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A
Andrew Mikelsons
Inspiring
December 13, 2023
Question

Can't change fonts

  • December 13, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 1240 views

I created an InDesign file by "placing" a Word document into ID. It's called "Chapter 2." I open up the file today and get an error message: 

 

No matter what I try the fonts won't change. 

I've tried: 

i) downloading the fonts and installing them into the Mac operating system - didn't fix the problem

ii) tried the "Replace Fonts" feature - didn't fix the problem

 

Does anyone have a solution?

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
December 13, 2023

If the fonts in question are very old Adobe 'Type 1' fonts, Adobe apps stopped using them as of the start of 2023, after years of warnings to that effect. Reinstalling or updating the fonts won't help. You need to replace them with, or substitute, more modern font (file) types such as OTF.

 

Since the fonts in Word are largely irrelevant in an import, I'd suggest changing the fonts there to standard, modern ones (such as Cambria and Calibri) and then re-importing the file, using the Import Options menu (a checkbox in the file-list menu that appears) to remap them to your InDesign styles.

 

You may want to purge your system and setup of any Type 1 fonts if you plan to work with Adobe docs. There are updated equivalents of nearly all of them.

    A
    Andrew MikelsonsAuthor
    Inspiring
    December 13, 2023

    ID is telling me....

     

     

    My OS is telling me they are both TrueType. 

    However, 

    Big Caslon, Medium = there is no italic listed in OS

    Cochon Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic = there is no Medium listed in OS

     

     

     

     

    Andrew MikelsonsAndy Fairchild Publishing Inc.
    James Gifford—NitroPress
    James Gifford—NitroPress
    Legend
    December 14, 2023

    This is a common occurrence any time a font is changed, or a document is moved from one platform (Word) to another (InDesign), or to opened on a different system. A font — more specifically, a font face such as Bold or Italic — has to exist on the working system for InDesign to be able to use that font variation.

     

    If System A has Moogly Bold installed and it's used in a doc, but the doc is then opened on System B, which doesn't have Moogly Bold installed... you'll get this font error.

     

    If you set a style to Moogly and then use Moogly Oblique, Moogly Bold and Moogly Demi in your formatting, and then switch the font for that style to Stookie, which doesn't have Oblique or Demi faces... you'll get this font error.

     

    But the most common cause of this is importing Word files that use fonts with limited or missing faces, such as the many that have only one, base, 'normal' face. What many Word users never realize is that Word fakes bold and italic if there's no available face for those variations. You can use Impact, a one-face display font, and Word will happily italicise and bold it (for, by the way, horrible results). But if you import that document into a more precise tool that requires actual font faces... you'll get this error.

     

    The only solutions are to install the full set of faces for a font, if they exist, or change the font usage to a font that has the required set of faces. The Find/Replace Font menu is specifically for managing the latter kinds of fixups.

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