InDesign 2019 doesn't recognize installed fonts

[jacynao19770033]

Hi Adobe,

Can we please fix this? InDesign CC 2019 is a slow mess. The font handling is now a nightmare.

Example: all morning I have been working on a brand book. The file was working just fine. Fonts all working fine. I get to working on a style guide and try to change the leading and it crashed the whole program. When it restarted, it no longer can see that the fonts - brand fonts because I'm working on a brand book - are no longer available on the system. Even though they are installed on the system.

So, I restart the app and delete the preferences. No change.

So, I then restart my computer AND delete the preferences yet again. No change.

I make sure the fonts are installed in both the system AND inDesign's font folder (what is the reasoning behind this treat here?). No change.

If I knew ahead of time that working with InDesign 2019 was going to be such a headache, I never would have downloaded the buggy software. InDesign is the program where designers need the best control over type. I literally NEVER have this issue in Illustrator or Photoshop. Are you rushing to put software out?

[Jon@HH&C]

Hi Srishti,

Sorry, my reply to InfoDevPro was not clear - I was reporting that I fixed a similar issue by re-installing the missing fonts, ensuring I had installed for all users (in Win10 there are two options when installing a font; the default 'install' and a UAC/admin level 'Install for all users').

As of right now this issue is resolved for me. Thanks anyway.

[Srishti Bali]

Glad to hear that you are all set. Thank you for letting us know. Feel free to update the discussion in case you face any other issue.

Regards,

Srishti

[Laubender]

Hi Jon,

the option "Install for all users" is indeed the crucial point with Windows 10.

This came up lately in the forum:

InDesign packaging not packaging fonts folder after Windows 10 upgrade

The solution was to use option Install for All Users instead of the simple install option for fonts.

Here a quote from Dov Isaacs ( https://forums.adobe.com/people/Dov%20Isaacs ) from reply #6 of that linked discussion:

… Install the fonts from your source by right-clicking on the font file and selecting either Install for All Users (this puts a copy in C:\Windows\fonts) or Install as Shortcut for All Users (no copy placed in the Windows font directory). Do Not use the Install option, a new feature of a recent Windows 10 versions which only makes the font visible to the user installing the font. That type of font installation may be the problem, at least with Adobe applications. …

Regards,

Uwe

[Redpops]

This is not an answer, it's a work around.

[Laubender]

Unrulyspirits  wrote

This is not an answer, it's a work around.

Hi Unrulyspirits ,

do you experience the same issue with InDesign CC 2019 on Mac OS X 10.14 ?

Does the workaround work for you?

I would report a bug over there if there isn't one done before about this issue:

Adobe InDesign Feedback

Please come back when done or found an appropriate report and post the link of the report so that everyone can vote for fixing the bug easily.

Regards,
Uwe

[spyre]

This is happening for me too. Indesign 14.02, Apple OS Mojave 10.14.6. I use Suitcase Fusion 20.0.6 to manage fonts. I've just opened a document and the fonts are active but it says they're missing. The 'workaround' works but is massively time consuming for those of us that are opening and closing jobs constantly all day. Illustrator for a long time hasn't handled fonts efficiently either.

[mettagraphics]

This just started happening with me as well.  wtf Adobe... why are the new versions of Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop continually breaking things that the professional users rely on all the time? Please advise.

[toniov82054553]

Just spent three hours with some very nice bloke at the help desk, but it took me an hour just to expain the problem to him. He kept insisting that it was because I used 'third party' fonts (e.g. not Adobe). I explained to him that some of those fonts I've used for 15 years without any problem in Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, until a couple of weeks ago. And some of those fonts ARE Adobe fonts, be it of an older generation. It's not the fonts, it's the software, I tried to explain to him. I nearly lost my patience a couple of times. I let him reset my preferences, and now we'll see. But I don't get my hopes up high, and I'm starting to look for alternatives for Indesign. It's my f••king livelihood.

[kenj63410513]

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher/app-of-the-year/

[JMAB]

I'm having same issue. I don't see those fonts i activated in fonts.adobe.com on my adobe CC. 

I turned them off and on, copied from different page and pasted in, etc nothing worked. 

Until, i clicked the "find more" and there was all the fonts i activated. This is so weird.

I clicked the empty cloud and now i have arrows going back and forth.

Not sure what this cloud icon means but now the fonts are working....

[julietw99713499]

Hey, Adobe, this is SO not a workable solution. The new document does not have all the master pages or paragraph styles or character styles or anything else that I need. Sure, the problem font now works in this empty shell, but I have to rebuild everything else.  This is a huge problem. Please solve!

Thank you!

--Juliet

[~BarbaraT]

I find going to my font management program, turning the "missing" font Off/On solves the problem temporarily. Sometimes it is very temporary! Is a frustrating problem as I often work on books and other long documents, and the fonts "turn off" repeatedly. 

[~BarbaraT]

...and it's still happening in cc 2020. Seems to happen more when my internet connection is slow.

[Seblo]

#ADOBE! Most annoying.

I have the same problem and am very interested in a solution. It has apparently occurred in 2018, what is the solution? Not interested in something "cut and paste between documents", it really does not work. I lack settings and all of a sudden fonts stop working just as they did. And yes I have used Adobe's fonts ...
This is so sour. I'm sitting with a delivery of a book to a print shop and I really don't have time to build around with fonts that suddenly work internally in Indesign.
How do I solve this?

Indesign: 15.01 Creative Cloud
MacBook Pro 16-inch, 2019
System, Catalina v. 10.15.3

[dgonzalez2]

I have been having the same issue where fonts are not being packaged which apparently is also affecting pdf files. I can't figure how to fix this issue.

Indesign 15.01 Creative Cloud

iMac 2017

System, Catalina v. 10.15.4

[Dov Isaacs]

There is no officially released MacOS 10.15.4. All that is available are beta test builds. You should never, repeat never, repeat yet again never use beta / prerelease operating system or application versions for production work.

We are aware of a number of “issues” associated with font usage with both InDesign and Acrobat associated with MacOS 10.15.4 and are investigating. These problems sometimes resolve themselves by reinstalling the font(s) involved, rebooting, clearing font caches, etc. Better yet, revert to an officially-supported OS release.

[mpaynter1]

You need to fix this NOW! I have a client that uses brand fonts installed on my MAC that I have used for years -- and I can't access them! This can't be something that at some point resolves itself!! Please address!

- Martha Paynter, Designer

[Jolson7117]

Agreed mpaynter1.

Get this resolved, Adobe!

Fonts randomly become 'unavailable' in the middle of a project. "they're there, they're not, they're there, they're not." ...All Day Long.

I use FontAgent Pro to manage thousands of fonts. Never had problems until updating to cc2019 and High Sierra last month. Ugh, what a mess. Quit, restart, close, open, deactivate, reactivate, numerous times an hour just to get through the day's work. 

[brinder9]

You have to reinstall the font on your computer. I struggled with this for a while. Sometimes the fonts deactivate. 

[rtilghman-jfAW2f]

I have an indesign doc that just suddenly decided to start freaking out and saying Fonts couldnt be found.  Nothing I did could resolve it, including all the things posted here and elsewhere... copying assets in that use the font, restarting INDD, restarting my mac, etc.  I thought it must be a file corruption issue, and was about to rebuild my entire doc.  However, I finally found the ACTUAL issue.

For anyone else who encounters and has this issue, the problem is a font conflict.  Basically if you have a couple different versions of the same font file installed... say TT for one face of a font, Opentype for other faces, maybe a couple of the same faces of each (I had Avenir Book TT and other Avenir faces in OTF) Indesign may, eventually, choke on figuring the two out.  I "think" what happens is that Indesign has some kind of "master ref" in a file for a family, and it can "switch" or lock in on a file that doesn't have the face.  So, I had been using Avenir Medium and Black in places (which are from my OTF Avenir), and my file got switched to using the TT version (which only had Book).  Or maybe it just choked on the conflict, hard to tell without debugging.

ANYWAY, the solution is to go into Font Book, find the family/file you're working with (e.g., my Avenir OTF entry), right click, and select "Resolve Duplicates".  That will force the Mac to resolve the underlying discrepancies, and your fonts in Indesign will just suddenly fix themselves.

To Indesign Support, you guys need to resolve Font handling in Indesign.  This should NOT be a problem... the program's font mgmt should be fobust enough to either have entries for each entry in Font Book and maintain those (e.g., OTF and TT entries shouldn't get muddled).  I should note that during all this I could still see both sets of fonts in my Indesign font list, so it displayed them separately, and in a new document I could still USE Avenir Medium, meaning this is some kind of underlying glitch in how the indesign document is managing and mapping fonts.

-rt

[rtilghman-jfAW2f]

I stand corrected... the problem disappeared (fixed) when I removed duplicates, but it then reappeared when I made further edits to various content items with the font.

I've now recreated the document and moved all the content over... works fine.  So, the problem is corruption in the file structure, meaning it is unfixable when it happens.  You will need to create a new file and move all your work over.

Adobe, this is completely unacceptable to have such a major bug for such a long period of time in Indesign.  This needs to be fixed immediately... spending hours recreating work when it happens is not tenable when we pay so much for the CC licenses.

-rt

[eveux]

After many days of trying to troubleshoot myself, something finally worked for me:

1. Install .otf/.ttf font on system by double-clicking and then Installing (confirm that font is loaded on Font Book)

2. In Font Book, right-click font > "Show In Finder"

3. Drag this font file in "Fonts" folder to Applications > Adobe InDesign > Fonts folder

4. Open InDesign and re-select type in new font

[marym2001]

Hi there - I have the same problem and need this program for large documents. I found that turning Adobe fonts off fixed the issue. I believe that the Adobe fonts are creating conficts with the fonts we use through fontbook or in our libraries. My experience - for what it's worth! 

[TomLansford]

This particular message is 18 months old.

The same problem just happened to me last week. 

Adobe is a company of very smart people, so I am sure that you know that this problem should NEVER occur. 

Please take care of it.

Best regards, Tom

[mattand08]

I just ran into this problem this morning. Using InDesign 2020, FontExplorer X v7, MacOS 10.14..6 Mojave, and Helvetica Lt Std Condensed.

InDesign refuses to open the font in the client's existing document, regardless how many times I install and unintsall, clean various font caches, and restart both app and machine. InDesign is more than happy to open the font in brand new document.

The only workaround I could find was to install the font in the Fonts folder in my Home directory.

But, hey, thank Chtulu that Adobe went to a subscription model, so we can get the latest bug fixes delivered to us instantly.

Is there a "spit in digust" emoji? Asking for a friend, who is me.