Question

Fonts not showing correctly between PC and Mac

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
December 16, 2025
3 replies
204 views

I have a problem with Roboto and Inter fonts, that are used in an .ai file. The file is created on PC, where both fonts are recently installed (variable fonts), then the file is being edited on Mac, where fonts appear differently, for example, Roboto has larger leading and the font's name isn't showing in the Illustrators Character Panel (but Illustrator doesn't say the font is missing), and Inter Medium is seen as Inter Thin. Does anyone know how this could be solved?

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

The problem with open source fonts is that they are constantly being tinkered with and changed, so it's very important you have the same version from the same source. The version you installed from Google Fonts may not have the same metrics as the one you activate on Adobe Fonts, etc. (e.g. right now, Google is serving v3.0x of Roboto and Adobe is serving v2.0x). You also should not mix variable and static fonts, and if you ever had other versions installed in the past, you might need to purge your font caches.

Variable fonts are still a loose cannon, so I usually recommend if you are not using variable fonts for very custom instances, then don't use them; use the static versions instead.

B

Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

Yeah, it's definitely not a good idea to mix static and variable versions of the same type family together. Variable fonts are wonderful for certain purposes, but they have their drawbacks too.

In certain production environments, such as sign making or anything that involves cutting lettering out of various materials, variable fonts can be hazardous to use. Many variable fonts have glyphs with overlapping paths. Due to the way how large type families are authored, some of the methods used for creating variable fonts are also applied to normal static fonts. That means some of these static fonts also now have overlapping paths. The static versions of Montserrat have overlapping paths. The overlaps in the letters must be eliminated before they can be cut on a routing table or in a vinyl cutter/plotter. The cutting tool will cut wherever it sees a path.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

Yupp

B

Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

Make sure the Mac computer and Windows PC are both using the same builds of Roboto and Inter. Both type families are available to sync via Adobe Fonts. Both type families are also available to download and install the traditional way via the Google Fonts web site. If the fonts were downloaded from Google Fonts (or other sites like Font Squirrel, etc) make sure the same build is being used. An older version on one computer may not act the same as a more recently downloaded version on another computer.

Also, if any third party font management software is being used on either machine it can affect how fonts perform in some applications. Fonts from Google usually work alright in Adobe's applications, but I've seen them do strange things in rival graphics apps.

Mike_Gondek10189183

Community Expert

Are you loading both form

https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/roboto

https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/inter-variable

Can we please see a screenshot showing the comparison and showing you have the same loaded form both apps. There are many different technologies and also cuts of the font from different foundries. Teh coud icon is important.

Mike_Gondek_0-1765906195142.png

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