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Missing font does not appear in the project

Forum|Forum|27 days ago
August 27, 2026
13 replies
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I have a project in InDesign (PC, Win11Enterprise, i7 12th gen, 32Gb Ram, Nvidia RTX4000 12Gb graphics card).

When I open it, it says there is a font missing - Avenir Oblique (I use Avenir Regular in the document).

I open [Replace fonts]

When I click [Find First], nothing happens.

When I click [More info], it shows:

Restrictions: Unknown (font is missing)

Path: Unknown (font is missing)

Character Count: 0

Style count: 0

Pages: none.

So it implies that the font is not used … so how comes it’s “missing”? I can’t, visually, find where it is so I’m stumped and I want to get rid of this annoying pop-up … but it might mean something.

Any ideas?

Thank you,

Johnny

Correct answer J E L

@Kusumas, I had a bit more time to look into this. And @Dave Creamer of IDEAS gives you helpful ways to search for the characters. I add this to give a bit more explanation:

Avenir Oblique is likely a synthesized italic. You may have applied the I (italic) button to Avenir text instead of using a character style to apply italics. Check all italicized characters. Find/Replace does nothing because the reference is buried in a style override, not a direct font assignment. You might also use a more robust preflight profile to see what it uncovers. Just check all the boxes (except the ignore overrides) under the TEXT heading. Let us know how it goes!

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

Where did you obtain your Avenir? Did this file originally exist as a Mac file?
I can tell you that Avenir Oblique is definitely not a synthesized font. It exists.
That being said, Avenir (Truetype) is part of a truetype collection font that is part of the Mac’s System fonts. TrueType collection fonts do not translate properly to Windows, and frequently have issues because of the way Windows parses the individual styles (which is: “not well”).

Regardless, this Avenir (TT) is the same Linotype outlines as the original Type 1 versions that Adobe used to license. Apple dropped Type 1 and replaced it with this TrueType version. Meanwhile, Adobe’s original Type 1 versions were rereleased/renamed as Avenir LT Std in their OpenType Font Folio, but were for all intents and purposes the same font as the Type 1 version. Linotype since expanded the set to vastly expanded Avenir LT Pro, but since Adobe had dropped licensing these, the only “legal” place to get them was through Linotype/Monotype.

Good news, tho, Adobe Fonts is now again serving the Avenir LT Pro set.

I suggest you load those and replace all of the Avenir in your project with those. You will have a much better time going forward. As I said, the outlines and metrics are for the most part identical, but there will have been slight tweaks in the new Pro set, so you may have a bit of reflow to deal with.

J E L

Correct answer

Community Expert

@Kusumas, I had a bit more time to look into this. And @Dave Creamer of IDEAS gives you helpful ways to search for the characters. I add this to give a bit more explanation:

Avenir Oblique is likely a synthesized italic. You may have applied the I (italic) button to Avenir text instead of using a character style to apply italics. Check all italicized characters. Find/Replace does nothing because the reference is buried in a style override, not a direct font assignment. You might also use a more robust preflight profile to see what it uncovers. Just check all the boxes (except the ignore overrides) under the TEXT heading. Let us know how it goes!

K

KusumasAuthor

Known Participant

J E L - That is spot on! Perfect analysis of the situation and I thank you for it. However, the problem is not solved: I tried the more robust profile and it shows up 3 font families that were “not allowed”, resulting in, literally, hundreds of erros.

So, while this answer has sent me in the right direction, I can’t face trying to fix that lot - this is volume 4 of a book and, if it has managed to print successfully for 3 previous volumes, it’ll have to be OK for another one! ;-)

But thank you for the response - it was the correct one, I’m simply too lazy/incompetent to fully act on it.

Keep it up, you’re the best!

J E L

Community Expert

@Kusumas Hey! I wondered who marked my answer as the correct one. Thanks for the kind words!! I’m glad I gave you a direction to follow, at least for the future, if not for this document. I think it’s a good practice to apply a character style for italics and bold type instead of using Ctrl+I or Ctrl+B for this very reason. If the document prints successfully, most people ignore preflight text errors. As for me, I’m going to hunt down every error, lol. Until next, carry on!

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

For locked stories, check your Layers panel for any locked layers and objects. Be sure to look at the individual objects. Unlock them is necessary.

For conditional text, show the Conditional Text panel and see if any are hidden. Show them.

You would probably know if you are using a composite font, which are typically for other languages with complex characters, such as CJK fonts. This is unlikely.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

K

KusumasAuthor

Known Participant

A good idea but there are no locked layers.

Thank you, though - it was a helpful test.

J E L

Community Expert

Hi @Kusumas, I've had this happen before. I typically close everything down, then relaunch the Creative Cloud Desktop app and check to see if the font that's showing this error is listed in Added Fonts. If it's not, I install it or refresh it. Then, I open InDesign from Creative Cloud Desktop and open the document again. Also, I don’t see an Avenir Regular through Adobe (https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/avenir). Is this a local font you have installed?

K

KusumasAuthor

Known Participant

Oh it’s in there, alright, but it’s the LT version, not the TT. However, that should not make a difference - the font appears not to exist in the project, which is baffling. And I tried un-installing … or “Removing” and re-installing / activating.

Any further thoughts?

rob day

Community Expert

Hi @Kusumas , Have you tried replacing the missing font with Find/Replace Font?:

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Did you check to see if it’s defined in a paragraph or character style but not used in the layout?

Try checking Redefine Style When Changing All, select a replacement font, and Change All.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

K

KusumasAuthor

Known Participant

That’s a good call but, when I tried it, a message popped up saying “The selected font is applied to hidden conditional, or applied to text in a locked story, or is part of a composite font. Some instances of the font may not be found, or may not be changed”.

I don’t know what most of those conditions mean nor, therefore how to change them.

Do you understand that message? Can you explain or help?

Thank you!

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