Inspiring

Question

Why is InDesign randomly scrambling text kerning? Is this a known bug? Workaround?

Forum|Forum|2 days ago
January 30, 2026
5 replies
80 views

Hi folks

I’m running into a display issue where InDesign scrambles text kerning. In a current project, my text can sometimes display like this:

when it should look like this. I haven’t changed anythign in the meantime.

I’m using Optical kerning. If I set kerning to Metric and back to Optical the problem disappears.

Is this connected to the current bug with text disappearing when edited? Hope this gets fixed because it’s a significant headache!

I’m using Futura family from Adobe fonts - maybe an issue with that?

Thanks
Richard

Joel Cherney

Community Expert

This part of your post makes me wonder:

>I’m using Optical kerning. If I set kerning to Metric and back to Optical the problem disappears

Is your InDesign file one that was started in an earlier version of InDesign and then upgraded to a newer version? Can you share the document? Or just delete all the pages except the one with the offending text, and post that?

The behavior you describe reminds me of other similar instances of bad text composition that I find in older INDDs started years ago, and one that is often resolved by doing a recompose to force all stories in the document to re-render. The keyboard shortcut is Control + Alt + /. If your “THIS CERTIFIES THAT” was in a text frame that was created in e.g. InDesign 2024 and you’re working on it in 2026, and haven’t made any changes to the frame in questoin, it’s possible that the frame might be rendering according the text engine from a previous version.

C

craftycurateAuthor

Inspiring

Hi Joel

The document in question was created in InDesign 2026. Also I’ve done the Ctl+Alt+/ often when the issue appears. Sometimes it resolves the issue, sometimes it doesn’t.

Also, the offending text can appear on any page - it pops up and disappears like Whack A Mole, appearig in different text frames each time. I’ve only spotted it with the version of Futura I’ve now replaced with Futura PT from Adobe Fonts so I’ll keep an eye out.

I’ve set the text back to Metric kerning for now, and also updated to a different version of Futura. I’ll keep an eye on it and post a document example back if it reoccurs.

Thanks
Richard

Joel Cherney

Community Expert

> The document in question was created in InDesign 2026.

> Also, the offending text can appear on any page - it pops up and disappears like Whack A Mole, appearig in different text frames each time.

Whack-a-Mole behavior makes me suspect document corruption. I’m not too familiar with such matters in 2026, as I deem it unstable at this point and not trustworthy for production work. The typical suggestion in cases of document corruption are “try exporting IDML and reopening” and “try moving all the pages from your document into a new, empty document” and either of those might be worth trying if the issue re-emerges. But if I were in your shoes, I’d export IDML and open it in InDesign 2024, assuming that I still had it installed.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

I’m curious about the alignment of the text. Is it justified? We had another user with a similar problem yesterday with odd spacing in his justified text, but he was, as far as I know, using metrics rather than optical kerning, and it looks like his problem was tied to some large values for allowed letter spacing in his justification settings.

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craftycurateAuthor

Inspiring

Hi Peter

My text is justified Left. Also the justification settings in the Paragraph Style have not been changed so they should be the default 0%.

THanks
Richard

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

I don’t know, but I will mention a few things, just to help narrow what you are looking for.

Futura is a macOS dfont and maybe you should avoid consciously publishing with any dfonts on macOS.

Fonts available on fonts.adobe.com include Futura PT and Futura 100.

Which of the many Futura font families are you operating?

Mike Witherell

C

craftycurateAuthor

Inspiring

Hi Mike …

Thanks for this.

Following your reply, I realised I wasn’t using the Futura PT from Adobe Fonts after all, but one I had installed from a different foundry. I’ll switch it out for one of the Adobe ones and see if I can reproduce.

Also I’m on Windows so any caveats for use on MacOS won’t apply.

THanks
Richard

Barb Binder

Community Expert

For example:

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

Barb Binder

Community Expert

Hi Richard:

Kerning is intended to adjust the space between letter pairs and tracking is used to adjust spacing within a range of text.

What happens if you reset your current kerning values and use tracking instead to accomplish your goal?

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

C

craftycurateAuthor

Inspiring

Hi Barb

Thanks for your reply. As a long-time design professional, I’m well aware of the difference between tracking and kerning. That’s not the issue here.

The issue, as outlined in my original post, is that InDesign is sometimes displaying text with scrambled kerning values without any changes by me.

Sometimes it looks as intended, sometimes, InDesign scrambles the kerning without me making any changes.

This is a text rendering issue or a font issue, and I’m trying ti find out if this is connected with a related and well-documented text rendering issue in recent versions of InDesign.

Best wishes
Richard

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