Text cursor for a particular font is gigantic, making it unusable. Even at 6 pt the cursor spans the entire screen. Font was used daily for 2 years without issue. Tried reinstalling, removing cache, resetting settings, resetting character panel.

Alright, I’ll eat this one. Somehow the baseline shift was set very high, like 350pts. How did that happen? Me no know. 

BTW, this is Illustrator where the same behavior is happening for me, but I couldn’t find an Illustrator post to comment on.

Hi ​@Grinch89,

Thanks for your patience with this and for all the troubleshooting you've already tried. I've investigated this on my end with Highway Gothic Regular and can confirm the behavior you're seeing.

What I Found:

• The oversized cursor with this font does not occur in Photoshop 25.x. It displays normally there.
• The behavior starts in Photoshop 26 and later (including the current 27.9.1).

Photoshop 26 introduced an updated text engine that changed how cursor/selection height is calculated using a font's internal metrics. The older engine was more lenient; the newer one reads these values more precisely. Highway Gothic Regular (the free versions available online) has inflated vertical metric values baked into the font file, and the updated engine now honors those values where the old one did not.

So this is a behavior change on Photoshop's side, but incorrect data inside the font file itself triggers it.

• The oversized cursor is cosmetic only. It doesn't affect your actual rendered text. The output will still be the correct size, so you can continue using the font if you can work past the visual distraction.
• Look for a different digitization of Highway Gothic. Since it's a public-domain typeface (based on the U.S. Federal Highway Administration's Standard Alphabets for Highway Signs). Since it is a public-domain typeface, there are multiple digitizations:
  Overpass: a Google Fonts family inspired by Highway Gothic, with correct metrics
  Interstate (on Adobe Fonts): the professional commercial version with proper font engineering

I hope this clarifies things for you. Thanks for taking the time to report it!

Best,
Anshul Saini