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sean_3289
Participant
August 12, 2025
Question

Fonts Are Broken

  • August 12, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 380 views

The thing that slows us down the most at our company is font issues.

 

We have auto-activation turned on, but even today, we couldn't get a font to auto-activate or manually activate to get a job ready for print. The font we were having trouble with today was "PF Videotext".

 

However, this is a persistent and ongoing issue that is worsening. When any Adobe app tries to auto-activate a font, it sometimes gets stuck, and there is no way to stop the process, which means I have to quit the application and reopen it, and sometimes even restart the computer if the issue persists.

 

It's an absolute nightmare. We are using new Mac Studio machines with 96GB of RAM. We shouldn't have these issues at all. Please help fix the font issues.

2 replies

A
Aaron Tipton
Known Participant
August 13, 2025

Hey Adobe, it's been 16 years now since you first launched TypeKit. It has NEVER worked properly.

InDesign and Illustrator still have the same old problems this system has always had. It just doesn't work. Fonts are very small files, so they really should activate almost instantly, but that almost never happens. It has improved a bit over the last year or two, but it's just enough of an improvement to trick me into trying again, only to see my Mac sit there for a minute or two before it finally works or it just spins endlessly and never activates.

 

The workaround that usually works now is to simply go to fonts.adobe.com and manually activate them there. That's also improved, but still occasionally lags.

 

This has been going on WAY too long now. And with a HUGE library of FREE fronts available from Google, this just seems ridiculous. Maybe you need to rethink your approach and just allow us to have the actual font files instead of hiding them. I don't really care either way, but it's time you just made this work right and stop wasting everyone's time waiting for fonts to activate. 

rob day
Community Expert
rob dayCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 12, 2025

Hi @sean_3289 , It seems like a common denominator with Adobe Font activation problems is with fonts Adobe Type will activate via the Add Font button conflicting with free fonts with the same name that have been installed in one of the Sytem font folders.

 

PF Videotext can be activated (activation does not install the font in a local font folder) at Adobe Fonts:

 

 

Or it can be downloaded from various free font sites and installed in a system font folder—don’t do both:

 

 

S
sean_3289Author
Participant
August 12, 2025

I understand all that. But the one font we had a problem with today has already been solved. Why does the auto-activation work so poorly even with a new Mac with 96GB of RAM? How do we cancel a font from auto-activating in an Adobe app, which causes me to quit and sometimes restart my computer just to prepare one file for print or load a single font?

As per my intial post:

However, this is a persistent and ongoing issue that is worsening. When any Adobe app tries to auto-activate a font, it sometimes gets stuck, and there is no way to stop the process, which means I have to quit the application and reopen it, and sometimes even restart the computer if the issue persists.

 

It's an absolute nightmare. We are using new Mac Studio machines with 96GB of RAM. We shouldn't have these issues at all. Please help fix the font issues.

    Anubhav M
    Community Manager
    Anubhav MCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    August 12, 2025

    Hello @sean_3289,

    I'm sorry to hear about the font activation issues. Could you share more details, like the exact version of the OS/InDesign installed, so we can better assist you?
    Also, kindly try the suggestions shared in this help article (https://adobe.ly/4opoe6a) to see if it helps.

    Looking forward to hearing from you.

    Anubhav

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