Will active fonts work if I am offline/can't connect to the internet?

[Chubby Dogue]

Hi there, 

First time poster so please be kind 🙂

I've been using activated Adobe fonts with InDesign and Illustrator CC on and off for awhile but more and more it seems that everytime I open one of the programs, it always warns me that the fonts aren't available. It seems to be happening everytime I open the program now on a daily basis. I'm aware that I can fix this by making sure that my Creative Cloud is logged in so that the programs can see that the fonts are acivated, but does that mean if for some reason I don't have internet access one day and/or have to work on the go that I won't be able to access the fonts in the program?

I know that once a month CC has to verify online that my subscription is current but the fonts seem to need to check for activation/online access every single day. Am I doing something wrong? My fear is that one day I won't have internet access for whatever reason and as a result I won't be able to work on my files when I need to.

Any advice/insights are welcome! Thank you 🙂

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Short answer is you need to be connected to activate any Adobe's cloud-based fonts.

Supposedly, any fonts activated and sync'd before you go offline should remain available, unless you end up signed out of CC. (I've never tried this to see if it's true, tho)

System-wise, when you activate such fonts, a hidden version is downloaded to your computer for it to use, but as soon as you deactivate them or sign out, these are purged.

[Chubby Dogue]

Thanks for your reply. Hmm... maybe the problem is that my CC is signing out when I turn my computer off because the fonts are definitely active when I open Adobe fonts to check every time. I'll have to do a little digging. Thanks again for your help!

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

"maybe the problem is that my CC is signing out when I turn my computer"

Not sure.

I just tested this now by disconnecting my internet access and rebooting, then opening a file that I knew used both the fonts I had activated and some i knew were not. On opening the file the fonts I had activated were still available, and the ones not activated were missing, as expected.

What system are you on? Are you using a font manager?

[Chubby Dogue]

I appreciate your assistance - thank you, Brad!

I am still stuck on this.  If I go offline and then restart my system offline (Windows 10), when I start up InDesign (16.4), I still get the error that fonts are missing and of course because I'm not online, Adobe Fonts can't find them and I'm forced to use a default substitution. (Exactly what I feared would happen).

I'm not using a font manager, I usually just activate the fonts through Creative Cloud Desktop and then select them to use within the program itself.

Is there a setting  I need to change so that CC will remember which fonts are active? Does CC work offline at all? When I'm offline the Creative Cloud Desktop just tells me that it can't find servers and I'm not able to see/access anything.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

"Is there a setting I need to change so that CC will remember which fonts are active?"

Nothing I know of.

Noone else seems to be chiming in so I'm not sure if there's any better info for you at this time.

meanwhile, I'm going to try a test on my Win10 machine.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

So: just did a test on Win10 and had the same results as yourself.

If I disconnected my internet, the fonts remained active as long as I didn't reboot or sign out. I could open and close Illustrator or InDesign and open/close/reopen my test file and all of the Adobe fonts in that file were there, as well as all of my active Adobe fonts were still listed in the font menu and could be used. Yet, reboot, and they vanished.

On my Mac, however, the fonts remained active even after a reboot.

[Chubby Dogue]

I thought I was onto something here (7. Windows 10: check the Untrusted Font Blocking setting) which indicates that Windows 10 might have something which is stopping the fonts from remaining active after shutting down, but after following Microsoft's very unhelpful advice and being sent on a wild goose chase to try and follow through with their so-called "instructions", it turns out that the Untrusted Font Blocking setting isn't activated on my computer anyway and is therefore likely not to be the culprit.

So I'm stuck again but at least with the knowledge that the problem seems to be Windows 10 specific?

Brad, is your machine Windows 10 Home or Pro edition?

I'm a bit baffled by the fact that this problem hasn't come up before for others. Surely I can't be the only one who is using Win10?? Also a bit disappointing considering it costs over $700 a year to use these Adobe services...

[Test Screen Name]

I think Adobe's expectation is 24/7 ultra speed Internet. Don't think they test any other arrangement, even though they might say it will be fine for a while. 

[Chubby Dogue]

I get that they expect you to have 24/7 access but really? What if you're working somewhere remote or there's a big storm and power and/or internet goes down? They're essentially keeping your files hostage...