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_bilglas_
Participant
June 16, 2007
Question

Missing Fonts

  • June 16, 2007
  • 128 replies
  • 39975 views
There are fonts installed on my system, which are available in Word, CorelDraw, and other applications, but they do NOT show up, at all, in the fonts list of ANY CS2 application ... InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator. This situation might be true of OTHER fonts, but the only ones I'm conscious of are the basic four variations of Arial Narrow, and Arial Black. (Arial Black Oblique is ALSO installed, and it IS available.)

These EXACT SAME fonts WERE available in Adobe applications, as long as I was using XP. Now that I've switched to Vista, they've ceased to function.

I've tried reinstalling these fonts and rebooting. What else can I do?

Thanks!

bilglas
    This topic has been closed for replies.

    128 replies

    A
    Anonymous
    July 19, 2010

    I just had to login to thank Mauro for providing clear instructions (that also worked) on how to resolve this missing font issue.  As someone in the thread (or another I was perusing on the same topic) the Microsoft Hotfix was not a fix for those of us who do not and have not ever used Office 2007.

    I'm so grateful to people like Mauro who publish their findings so that those of us who need an answer do not have to recreate a working solution!

    Marj Wyatt

    V
    VitAl2013
    Participant
    June 18, 2013

    ID CS6, MSoffice 2010, Win7x64 - the same problems. Old solutions not work.

    C
    ClusterX
    Participating Frequently
    August 11, 2013

    I found a solution for myself. Regenerate in ttf by defalt all 4 arial narrow fonts with Fontlab Studio without any changes to fonts info or structure. Then install them into system (Windows/Fonts). Clean old arial narrows files before. Then do search for adobefnt*.lst on system disk. Delete those files (only .lst not .db or any other). Great! Works perfectly in all adobe apps! Shows all names in arial family submenue.

    Y
    yelm
    Inspiring
    July 18, 2009

    Ok, now I'm having this issue too- using the CS3 suite on 64 bit vista. I've identified a couple of strange things, and I wonder if it's causing the problem?

    1. when you look at the system fonts (in the control panel) ARIALNB.TTF is being listed as "open type" even though it is definitely a true type font.

    2. if you do a search for ARIALNB.TTF (for example) on the C drive, the computer can't find that file -- even though it is definitely there in the system fonts folder.

    this leads me to wonder if those two issues are related - since Adobe products can't find the font files. however, I don't know how to use this info to possibly solve the problem.

    any thoughts?

    -b

    A
    Anonymous
    March 31, 2009
    @ssuzanne:

    i've been publishing in windows for along time...i've had to watch things like file path length and limited memory for fonts and so i have all of my fonts in a folder outside of the system folder and organized by font type:

    c:\fonts\ttf
    c:\fonts\ps
    c:\fonts\otf

    so luckily for me, all i had to do was make a shortcut in the CS fonts directory:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Fonts

    to

    c:\fonts\ps\

    and now when i open my adobe apps (except for the 64-bit version of Photoshop, but you use CS3 so thats not an issue on your system), i get all of my type 1 fonts.

    make no mistake, this is a hack and bad one. you can't manage your type 1 fonts (i have 1,000+ type 1 faces), and i'm sure this is a memory drain on the system. but it works.
    _
    _ssuzanne_
    Participant
    March 31, 2009
    Hi Christopher,

    Can you give me a step by step on how you got the fonts loaded into the CS folders. I have CS3 running on a new Windows XP 64 bit cpu.

    I would love to see my postscript fonts in Adobe programs if possible.
    (They show up in Word and PPT...but no Adobe component).
    There is no choice but to use this OS, and I use Adobe all day long.

    I do not have ATM installed, but just used Windows install.
    I would like mine to work like yours, if I can...

    Thanks,

    Stephanie
    M
    Adobe Employee
    MatthewLaun
    Adobe Employee
    March 30, 2009
    Paul,
    Search for "Arial Narrow" in our Knowedgebase at adobe.com/support and you'll find this doc:
    "Arial Narrow font not available or incomplete in Creative Suite applications (Windows)" (kb402845)
    http://www.adobe.com/go/kb402845

    The solution is in there.

    Matt
    _
    _Paul_S_Cooper_
    Participant
    March 30, 2009
    In a clean installation of Windows Vista 64 and Adobe InDesign CS4 we have found that we have lost all functionality of at least several OPENTYPE style fonts, too. These includes Arial Narrow, which when we check out previous documents created under CS3 with the same font, now only register the italic and bold faces. The regular face when input into a document only shows up with the bold face and will not change. Any ideas beyond fully uninstalling InDesign CS4 and reinstalling that component of the suite over again, in the hope that it will re-register the correct font locations to the application? HELP!
    BobLevine
    Community Expert
    BobLevineCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 30, 2009
    Did you read this entire thread?

    Bob
    J
    j_raymond
    Participating Frequently
    March 26, 2009
    It looks to me like it is a combination of things going on...

    Since (in MY case) everything works fine in CS, but NOT CS2, it appears there was a fundamental shift in the way the fonts were handled in CS2 over CS and that this has been continued to today for CS4.

    Also, the appearance that it seems to raise its ugly head when XP SP3 is installed tells me there is also a Microsoft element to the blame.

    Whatever the case, I hope SOMEONE takes responsibility for it and FIXES IT! Not having access to certain fonts on my system is very frustrating when I can use them in every other application EXCEPT Adobe's.
    A
    Anonymous
    March 26, 2009
    From: http://www.geek.com/articles/review/adobe-creative-suite-4-cs4-master-collection-wrap-up-2009012/

    "For some extremely weird reason, CS4 applications running on a 64-bit operating system are incapable of loading Type 1 fonts installed in Windows. TrueType and OpenType fonts have no issues at all, but the Adobe Type 1 format is ignored altogether. How strange is it that an Adobe application cannot play nice with an Adobe file format? There is, however, a workaround: Type 1 fonts need to be installed to the C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Fonts folder to be read by CS4 applications. And fortunately, through experimentation, I found that shortcuts work just as well, so the original font files can be kept where they are. This hurdle completely nullifies the functionality of a font management tool like Extensis Suitcase when it involves Type 1 fonts. And, to make matters worse, the 64-bit version of Photoshop does not use the same Common Files directory, and Type 1 fonts need to be installed in yet another location to be recognized in 64-bit mode."
    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    March 26, 2009
    The article is dead wrong in two aspects:

    (1) Adobe has not supported any applications in Windows XP 64-bit.

    (2) There were known problems with CS3 applications seeing Type 1 fonts that are installed in the system font directory (but not those installed in the CS fonts directory) under Windows Vista 64-bit. This problem was fully resolved with CS4 in conjunction with Windows Vista 64-bit (including the Photoshop's 64-bit version!).

    We cannot vouch for what happens when you use third party font managers such as Extensis Suitcase.

    - Dov
    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    A
    Anonymous
    March 26, 2009
    @Dov Isaacs:

    Sorry, but i have the same issues with Adobe products not seeing Type 1 installed fonts on a clean install of WinXP 64, completely updated running updated versions of CS4 Design Premium applications.

    All of my other applications can use all of my installed fonts which means that its 99.999999% likely that this is a problem with Adobe's CS4 products, not the operating system.

    Tech support at Extensis says this is a well-known issue with CS4 products on the WIn XP 64 platform.

    The first step to solving a problem is to admit that you have one ;-)
    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    March 26, 2009
    Adobe applications explicitly are not supported on Windows XP 64-bit. CS4 is supported on Windows Vista 64-bit.

    - Dov
    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    J
    j_raymond
    Participating Frequently
    March 23, 2009
    I thought I had found something, but it didn't pan out. When I went to the fonts folder and tried to view the ArialMT Bold font, nothing showed up.

    So I deleted all 4 of the fonts and re-installed from the network folder I keep the backup in. I tried it again and got the text in the window. Then I reloaded the lists but it still isn't showing up.

    Peter,

    Not sure where I got the Arial MT family from. I usually only bought Adobe fonts, but this might have been an exception.
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