InDesign doesn't recognize installed fonts all the time

[jacynao19770033]

InDesign is driving me insane.

For work, our primary font is Interstate OTF (Regular, Bold, Black, Light, Italic). I work in a mac environment (iMac 27" 5k, macOS High Sierra, Adobe CC 2018), and have the font family installed in Font Book. The family works fine in Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects. However, InDesign is fussy. Sometimes I can use it fine with no issues. Other times, "Bold" just won't be in my list of usable fonts.

So, I took others advice from this forum, and installed the fonts in the InDesign fonts folder. Same result. Please help!

[GilsonOlivas]

Ok man! Here is what you may have done:

You may have installed different versions of this font (a variable version previously,  maybe).

Now, what you need to do:

Make you don't have installed the variable font version and the TT at the same time.

Close applications

Clear the cache on this folder: 

• PC: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Adobe\InDesign\
• MAC: /Users/[nome de usuário]/Library/Caches/Adobe InDesign/Version [#]

Re-open the InDesign.

Finish!

[Mike Witherell]

Part of troubleshooting is to find out just how many places you have inadvertently installed the same font:

Is it in macOS FontBook? Windows/Fonts?

Did you cleverly install it into the fonts subfolder within the InDesign app?

Did you cleverly package the file along with its subfolder of fonts?

Do you have InDesign's preference for File Handling which has Download Adobe Fonts turned on?

Are you using a font management software, too?

The point is: when you have the font installed in multiple places, InDesign can easily get confused.

Have one place to install the font. Remove all the rest. Sometimes this will clear up the font problem.

[Oshino Studio]

We are in 2025 and Indesign is still a real PITS with fonts. Its driving me insane all the time. It simply refuses to recognize some fonts randomly all the time. You open one file once it will recognize them, another day it won't, and sometimes it just WONT recognize an installed font at all ! You can restart the software all you want, have a single clean version of the font installed, nothing works. And I am not talking about exotic fonts, today I have been struggling for an hour with the very anonymous HELVETICA NEUE ! For some reason Indesign refuses to recognize the existence of the Condensed bold version, all the others are fine but condensed bold alone is strictly unfoundable. I have no solution to this and this problem has been lasting for years...

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Oshino Studio,

I understand how frustrating it can be to deal with recurring font issues, especially with commonly used fonts like Helvetica Neue. Let’s work together to resolve this.

One step that might help is clearing the font cache. This can often resolve font recognition issues in InDesign. Please follow the steps in this article:
Troubleshoot Fonts in Illustrator & InDesign.

Additionally, I recommend clearing the InDesign cache directly. Here's how:

 - On Windows: Navigate to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Adobe\InDesign\.

 - On Mac: Go to /Users/[your username]/Library/Caches/Adobe InDesign/Version [#].

Once you’ve tried this, let us know how it goes. If the issue persists, feel free to share more details, such as your InDesign version, operating system, or screenshots, and we’ll be happy to assist further.

Best,
Abhishek Rao