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Participating Frequently
February 12, 2026
Answered

InDesign Not Recognizing Calibri After Windows Update

  • February 12, 2026
  • 35 replies
  • 7055 views

Hi,

Getting an issue with indesign and not recognising the calibri system font installed. 

From what I can see, there’s a new version of calibri with a latest windows update. V6.26 > V6.27.

 

 

 

Myself and colleagues are effected, and this is spanning across a lot of our documents. Replacing the font does not fully solve the issue as any forms text fields will not update to the font box.

 

 

I’ve seen a similar post regarding this with the same issue on times new roman which is marked as resolved but it most certainly not.
 

 

FYI, installing calibri via adobe fonts does not work, we are getting a conflict likely due to it already being a system font.

 

We also running the latest version of indesign.

 

Any help on this?

    Correct answer Abhishek Rao

    Hi everyone,

     

    Thank you all again for your patience and for continuing to share your observations on this issue. I wanted to share a quick update that the fix for the Calibri/Times New Roman font recognition issue after the Windows updates is now available in the latest InDesign v21.4 Prerelease build.

    If you are not part of the Prerelease program, you can join using the links below:
    https://blog.developer.adobe.com/how-to-join-creative-cloud-prerelease-programs-ccecc10ae7d3
    https://www.adobeprerelease.com/beta/C6DFA254-C40C-4EEB-8F6D-F4AEDA2E6171
    https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/invitation-to-indesign-prerelease/td-p/12371924

    Once installed, please test your affected documents and share your observations. If you still notice the issue, do let me know along with your document details so I can take it further with the team.

     

    Thanks again for all your patience and support while the team worked through this.

    Abhishek

     

     

    <Marking as correct for better visibility on the thread>

    35 replies

    mjcarver1
    Participating Frequently
    February 16, 2026

    We’re dealing with this same issue on a company-wide level, and Calibri is a standard font in almost all of our document templates. 

    Participating Frequently
    February 16, 2026

    Thanks for the replies on this post everyone.

    It seems its just something we’ll have to navigate around as its an adobe > windows, windows > adobe issue. To answer some Q’s I’ve seen. Using latest version of indesign, files do not have a documents folder next to it. 

    Im unable to rollback on updates as I have no control over company IT/Security policies, and would seem silly just for the sake of one font. Unable to delete the microsoft font either even with admin (does well to be mates with IT teams) as its a system font.

    We can update the font to the 6.27 version of calibri in our documents, and go through the ballache of manually recreating the text fields. if only we could charge Adobe/Microsoft for time.

     

    Martin25454047nae4
    Participant
    February 14, 2026

    I just discovered that I have the same problem with Calibri, and I’m using InDesign 2025 - this might be an important detail since some people have mentioned that the problem is limited to InDesign 2026 and can be solved with an downgrade of files.

     

    And one more detail: The problem appeared after the installation of a small security update (KB5077181, 26100.7840) on February 13th and before the installation of Windows 11, version 25H2. So the problem seems to be the security update, not version 25H2.

    Dave Creamer of IDEAS
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 14, 2026

    Definitely not 25H2 as I am using that. (Showing the updates this year.)

     

    David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
    Inspiring
    February 16, 2026

    It's definitely not 25H2 because I didn't have this problem until a week ago. My marathon session with Copilot showed security updates in Windows can affect fonts:

    Security Patches: Security updates sometimes address vulnerabilities in how Windows handles fonts (e.g., OpenType or TrueType font drivers). These patches can unintentionally cause font corruption, blurry text, or make certain fonts unusable.

    Abhishek Rao
    Community Manager
    Community Manager
    February 13, 2026

    Hi everyone,

     

    Thank you again for your patience and for sharing all the details so far. I’m currently checking this internally with the product team. We’re trying to determine whether multiple versions or different outline formats of Calibri might be installed after the recent Windows updates, which could be causing the conflict in InDesign.

    If possible, please check whether more than one Calibri variant is installed on your system, such as different OTF or TTF versions, and let us know what you find. Also, could you confirm whether the issue started right after a specific Windows update? If feasible, please try temporarily rolling back that update and check whether the behavior changes.

    Your observations will help us narrow this down further.

     

    Looking forward to your update.

    Abhishek

    Legend
    February 13, 2026

    All in the screenshots of the original posting:

    The old version 6.26 with the name now bearing the suffix (OTF) to differentiate it from the system font would be the missing “used font” record from the document remembering type Opentype TT, while the newer system font now is 6.27 with type TT.

    Here one Windows 11 machine with a clean install from past October, I still got 6.26 and it dates back to 2024(!) like all the other fonts. The fonts are copies in a separate folder to see them as files with time stamp.
     

     

    @Tom25894182epyt already mentioned the version bump but missed the change of the type.

    Weeding out duplicates between installed fonts makes sense in general but it is unlikely here.

    Participating Frequently
    February 13, 2026

    For Windows 11, I downloaded the Calibri fonts from Adobe and saved them to the Windows font app (Type in “Font” into the search bar and drag the fonts over where shown), and shut off my computer overnight. This morning, the replace all option worked to replace the Calibri OTF fonts with normal Calibri fonts which had not worked prior to me adding the font. The only issue now is that I have to manually bold text in headings and defined terms.  This is a good patch I think but let me know if it works for others.  It could be a plot to stop such a woke font :)

    Participating Frequently
    February 13, 2026

    I am having the same issue and wasted almost 2 hours of billable time with two separate Adobe customer service reps who could not figure this out. Is it definitely tied to a Windows update and not an InDesign update?  I have never used Calibri (OTF) fonts, and I can still go through and replace those fonts with the original Calibri fonts but have to reformat for bold, etc. So tired of updates costing me money…..

    BobLevine
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 13, 2026

    Nobody knows the cause just yet. I’ve asked a few workflow questions that nobody has answered.

    Is there a crossplatform workflow going on here? Is everyone on the exact same version of InDesign? Were files packaged with a document fonts folder?

    BobLevine
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 13, 2026

    Question: Are any of the users involved here working on Mac? I wonder if there’s a mix of the Windows system font and perhaps a Mac user who may have added the Calibri font through Adobe Fonts.

    Is that a possibility?

    Participating Frequently
    February 17, 2026

    On Mac, it also loads Indesign files containing Calibri with a missing fonts message. It certainly doesn't indicate OTF, like it does in Windows Indesign, but that's the only difference. I didn't install Calibri from Adobe Fonts, (nor third party provider) and the Adobe version isn't added at the moment. It's worked so far, I've been working with these files for years.

     

    VenturaStarter
    Participant
    February 13, 2026

    The problem is InDesign.
    I opened the same document in version 21.2 and version 20.5.2. In the latter, Calibri fonts are fine. It's probably the same with Times New Roman (I haven't checked).
    So I'm waiting for a new version of InDesign (and another shakeup after the one last month when there was no Undo history and when text became invisible until you moved the screen).
    InDesign is a good tool, but lately we've been getting very unfinished versions. Where are the months of testing new features...

    Participating Frequently
    February 17, 2026

    Unfortunately, it still doesn't work for me, even after installing version Indesign 20.5.2, meaning it shows the same "error", missing Calibri (OTF). This is a big problem for us, because we have to use Calibri in the brand of one of our main clients (this is tens of thousands of pages of design and flowing text).

    Dave Creamer of IDEAS
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 12, 2026

    My Calibri fonts do not show up with the (OTF) as part of the file name (nor do I remember ever have the OTF in the file name). Can you confirm that version of Calibri was not installed from a third-party site?

    David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
    BobLevine
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 13, 2026

    Same. This really does sound like a crossplatform issue where a Mac user substituted the Adobe Fonts version instead of the file being packaged with a document fonts folder.

    Without further clarification from those seeing it, it’s impossible to know and there’s no way to add that font to Windows from Adobe fonts without deleting the Microsoft version first.

    Neil Elektra
    Participant
    February 12, 2026

    i also have this. I discovered that the 2025 verson of indesign still works, so we are using this old version for now. Its quite annoying though, as we have been using 2026 for a while so every time we open a file we need to convert it to the old 2025 format

    the fact that 2025 still works and still finds the fonts shows clearly that the fonts are there and installed, but it is InDesign 2026 that does not work. 

    Legend
    February 13, 2026

    Sounds like one possible solution. One theory without deep look:

    When you down-convert a document thru the online conversion service, the particular font might not be installed on the conversion machine. It will then be expressed in a neutral form, similar to placing a word file with that font on a machine that does not have the font.

    This would be close to an IDML roundtrip on a local machine that does not have the font in either version, difficult for a system font unless you go cross platform.

    Re-opening the new down-versioned file on your local machine then discovers the new font version, and accepts it on that turn. Maybe the info is even adjusted to become more specific, on first edit or later? Don’t know.

    Anyway, please try and tell us: when you reopen the new 2025 copy (or a copy) in 2026, could be that this conversion persists and you can continue with 2026.

    Reflow issues because of changed font characteristics will still remain, 2026 features stripped, but you could have discovered a solution for many cases. If it works that way, maybe ​@Abhishek Rao or his team can repurpose the downgrade process to a 2026 - 2026 font cleanup?

    Many if-s and may-bees, I know.

    Neil Elektra
    Participant
    February 13, 2026

    I’ll be honest, i didn’t follow a lot of this. However the gist of it was: you suggested opening the file with old 2025 version (lets be precise here: i opened with 20.5.1 x64), which forced it to convert. Then i saved it. 
    Then i opened with new 2026 version (which is 21.2 x64) and it worked - found the font, all its good. Saved it, opened again in 2026, it worked again. Hurrah. Thanks !