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Times New Roman TTF replaced with OTF in InDesign 21.0, causing missing font errors

Forum|Forum|3 months ago
October 30, 2025
21 replies
4974 views

All my books (several hundred) are formatted using the Times New Roman TTF font. The new version of InDesign 21.0 changes that to Times New Roman OTF.
Fortunately, version 20.0 is still installed. I know from experience that strange things can happen in updates.. However, the problem with the latest update has also been introduced in that version.
OTF is only available with a licence, which I do not have.
I would appreciate some help.
Cor van Wijgerden

Performance

Correct answer Dmytro301376413pen

The same issue with my InDesign 20.5 / Windows 11. I installed Times New Roman from Adobe (https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/times-new-roman) and replaced the font in the document. It works perfectly now.

River7567

Participating Frequently

And can we not mark this as "resolved" because the issue isn't resolved, at least not yet. Seems a bit premature...

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

As of today, Nov 20, my win11 machine shows that windows patch installed on the 11th of November. Running Windows Update shows nothing newer yet as of today.

Mike Witherell

D

davidz1290389

Participant

From what I've gathered, Windows has updated Times New Roman from v7.05 to v7.10 and either InDesign isn't recognizing OpenType or the new font is bugged and has lost OpenType.

River7567

Participating Frequently

The plot thickens. Thank you for sharing this info! Still not sure which company, Microsoft or Adobe, needs to deploy a fix... I could see this going either way.

J

John231158799or7

Participant

Uninstalling Microsoft Security Update KB5068861 made everything all better for me. Not ideal I guess for security reasons, but oh well.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Anyone have an idea what specific patch version of Windows may be causing this font problem?

Mike Witherell

River7567

Participating Frequently

It was the KB5068861 Windows Update for me that caused the problem.

K

kitsune_1982

Participant

I had the same issue and tried various things. I eventually found that placing older Times New Roman font files (created when packaging another document) into the Document fonts folder at the same level as the INDD file resolved the problem. Hope this helps.

L

luxfoundry1

Participant

This exact same thing happened to me suddenly but with Segoe UI font. Every one of my indesign files suddenly changed the font to Segoe UI (OTF). I have tried several things to resolve this like clearing font caches, reinstalling fonts., but nothing is working. I have been manually replacing the font in each document, but sometimes a few days later, the file that i updated changes back to OTF. it's rather frustrating and I can't tell if this is a windows or Indesign issue. Adobe wasn't very helpful, i don't think they understood what I was trying to explain that the OTF suddenly appeared. Would love to know if you resolved this.

D

Dmytro301376413penCorrect answer

Participant

The same issue with my InDesign 20.5 / Windows 11. I installed Times New Roman from Adobe (https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/times-new-roman) and replaced the font in the document. It works perfectly now.

River7567

Participating Frequently

Not everyone can install Times New Roman from the Adobe Fonts Library to solve this. Some folks, including myself, get a vague error that says Times New Roman can't be installed. As far as I can tell, there's not actual issue with the font file(s) itself. Something is creating a disconnect between InDesign and the font files in question, which is throwing the error in InDesign. And, after installing and uninstalling the Windows update mentioned in this thread, I can confirm that specific Windows Update is the catalyst. So, not sure if it's Microsoft or Adobe (or both?) that needs to fix this.

H

hk92340272

Participant

We have several hundred files that are now having this issue, across a shared server with 8 people. We've been replacing fonts on current active files, but it's fairly time-consuming to go back and change layouts on large books. I hope there's some intent to fix this so we don't spend the next week on it...

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Hi all,

So, there are currently 2 prime suspects: 1. a new version of InDesign, and 2. a patch of Windows.

Are any macOS users experiencing this same Times New Roman problem ?

Mike Witherell

G

gosiaAuthor

Participant

Thank you, Mike.

InDesign 21.01 was updated today. The OTF problem remains unresolved. So, is it only a Windows issue? Maybe not. Opened an IDML file with Affinity Publisher. No missing font: just as it should be.

River7567

Participating Frequently

I use Mac at work and Windows at home, same version number of InDesign on both OSs. No issues with Mac. It's only happening on Windows and only with the aforementioned Windows update installed, as far as I can tell.

C

Colin_Isherwoods

Inspiring

Today my Indesign (V21) has started this issue. luckily , my documents use other fonts but there are places where a return hasnt had a style applied and has defaulted to TNR . the main problem with this is that many of my documents now show errors in pre-flight where they didnt before, forcing me to investigate the errors and replace the font. An annoyance for sure.

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