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billglas
Participant
October 27, 2026
Question

Ligature disappears when printing from InDesign.

I just had a scary incident where I imported native InDesign pages into a file for imposing the pages 2-up. The original files were created by me and modified by another designer who preferred Palatino for her font rather than the Adobe Caslon Pro that I had used. The ligatures in question were the “ffi” and “ff” ligatures in Palatino—both regular and italic. Both appeared correctly on screen and when sent for proof in a pdf but disappeared when output to my HP5000 laser printer. Very frustrating after printing 125 12-page booklets that had to be fixed and reprinted: all under deadline, of course. Her Palatino was a 2006 truetype © Apple which seems to line up with what I have installed in my system (MacBook Pro 2018 running OS 15.7.9 and InDesign 21.6). I replaced the Palatino with the original font I had selected—Adobe Caslon Pro—and everything worked fine. Might be time for me to retire… Any solutions or explanations?

    3 replies

    BobLevine
    Community Expert
    BobLevineCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 27, 2026

    My best and long time advice. Export a PDF from your original InDesign files and place those instead of the INDD files. Then export a PDF of that and print from Acrobat.

    Extra steps, yes, but with fewer problems.

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    justlearn
    Community Expert
    justlearnCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 27, 2026

    ​@billglas My guess is that the issue may be related to the older Apple TrueType version of Palatino or how the printer handled that font. It's also worth checking whether multiple versions of Palatino are installed. On macOS, duplicate font versions can sometimes lead to unexpected printing behavior. I'd open Font Book, choose Resolve Duplicates, and verify which Palatino version is active. If possible, I'd use a current OpenType version of Palatino and disable older TrueType versions. The fact that Adobe Caslon Pro worked immediately suggests the problem was likely tied to the Palatino font or the printer's handling of it rather than to InDesign itself.

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    m
    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Monika GauseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 27, 2026

    How was the file output? As a PDF via Acrobat or directly? What could have happened: the printer had its own Palatino installed which then was used.

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