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M
MikeA-m10
Participating Frequently
August 12, 2020
Answered

How to turn off automatic font activation

  • August 12, 2020
  • 5 replies
  • 39750 views

A week or so ago I accidentally clicked a button to allow Indesign (or Adobe?) to automatically activate fonts that are missing from a document. I can't find where to turn this feature off.

Cheers, Mike

      Correct answer meh67

      Did cleaning the cache help at all? We have exactly the same isuse. Fonts opened in ConnectFonts are overridden by the CC Adobe fonts. Which can't be packaged so we cannot submit them to Veeva!


      No, what ended up working was completely deleted Interstate from the list in Adobe Cloud Fonts rather than just making it inactive. Then restarting everything and it seemed to work then.

      It seemed to be a bug with Adobe Cloud Fonts wanting to use their version of the font even with auto-activation unchecked - so removing it from my Adobe Type list completely made it work. At least, thats what I think made it work. I thought I had DELETED it before, but I think I just inactivated it.

      5 replies

      meh67
      meh67
      Inspiring
      March 18, 2025

      UGH!!! I have this problem as well. In Indesign I do have the "Auto-active adobe fonts" Turned OFF - but Adobe fonts STILL keeps loading THEIR version of Interstate (which sux), instead of the one I bought for good money because it has a monospace version of the font (Tabular Lining) in OpenType features so my tables line up. Why have a button in Indesign Preferences to NOT auto-load the Adobe fonts and have it not work??? 
      I literally have to go into Adobe Fonts, find Interstate that it KEEPS LOADING even while working on the same file - and turn it off over and over and over...
      Adobe seems to keep making "improvements" that make me less productive.

        David__B
        Adobe Employee
        David__B
        Adobe Employee
        March 18, 2025

        Hi @meh67

        Thanks for reporting the issue. I've reached out to our developers. I'll provide an update when I hear back.


        Thanks,
        Dave

        DavidMatos
        DavidMatos
        Inspiring
        November 18, 2022

        As if it wasn’t enough, Adobe now induces users to Save to Creative Cloud by default in Illustrator, by removing the (command+S) shortcut and forcing users to manually click the ‘On your computer’ button. Amazing, ha?

          DavidMatos
          DavidMatos
          Inspiring
          February 5, 2022

          Yet another arrogant, time consuming, productivity damaging feature from Adobe.

            D
            defaultdv2wmk6jgast
            Participant
            November 18, 2022

            This seems to be another nightmare Adobe has created for me. As advised above, I switched off Adobe fonts, but the InDesign Background Tasks keep trying to replace my original Proforma fonts with Adobe Proforma fonts (which do not have small caps, etc.). Also, all my Proforma Small Caps fonts do not appear in the InDesign font menu even though they are activated in FontExplorer X Pro.

              M
              MikeA-m10Author
              Participating Frequently
              September 10, 2020

              Finally stumbled across the location of preference for "Auto-activate Adobe Fonts". It's in preferences/File Handling.

               

                erics60158124
                erics60158124
                Participating Frequently
                March 10, 2021

                I think I am having the same issue, but this setting is already turned off for me.

                I want to keep a specific font family from activating when I open old documents so that I am prompted to find/change to my new font. I don't want to deactivate all Adobe fonts. Just one family in particular.

                 

                Should the method above work?

                  K
                  karend21127755
                  Participant
                  September 13, 2022

                  I would probably keep the auto activate function turned off, but you should also be able to go into the Creative Cloud app and turn off that specific family by going to Manage Fonts and searching for the font you no longer are wanting.

                  Harshika Verma
                  Community Manager
                  Harshika VermaCommunity Manager
                  Community Manager
                  August 13, 2020

                  Hi Mike,

                   

                  Thanks for reaching out. Would you mind disabling the button from the Creative Cloud app as shown in the screenshot below?

                   

                  Let me know if that helps.

                   

                  Thanks,

                  Harshika

                    M
                    MikeA-m10Author
                    Participating Frequently
                    August 18, 2020

                    Unfortunately that completely turns off Adobe Fonts. Before I had to option to activate individual fonts when needed. There was a check box next to each missing font. For prepress I need to be able to check individual fonts and make sure they match what the customer sent.

                      M
                      MikeA-m10Author
                      Participating Frequently
                      August 24, 2020

                      Thanks for elaborating it. Yes so now you will be able to activate the full family of font and not the individual font weight from fonts.adobe.com and search the font you want to activate. Please see the attached screenshot.

                       

                       

                      Thanks,

                      Harshika


                      Some fonts have a dozen different versions, some TrueType, some Open Type, some Postscript, and different foundries and versions of each of these. Sometimes customer even sends a mix of the different flavors and versions.

                      I used to be able to turn on individual fonts as needed and verify that the clients file maintained it’s correct type flow, proper line breaks, etc.

                      Now if I have adobe fonts turned off I don’t have access to adobe fonts when they are needed. Some clients are using adobe fonts so they are needed.

                      But if they’ve used a different flavor of a font that is also available from adobe, then I’m in trouble because I can’t be sure to have the correct font type and version. Adobe will activate automatically and I don’t know it until the customer calls up complaining that the type flow is all different.

                      Is there no way to get back to being able to activate individual fonts as needed? Do I need to go back to an earlier version of Indesign?

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