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Answered

Fonts changing in files when opened in Illustrator 29.5.1

Forum|Forum|8 months ago
May 10, 2025
68 replies
46053 views

I've experienced this twice now, both times in the last month. I design beer labels and I'll often open an older label and use it as the template for a new one. When I open the older file (an .AI file), it will load, and most of the live text will have switched to a different font arbitrarily. Some fonts switch to OTHER typefaces that exist in the same document, others switch to different weights of the same font, and still others switch to defaults like times and myriad. Some of the switched fonts are stored locally, and others are served via Adobe Fonts. The file does this consistently even after I've restarted illustrator and restarted my computer.

I've attached a screenshot of one of the files with its original fonts (from an outlined version for print), as well as a shot with the changed fonts.

Has anyone else experienced this?

System:

2022 Mac Studio M1 Max

MacOS Sonoma 14.6.1

Illustrator v 29.5.1

Correct answer Anubhav M

Hello everyone,

Our team has attempted to resolve this issue in the latest Illustrator 30.x and 29.x releases. Kindly update to the latest version of Illustrator and try opening your files to see if the problem persists.

Anubhav

Show previous replies

blairr20152766

New Participant

This just happened to me (strangely, while designing a wine label)! I am certain that it's not a mistake that I made, because I pasted the labels as smart objects into Photoshop directly from Illustrator, and those are all fine and perfect.

I can't figure it out but fixing it manually is going to take hours. My Illustrator is up to date as is my OS.

2021 MacBook Pro

MacOS Sequoia 15.5

Illustrator v 29.6.1

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Martin_Wilson747

Participating Frequently

I am not sure that a paying customer should be investing our time and money testing software for an international company for free? The affected agencies as far as I know have not been offered any discount on the flawed software that has already cost us time and money. This is still an issue that you do not understand or you would not ask us to do this! Very unprofessional. If our 5 person team operated like this our clients would leave. Just fix it and test it and release the update as you are payed to do. Also update us on the credit for the buggy software.

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leem40537325

New Participant

This just happened to us, so what do we do just not create anything until the bug might get fixed this month. I use this program for my business.

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Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello everyone,

Our product team has tried fixing this issue in the latest Illustrator Beta 29.7.0.88 release. Would you mind installing/updating to the latest Illustrator to check if it helps resolve the problem?

Looking forward to your feedback.
Anubhav

Alexander Rott

Known Participant

We have been running into this issue at our company. I just tried opening a known file that we've been running into the font issue and opening with the Beta resolved the issue. It even "fixed" a file that i had saved in where the fonts had randomly shuffled around.

We use Extensis Connect for our font managment system and use a variety of Mac computers. The issue has occured on Apple Silicon and Intel macs.

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anemonfort

Participating Frequently

Yup, I had exactly this problem today. I tried restoring an earlier version of the file from my dropbox and it was also corrupted. Feeling betrayed, and terribly afraid to open any file now. Does reverting back to an earlier version of Illustrator help in the meantime?

I actually had a similar thing happen in InDesign several months ago and haven't updated the version since then.

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anemonfort

Participating Frequently

I haven't had this problem since the first time... but a new one popped up last night in the same file when it came time to save. It would stall out with a message that was approximately "save is happening in the background" which would take forever, and I would click "stop", and then it would do nothing for a bit and then apparently finish the save (but it would do the asterisk thing next to the file name that indicates there were unsaved changes). Then it would shortly later a message would pop up with a "not enough memory to preview" and kick it into outline mode. The file isn't that big. I eventually reverted back to the version of illustrator that was working before the update 2 weeks ago (29.6). Haven't had another problem yet, but did have to spend time resetting all of my interface preferences.

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anemonfort

Participating Frequently

New problem... illustrator 29.6 - was typing to add a word and a few characters in it randomly swapped which words were bolded. All I was doing was typing, no key commands or anything to change the style. See video of it happening.

adobe-illustrator_issue1.zip

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neil_3101

New Participant

Yes, i got the same problem as well. had to rework the whole thing. Fonts changing at will. even the horizontal scaling is being put to make fonts look more ugly. its like some evil bug

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leem40537325

New Participant

the new beta version did not fix the text issue

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for sharing your concerns so openly. I completely understand how disruptive this issue has been, especially when it impacts important projects and deadlines.

I've checked with the product team, and they've confirmed that there was a bug logged for this issue and this is tentatively planned to be fixed in the upcoming July release. I'll make sure to keep you posted if there are any changes in the plan.

I really appreciate your patience and understanding.

Abhishek

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B-Planit

Participating Frequently

I spent an entire day with this exact issue. Very frustrating indeed. I have never encountered such a pain in the a..... bug in my life and I have been using illustrator for a very long time.

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Martin_Wilson747

Participating Frequently

Adobe must not be silent on this. Under Australian consumer law the program is not fit for purpose! They must NOT charge us while the program is not functioning. Everyone needs to request a refund for the time. There stuff up could cost Agencies thousands of dollars!!

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bernadetteh30812887

New Participant

This is a similar recurring issue as above after updating to v 29.6.1. Opening a file I worked on yesterday after most recent update this morning, and the usual Avenir fonts in file have adjusted in different weights and some changed to Barlow, as well as when I go to update live text the font will change to Barlow. Please fix!

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Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @bernadetteh30812887,

Our product team is aware of the problem and is currently investigating it. I will update this thread as I have more info.
In the meantime, kindly upvote this UserVoice (https://adobe.ly/4eASzue) and add your comments there. Doing this will help prioritize the problem, and you will be notified of any updates.

Feel free to reach out if you have more questions or need assistance. We'd be happy to help.

Anubhav

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k9tag

Participating Frequently

Anubhav, the link above goes to some strange Xpost thing, and I can't comment there. Please send the fixers here to look for comments and proritize based on what they read here.

Illustrator 29.6.1 changes all of the fonts in my artwork. Randomly. On its own. An absolutely horrifying bug in a program that I have been using without issues since the 1990s. This current bug ruins days worth of work, requiring a total redo of the work. I reverted to 29.4 and that DID NOT fix the issue with the file that was ruined by 29.6.1. All of the fonts were still randomly substituted, and the file is unusable. I can get work done now in 29.4, but why am I paying for any further upgrades?

Illustrator 29.6.1 is unusable worldwide until this problem is fixed. That should be a little concerning to the development team there. An immediate worldwide stop should be issued, and 29.5.whatever and 29.6.whatever should be removed as options for download. My advice to everyone: Don't even think about upgrading to 29.6.1. You will regret it. I have currently dropped back to 29.4 and stopped auto update on ALL of my Adobe products until this is resolved. I advise everyone to do the same. Adobe please let us know here when this terrible bug is fixed, and don't refer us elsewhere to get priority to fix what you broke.

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for sharing detailed feedback and sample files. I understand how disruptive this issue has been, especially for workflows that depend on font precision.

I've shared the reports and assets with our product team and am actively checking this with them. I'll update the thread as soon as I hear back with any findings or next steps.

Appreciate your patience in the meantime.

Abhishek

K

k9tag

Participating Frequently

Illustrator 29.6 has, apparently permanently, randomly changed all of the fonts for work compiled over three days in my illustrator file.

1) The document was created using the fonts that we have been using FOREVER. When I opened the document today, each of the fonts in the file was randomly changed to a different font. To get back where we were, we have to open the document and change the thousands of instances of the various fonts back to the correct fonts. This is a collossal disaster. We have never seen an issue as bad as this with Illustrator.

2) I can open similar files from last week, and all of the fonts look fine, but I don't dare resave them with 29.6.

3) It's not like the fonts dissapeared from my system and Illustrator can't find them. What is happening is this ... I do all of my work with the correct fonts, save the illustrator file, and the next time I open the file, all of the fonts have changed, even though the original fonts are still on the system. Illustrator is changing things in my file, randomly, on its own. Terrifying.

This disaster needs an immediate fix. Is there any hope that my file can be re-opened in a different way, and somehow, magically, the fonts that I used in the first place will be there and this nighmare will end? Or is the only solution for me to redo the three days of work?

If I do have to redo the work, I have no trust for this 29.6 version of Illustrator, but I have no knowledge of how to downgrade to a previous version that may work. Can anyone help me with how to do that?

This bug is SO BAD, it makes me wonder if there has been some kind of sabotage or external virus that has infected the program? This has to be happening to everyone.

This is Illustrator 29.6. On a PC. Doing some really devastating things to my work. Any help appreciated.

HARSHIKA_VERMA

Community Manager

Hi k9tag

We understand how frustrating it could be and apologize for the frustration. However, the team is working hard to investigate the issue. Would you mind submitting the details requested by Abhishek? This will help the product team test multiple files for better investigation.

We are actively monitoring the issue and will keep you posted on any further updates.

Appreciate your patience.

Thanks,

Harshika

Lorenzo MENHIR PACKAGING

Participating Frequently

At the office we have the exact same problem. The file reopens with the completely wrong fonts. The latest version 29.6 does NOT fix the bug. Going back to 29.4 everything goes back to normal. This is a very serious problem and you risk making a mess if you don't notice it right away.

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Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @9155860 I. - MENHIR, @Martin_Wilson747,

Would you mind trying the following steps and checking if it helps:

Close all Adobe applications
Remove the Creative Cloud Desktop application, CCLibrary, and CoreSync using the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool (https://adobe.ly/463dN1m)
Reinstall the Creative Cloud Desktop application (https://adobe.ly/4n8Luof)
Relaunch Illustrator

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

Lorenzo MENHIR PACKAGING

Participating Frequently

OK, let's start again.
I’m here to report (and echo what many others have already pointed out) a critical and frankly unacceptable bug in Illustrator 2025 – specifically in versions 29.5 and 29.6 – where fonts are randomly changed upon reopening a file. This does not happen in version 29.4 or earlier, which confirms it’s a regression introduced in recent updates.

In my case, I work in pharmaceutical artwork – where precision is mandatory, not optional. A bug like this isn’t just inconvenient, it’s dangerous. Random font substitutions can lead to regulatory issues and massive repercussions.

What’s worse is Adobe support’s typical scripted response: “Please uninstall everything, delete all preferences, reinstall Illustrator, and maybe, just maybe, it will stop happening.”

Sorry, but that’s not a real fix. You seriously expect an entire office to waste hours (if not days) doing complete reinstalls on multiple machines because you introduced a regression?

How about acknowledging the issue properly and pushing out a real fix instead of telling professionals to perform voodoo IT rituals in hopes of a miracle?

This needs immediate escalation.

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