Duplicate fonts in Find/Replace menu

[Tom231565855cek]

My group has been experiencing problems with how InDesign is handling fonts. We have been in the process of updating our company literature from a legacy unsupported font to the Open Sans variable font family. The problem we're having is that every instance of a typeface weight is appearing as its own line item in Find/Replace Font window. For instance, Open Sans - Regular is appearing 11 times.

- If I select two text boxes that contain the same font weight, the Character panel appears blank as though it is selecting two different fonts, if I select each individually, it will show that the same font is loaded. There is only one instance of the font in the character font menu.
- There are no stylesheets set, every instance points to the same file location in windows browser.

- Selecting all and hitting Change All doesn't reduce the number shown.

- Checking/Unchecking "Redefine Style When Changing All" doesn't have any effect either. - Preflight Panel shows no errors

- I've attempted uninstalling and reinstalling both InDesign and the font file, no change

- I've tried uninstalling and installing direct from Adobe Fonts, no change

- All users are running InDesign 18.2.1

[Peter Spier]

Try resetting the prefs. See Reset InDesign Preferences and Other Troubleshooting 

[Bill Silbert]

It sounds like the fonts you are using are Adobe fonts. Problems with these fonts can be fixed by deactivating them in the Creative Cloud Desktop app and then signing out of your Creative Cloud account and then signing in again. Once you've signed in again try activating the font that has been giving you a problem and see if it works correctly now. If it does not then try redownloading it from the Adobe website. If an Adobe font is correctly installed you should see a cloud icon with a checkmark in it to the right of the font name in InDesign's font list.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I had this problem with a legacy doc that kept reporting Type 1 fonts no matter what I did; there was some kind of subterranean linkage between variants of one font. (One face of one font, actually, so I always saw two instances of Stone Sans Semibold.) It took an IDML-to-INDD purge to fix it.

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi @Tom231565855cek ,

I am following up on this case. Have the suggestions shared above helped? If not, please confirm the version of InDesign & OS, and is it happening with a specific file or multiple files?

Thanks

Rishabh

[Tom231565855cek]

It turns out that over time, different users had installed Open Sans from different sources (Google fonts, the main alternate source) as both a variable and fixed face. Collecting fonts and sharing files had compounded the issue by duplicating the font source files. We uninstalled and deleted all instances of Open Sans from the main user’s computer. Then only loaded the font back in through Adobe Fonts. Then when prompted by the inDesign file, we went through and had to highlight fonts directly and replace the [bracketed missing font] with the correct version from Adobe Fonts. Eventually, we were able to find and replace all of the missing fonts. Selecting the text box itself to replace the fonts didn’t always work as it should, which is why we had to highlight the text.

As a note, attempting this through the Find/Replace Font dialog box didn’t always work, as it was somehow reading multiple versions at the same time, but they did not appear at separate listed font options.


Thom Pirson | Digital Design Lead

Moog Inc., Creative Media Department
611 Jamison Road, Suite 3930
Elma, New York 14059 USA
www.moog.com

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[Paul Mac d]

I have similar issue - imported word document - iin Find fonts it lists there are over 700 instances of  Open Sans Light, it won't let me batch replace - will only let me replace 1 by 1 and is very slow about 4 seconds for each click and click to replace

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Paul Mac d, 

I understand how frustrating it can be to deal with this kind of issue, especially when it affects your workflow. The situation you’re describing with the Find/Replace Font menu sounds quite challenging.

To help resolve this, could you please provide a bit more information? Specifically:

1. What version of InDesign you are using? 

2. Were you able to go through the above-mentioned suggestion by our esteemed experts? 
3. Are you using a local copy of the Open Sans variable font, or is it being accessed from Adobe Fonts? If it's local, have you checked if there are any font variations or inconsistencies?
4. Does this issue occur with all documents, or just specific ones? If it's just specific documents, could you share a sample file where the issue is happening?
5. What operating system are you using? Sometimes, compatibility issues can affect font handling.

In the meantime, a few suggestions you can try: 

1. Clear Font Cache. Reference: Troubleshoot font issues (https://adobe.ly/3AP6YTN)
2. Use Find/Replace Font Tool: Ensure you’re selecting "Change All" for the font replacement and check if the issue persists across different documents.
3. Check for Duplicate Fonts: Make sure there are no duplicate fonts installed on your system, which might be causing confusion in the Find/Replace tool.

Please let us know the additional details, and we’ll do our best to help you find a solution.

Best,  
Abhishek Rao