

I can't figure it out but fixing it manually is going to take hours. My Illustrator is up to date as is my OS.

2021 MacBook Pro

MacOS Sequoia 15.5

Illustrator v 29.6.1

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Martin_Wilson747

Participating Frequently

I am not sure that a paying customer should be investing our time and money testing software for an international company for free? The affected agencies as far as I know have not been offered any discount on the flawed software that has already cost us time and money. This is still an issue that you do not understand or you would not ask us to do this! Very unprofessional. If our 5 person team operated like this our clients would leave. Just fix it and test it and release the update as you are payed to do. Also update us on the credit for the buggy software.

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leem40537325

Participant

This just happened to us, so what do we do just not create anything until the bug might get fixed this month. I use this program for my business.

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello everyone,

Our product team has tried fixing this issue in the latest Illustrator Beta 29.7.0.88 release. Would you mind installing/updating to the latest Illustrator to check if it helps resolve the problem?

Looking forward to your feedback.
Anubhav

Alexander Rott

Known Participant

We have been running into this issue at our company. I just tried opening a known file that we've been running into the font issue and opening with the Beta resolved the issue. It even "fixed" a file that i had saved in where the fonts had randomly shuffled around.

We use Extensis Connect for our font managment system and use a variety of Mac computers. The issue has occured on Apple Silicon and Intel macs.

A

anemonfort

Participating Frequently

Yup, I had exactly this problem today. I tried restoring an earlier version of the file from my dropbox and it was also corrupted. Feeling betrayed, and terribly afraid to open any file now. Does reverting back to an earlier version of Illustrator help in the meantime?

I actually had a similar thing happen in InDesign several months ago and haven't updated the version since then.

A

anemonfort

Participating Frequently

I haven't had this problem since the first time... but a new one popped up last night in the same file when it came time to save. It would stall out with a message that was approximately "save is happening in the background" which would take forever, and I would click "stop", and then it would do nothing for a bit and then apparently finish the save (but it would do the asterisk thing next to the file name that indicates there were unsaved changes). Then it would shortly later a message would pop up with a "not enough memory to preview" and kick it into outline mode. The file isn't that big. I eventually reverted back to the version of illustrator that was working before the update 2 weeks ago (29.6). Haven't had another problem yet, but did have to spend time resetting all of my interface preferences.

A

anemonfort

Participating Frequently

New problem... illustrator 29.6 - was typing to add a word and a few characters in it randomly swapped which words were bolded. All I was doing was typing, no key commands or anything to change the style. See video of it happening.

adobe-illustrator_issue1.zip

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neil_3101

Participant

Yes, i got the same problem as well. had to rework the whole thing. Fonts changing at will. even the horizontal scaling is being put to make fonts look more ugly. its like some evil bug

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leem40537325

Participant

the new beta version did not fix the text issue

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for sharing your concerns so openly. I completely understand how disruptive this issue has been, especially when it impacts important projects and deadlines.

I've checked with the product team, and they've confirmed that there was a bug logged for this issue and this is tentatively planned to be fixed in the upcoming July release. I'll make sure to keep you posted if there are any changes in the plan.

I really appreciate your patience and understanding.

Abhishek

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B-Planit

Participating Frequently

I spent an entire day with this exact issue. Very frustrating indeed. I have never encountered such a pain in the a..... bug in my life and I have been using illustrator for a very long time.

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Martin_Wilson747

Participating Frequently

Adobe must not be silent on this. Under Australian consumer law the program is not fit for purpose! They must NOT charge us while the program is not functioning. Everyone needs to request a refund for the time. There stuff up could cost Agencies thousands of dollars!!

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bernadetteh30812887

Participant

This is a similar recurring issue as above after updating to v 29.6.1. Opening a file I worked on yesterday after most recent update this morning, and the usual Avenir fonts in file have adjusted in different weights and some changed to Barlow, as well as when I go to update live text the font will change to Barlow. Please fix!

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @bernadetteh30812887,

Our product team is aware of the problem and is currently investigating it. I will update this thread as I have more info.
In the meantime, kindly upvote this UserVoice (https://adobe.ly/4eASzue) and add your comments there. Doing this will help prioritize the problem, and you will be notified of any updates.

Feel free to reach out if you have more questions or need assistance. We'd be happy to help.

Anubhav

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k9tag

Participating Frequently

Anubhav, the link above goes to some strange Xpost thing, and I can't comment there. Please send the fixers here to look for comments and proritize based on what they read here.

Illustrator 29.6.1 changes all of the fonts in my artwork. Randomly. On its own. An absolutely horrifying bug in a program that I have been using without issues since the 1990s. This current bug ruins days worth of work, requiring a total redo of the work. I reverted to 29.4 and that DID NOT fix the issue with the file that was ruined by 29.6.1. All of the fonts were still randomly substituted, and the file is unusable. I can get work done now in 29.4, but why am I paying for any further upgrades?

Illustrator 29.6.1 is unusable worldwide until this problem is fixed. That should be a little concerning to the development team there. An immediate worldwide stop should be issued, and 29.5.whatever and 29.6.whatever should be removed as options for download. My advice to everyone: Don't even think about upgrading to 29.6.1. You will regret it. I have currently dropped back to 29.4 and stopped auto update on ALL of my Adobe products until this is resolved. I advise everyone to do the same. Adobe please let us know here when this terrible bug is fixed, and don't refer us elsewhere to get priority to fix what you broke.

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