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Participant
Aug 17, 2026 6:34 AM UTC
Question

Japanese text input is displayed at the top-left corner unless “Apply Inline Input to Non-Latin Text” is enabled

I am experiencing a serious Japanese text input issue in Adobe Illustrator on Windows.

When I use the Type Tool and click on a specific location, the text cursor appears correctly at the location where I clicked. However, when I start typing Japanese text, the characters are displayed at the top-left corner of the document instead of at the cursor position.

The behavior is extremely disruptive because I have to press Enter before the text suddenly appears at the correct location.

Interestingly, typing Latin characters such as “abc” works correctly. The problem occurs specifically with Japanese text input.

I eventually discovered that enabling Preferences > Type > “Apply Inline Input to Non-Latin Text” fixes the problem.

This means that a basic Japanese text input setting can become disabled and cause Japanese text to appear in a completely incorrect location, without any obvious indication of what is wrong.

I had already:

  • Restarted Illustrator

  • Restarted my computer

  • Disabled GPU Performance

  • Tested Japanese and Latin text input separately

  • Reset Illustrator preferences

The preference reset also destroyed my customized workspace/layout, costing me additional time, yet it did not address the underlying problem.

I am a professional designer and was working on a client project when this happened. Because text appeared to be entered in the wrong location, every text edit became unnecessarily time-consuming and significantly slowed down my work.

Please investigate why “Apply Inline Input to Non-Latin Text” can become disabled or why Illustrator does not provide a clear indication when this setting is required for Japanese input.

Japanese is not an obscure or optional language for a professional design application. Reliable Japanese text input should work correctly by default.

This issue caused substantial disruption to my workflow and made me waste a significant amount of time troubleshooting what appeared to be a serious application malfunction.

Please fix this behavior and ensure that Japanese users paying dollars and dollars every months (like me!!!) do not encounter this problem unexpectedly.

[Moved to Illustrator by a moderator]

    2 replies

    Nancy OShea
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Aug 17, 2026 8:28 PM UTC

    I think you incorrectly posted this in the Stock buyer’s forum by mistake. 

    Illustrator questions belong in the Illustrator forum where product experts there will see it.

    https://community.adobe.com/p/illustrator

     

     

    Enabling East Asian Options
    • Go to Edit > Preferences > Type (Windows) or Illustrator > Preferences > Type (macOS).
    • Check the box for Show East Asian Options to unlock vertical type tools, composite fonts, and Kinsoku settings.
    • Click Enable Japanese Font Preview in the same menu if you want to see font names rendered in their native script. 
    Typing and Formatting Japanese
    • Vertical Text: Select the Vertical Type Tool from the toolbar (holding down the standard Type Tool) to type top-to-bottom. 
    • Special Japanese Layout Features: Access advanced controls via the Window menu under Type > Character or Paragraph:
      • Tate-chu-yoko: Rotates horizontal text lines inside vertical text blocks.
      • Warichu: Stacks smaller multiple lines of text for notes or parenthetical translations.
      • Mojikumi: Manages Japanese spacing and punctuation formatting rules. 

    Good luck.

     

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    Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
    yamato713108855
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Aug 17, 2026 11:36 AM UTC

    Just to confirm, is this issue related to Illustrator itself, rather than the Adobe Stock asset you downloaded?

    If you are experiencing a bug, please provide the exact versions of your operating system and the application.
    It would also be helpful to include details about the IME you are using.

    I am moving this post to the Illustrator thread.

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