InDesign says Fonts are Incomplete

[#1]

My hard drive crashed last week, and I am slowly rebuilding. Many of my fonts were saved in a backup, and I have reinstalled them in my Windows/Fonts folder, and also in the closely-held secret that is InDesign's Fonts folder (C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CC 2018\Fonts). However, when I go to package a book, it says many of these fonts are Incomplete.

They are not shortcuts; they are the font files themselves. They are installed in both locations. They are newly-installed.  I have deleted & reinstalled.  Shut down & restarted.  Still getting flagged as Incomplete.

Even more bizarre, when I try to package again, InDesign flags more of the fonts in the book as Incomplete.  In other words, on first attempt it said 4 out of the 6 fonts were incomplete.  On second attempt, it says 6 out of the 6 fonts are incomplete.

Incomplete fonts don't get packaged, so this is a problem.

How do I fix this problem?

[#2]

My hard drive crashed last week, and I am slowly rebuilding. Many of my fonts were saved in a backup, and I have reinstalled them in my Windows/Fonts folder, and also in the closely-held secret that is InDesign's Fonts folder (C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CC 2018\Fonts). However, when I go to package a book, it says many of these fonts are Incomplete.

They are not shortcuts; they are the font files themselves. They are installed in both locations. They are newly-installed.  I have deleted & reinstalled.  Shut down & restarted.  Still getting flagged as Incomplete.

Even more bizarre, when I try to package again, InDesign flags more of the fonts in the book as Incomplete.  In other words, on first attempt it said 4 out of the 6 fonts were incomplete.  On second attempt, it says 6 out of the 6 fonts are incomplete.

Incomplete fonts don't get packaged, so this is a problem.

How do I fix this problem?

[#3]

Are some or all 6 fonts from Adobe Fonts/Typekit?

Or are they installed manually in Windows various folders?

Are you using a font manger program?

[#4]

When you installed them, did you choose to install for all users?

[#5 · Accepted solution]

If I was betting on what is going on, I'd bet that you are on a relatively recent (last year or so) Windows 10 update.

See the announcement at the top of this forum at InDesign which describes the problem and workaround. (Hint, if you don't install fonts for all users, this problem occurs. Thus, uninstall the font(s) and reinstall them for all users.

Yes, this is a bug in both InDesign and Illustrator. I found it and posted the bug internally and hopefully a fix is forthcoming.

Let us know if this resolves your issue!

          - Dov

[#6]

Reinstalling for all users worked for me! I simply dragged the "incomplete" fonts to the desktop (in Windows 10), then right-clicked and chose Install for All Users. Thanks, Dov!

[#7]

Thank you so much!!! 🙂 

[#8]

Hi @Dov Isaacs,

Unfortunately, this workaround is not a practical solution for those who use font managers, such as FontBase, on their Windows 10 machines.

For several reasons, I prefer not to (for lack of a better term) "hard install" non system fonts in Windows 10 but rather have them temporarily installed via my font manager

😞