Inspiring

Question

New Fonts Dialogue - How Can I Bing Back The Old ???

Forum|Forum|2 months ago
July 15, 2026
9 replies
70 views

A few updates ago Acrobat Pro changed the “fonts” dialogue when editing text to a new format. This has rendered it totally useless for my purposes. On my computer (Windows 11), I have installed several fonts I need to use such as the “Audi Type” and “BritishRail” and several others. These were selectable in the past and worked fine. With the “new” useless dialogue these fonts cannot be found anywhere and cannot therefore be used. Why oh why!!! ...and can the simple and effective dialogue way be brought back?? (or enabled by choice via a regkey)??.

I have found that if I enable the “Old Acrobat Interface” they come back fine and are usuable. But I have paid for and wish to use the “New Acrobat Interface” what on earth is happening here.

Please advise...

ls_rbls

Community Expert

Hi @Grand Poombah ,

You've uncovered an incredible plot twist which is a documented bug in Adobe's new experience ( modern GUI), which fails to pull locally installed TrueType / OpenType system fonts. While switching back to the legacy interface seems to bring back the old engine.

My unsolicited advice:

If this is affecting your workflow in a such a way that it disrupts your work requirements, you may permanently disabled the new GUI via registry key until the Adobe team provides a fix.

As for the Microsoft Word side of the house:

Adobe has been announcing the sunsetting / end of support of Postscript Type 1 fonts since 2021.

In which case, it remains visible for screen or print but such text cannot be edited without a font substitute or replacement.

Therefore, the users remain unaware that what is really happening is the app substituting the typography to a look-alike font foundry.

To overcome this, you must create the Word document as a template (.dotx) and set the desired font type as default (CTRL + D on Windows, CMD + A on macOS, opens directly that Font dialog in Word) => Click on the Set As Default button => click OK => and save. Making sure that the default font style(s) is indeed a vetified TrueType or OpenType font.

Then, instead of saving as PDF use the "Create PDF" tool from the Acrobat tool ribbon in Word. In the dialog that will open up you must also tick the box "Create PDF/UA-1 compliant file"

Alternatively , you may also select a high quality print preset that enforces PDF/A or High Quality Print embedding.

This method will force 100% font embedding on all your exports.

NOTE: This can also be set through the Acrobat Preferences settings.

You will notice that your exported PDFs wilk look identical on Acrobat , macOS Preview, web browsers, and mobile devices.

I hope this helps.

Technical Generalist

D

DFWTechGuy

Participating Frequently

This sounds more like an issue with the new Acrobat font menu than the fonts themselves. There is a recent Adobe Community thread with the same behavior where installed fonts are recognized in Windows and even in Acrobat's font settings, but don't appear when editing text in the new interface.

Since you already confirmed the fonts work when New Acrobat is disabled, I'd report it with your exact Acrobat version and Windows version. Adobe is currently looking into similar reports.

For now, the old interface appears to be the practical workaround. Acrobat's current documentation also confirms that installed system fonts should be available when editing PDF text.

Amal Jaiswal

Community Manager

@Grand Poombah , thank you for your patience while we continue to look into this.

Our engineering team is keen to understand the issue in more detail, and it would really help their investigation if we could get a short screen recording showing the steps you take and the issue as it occurs. Would you be able to share one with us when you have a moment?

We appreciate your help.

Regards

Amal

G

Grand PoombahAuthor

Inspiring

The version I am using is: 2026.001.21691 (latest). I have repaired the installation, uninstalled and re-installed the installation, taken part is a remote desktop session with an Adobe tech who ruined my system - terrible experience. Rebooted lots of times. Support confirms that what I see is an “issue” but cannot say whether it will be fixed. It is hard for me to create a video but the issue is so easy to replicate and anyone, including Adobe, have witnessed the issue.

So how to recreate the issue. Create a Word document with some test text using Arial font. Save this Word document as a PDF file.

Open the PDF file, choose Edit PDF, select the text in Arial font, use the font drop down menu and look for the font you want to use, in my case, for example, “Audi Type” or “RailwayATOC” or “Fira Sans” or “Meta Normal” or “UK Number Plate”, all of these fonts are installed on Windows 11 (10.0.26200.8655) - latest version), and with the new dialogue you cannot find any of these valid .TTF fonts. Before the new font dialogue was introduced (two months ago) you would see a flat list and they were all available.

The above is for the “New Acrobat” experience, not the “Old Acrobat” experience. If I switch back to the “Old Acrobat Experience” the font list is still a flat list and this is therefore a workaround for now (although I pay for Acrobat Pro and expect to be able to use the “New Acrobat Experience” to do my work. Plus Adobe will remove the “Old Acrobat” option at some future date.

I attach screenshots of the flat fonts menu (fine) and the new category fonts menu in which none of my Windows fonts are available.

Very conclusive and easy to see/replicate - this issue is extremely restrictive and renders the product useless for me, B.T.W. two of Acrobat’s competitors do this perfectly.

Amal Jaiswal

Community Manager

Hi there

Thanks for sharing the details. I have logged the ticket with the engineering team to further look into this issue. I will keep this thread updated as soon as I get any information to share.

Thanks for your understanding.

~Amal

Amal Jaiswal

Community Manager

Hi @Grand Poombah

Hope you are doing well and thanks for reaching out. We are sorry for the trouble you are experiencing.

Please check the correct answer marked in the similar discussion https://adobe.ly/4aXl04V and see if that helps.

Let us know if you are referring to something else.

~Amal

G

Grand PoombahAuthor

Inspiring

It absolutely does not answer my problem, the issue I have is that fonts installed under windows 11 DO NOT SHOW AT ALL in the new fonts dialogue, the article you referred me to suggests they should show under “ Fonts on your computer “ but only Adobe ones show here not windows ones. In the old dialogue and indeed if you switch to “old” acrobat they all show up. This is totally unacceptable and stops me from working - for example I have Audi Type installed in Windows and it used to show in Acrobat and work fine. It does not show under any circumstances now. Hopeless. The login list was fine…

Amal Jaiswal

Community Manager

Hi there

Thankyou for confirming that.

Have you started experiencing this issue recently after an update or was it occurring earlier as well? What is the version of the Acrobat application you are using? Go to Help > About Acrobat and make sure its updated to the latest version 26.001.21691 Planned update, Jun 25, 2026 go to Help > Check for updates and reboot the computer once.

If it still doesn’t work, please share a small video recording of the steps you are taking and the issue as it occurrs for further isolating the issue for the fix.

~Amal

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