Added Fonts: The Confusing New Change in Adobe Fonts
Learn about Added Fonts in Creative Cloud, which can only be used in Adobe apps and can be automatically removed from your machine.
This article appears in Issue 25 of CreativePro Magazine.
Back in July, and without fanfare, Adobe implemented a significant change in how the Creative Cloud Adobe Fonts service works. A new category of fonts called “Added Fonts” appeared in the Creative Cloud desktop app and Adobe Fonts website. So, now you’ll see four categories: Added Fonts, Installed Fonts, Removed Fonts, and Uploaded Fonts. 
All but the Removed Fonts will work when you’re offline, but there are some important differences. Let’s look at each one.
What Are Added Fonts?
When you first activate fonts from Adobe Fonts (or a font menu within the Adobe apps), they are Added Fonts. Added Fonts are only available for use in Adobe apps. 
In order to use them in apps by Microsoft, Apple, etc., you need to change them to Installed Fonts, using the Creative Cloud app. 
This means you must be online to change the status of Added Fonts. If you’re offline, you’re out of luck. 
To add to the confusion, the terminology hasn’t changed yet in apps like InDesign, Photoshop, etc., where you can still “Activate” fonts (which is the same as adding them). 
/>
What Are Installed Fonts?
Installed Fonts are like what you used to get when you activated fonts from Adobe Fonts (with one key difference that I’ll get to shortly). They’re available online or offline, for all apps, like fonts you purchased and installed yourself.
What Are Uploaded Fonts?
Uploaded Fonts are fonts that you own and upload to Creative Cloud to sync them to any of your devices where you have the CC app running. They are not provided by Adobe and behave as traditional fonts do. It’s up to you to be sure that your font licenses allow you to upload them. Uploaded Fonts are available to all apps, and unlike Added Fonts and Installed Fonts, they won’t expire. Wait, what? Adobe Fonts expire now? Yep.
What Are Expired Fonts?
Adobe Fonts now “expire” automatically when Adobe has determined that you haven’t used them in a certain period of time. You can see when your fonts will expire and renew them (either before or after they expire) in the CC app. 
It’s unclear exactly how long that time period is. One Adobe Help page says, “over 150 days.” Another says, “several months” and “Length of time is subject to change.” The fact that unused fonts now expire makes it clear that Adobe is tracking the fonts you use in your documents. Exactly how they do that, what else they’re tracking, and what counts as “use” of a font is also unclear. In a simple test, I saw that a font categorized as “expiring soon” kept that status for a while, even if I used it in an InDesign document. Later, the entire list of “expiring soon” fonts was automatically renewed. I don’t know if this was intended behavior (i.e. renew one = renew all), a glitch in the service, or user error on my part (I swear I didn’t click anything).
What Are Removed Fonts?
As you’d expect, Removed Fonts are fonts that were deactivated, so they’re no longer available to any apps on any devices. Annoyingly, the Removed Fonts category cannot be sorted from newest to oldest, by name, etc., like the other categories. And there’s no “Select All” option, so you have to Add or Install them again one by one. 
Why Did This Happen?
At this point, it’s not clear why these changes have been implemented. I haven’t seen any explanation other than you now have “more control” over your fonts. It seems that the party line will be that having fewer active fonts will make your apps go faster. This is undoubtedly true in some situations. For example, Microsoft Office apps build their font menus when you launch the programs. So, naturally Word will load faster if it only has to make a font menu with 100 fonts instead of 1000. But will it run faster? And does the same hold true for Adobe apps? I’ve yet to see any documentation on this, or even anecdotal stories from users. I’ll update this post with any new information I find. Now if only we could get Apple to allow us to uninstall the Noto fonts…
Commenting is easier and faster when you're logged in!
Leave a Reply
Recommended for you
Illustrator Downloadable: Tropical Shadow Overlay Kit
Downloadables are an exclusive benefit for CreativePro members! (Not a member ye...
Illustrator Downloadable: Summer Citrus Pattern Set
Downloadables are an exclusive benefit for CreativePro members! (Not a member ye...
InDesign Downloadable: Tables SuperGuide
Downloadables are an exclusive benefit for CreativePro members! (Not a member ye...
Is there a way to only view Adobe licensed fonts — excluding/removing any non-Adobe fonts?
Yup. At the top left of every font menu, there’s a set of buttons for filtering the font list. Click the one with a cloud and checkmark.
It’s worse than that. Adobe Fonts now activates (as “added fonts”) type families and individual fonts autonomously and at random. Once a week or so, I remove all the fonts that Adobe Fonts just decided to install on its own. I suppose it’s nature’s way of giving me a weeding chore, since I don’t have a garden.
Â
The confusion multiplies if you use a font manager. One of the (excellent) Extensis support reps and I tunneled into the pathogenic interaction between Adobe Fonts auto-activation, Connect Fonts plugins, and my perpetually-licensed local fonts.
There have always been conflicts between Adobe Fonts-as-a-service (AFaaS) and Adobe fonts (you know, actual fonts) installed and active on my machine, but after the July change things went quickly downhill.
It showed up when I opened a set of InDesign documents containing licensed fonts that live on my hard drive and are auto-activated by the Connect plugin. Various weights of certain faces would go missing: not always the same weights, but always from the same family. Adding blunt force trauma to insult, I couldn’t activate them manually, either, even directly in the OS!
The common denominator was the foundry: Adobe. It first manifested when I opened a set of book documents from a three-year-old project. InDesign reported some weights of Adobe Text Pro as “Missing fonts.”
What was apparently happening was this: When InDesign opened the documents, the AFaaS and the Connect plugin both rushed to auto-activate the fonts. If Connect won, the font was activated. If Adobe Fonts won, the font was silently “added” from the cloud *but not activated.* Neither InDesign nor Windows could see it; neither Connect nor Windows could activate it.
The remedy was to disable “Auto-activate Adobe fonts” in InDesign’s preferences. Since then all has been well.
It’s worth noting, in the context of Microsoft Office (MS 365) that Microsoft now has its own cloud-based font service, which may be related to Adobe’s new two-tier approach to activation. The beautiful [Aptos type family](https://lookout.co/santacruz/wallace-baine/story/2023-07-16/microsoft-default-aptos-steven-matteson-how-graphic-designers-love-of-aptos-inspired-next-ubiquitous-commercial-typeface) is available as a download via any Office app Font menu.
And before the “never use plugins” crowd chips in: If I disable the Connect plugin and allow “Auto-activate Adobe fonts,” InDesign reports many Adobe fonts as “missing fonts” if they were originally from my local set of licensed fonts, even though they are (obviously) available from AFaaS.
Note to self: Markdown doesn’t work in this forum.
That’s very interesting. Thank you for sharing Mike! I do like Bart’s anecdote.
My thought when reading was that it may have to do with licensing as well. Correct me if I’m wrong as I know nothing about the deals Adobe reached with foundries, but assume each person who licenses a font means Adobe has to pay royalties to that foundry.
Adobe fonts is a great service for designers, and I’m glad it’s part of the subscription. Gone are the days of having to find a free font or paying exorbitant prices for a font with good kerning pairs and opentype features.
I feel like it may be a way to cut costs by removing fonts the designer thought might be good for a future project but never used.
Hey Mike, thanks for this article. It was very helpful. I didn’t realize that Adobe fonts could be downloaded for use in other applications. I haven’t cared enough about my font choices outside of Adobe to explore the option.
I love that Adobe fonts auto activate when opening a document. I wish my students only used Adobe fonts in their projects. It would make grading a lot easier for me.
Be careful what you wish for, amica mia! There’s horror stories lurking in them there bushes, just waiting to pounce…
I have all manner of vintage fonts maturing in the cellars of my SSDs. These Young Turks from the Adobe Cloud (YTACs) keep trying to barge their way in, so I’m constantly having to handle boldface brawling in the footnotes.
Funny story…
I think OSX was when fonts started being in multiple places (user, system, user’s system, next door neighbor, etc.). My use of Quark had taught me to turn off all fonts I wasn’t using.
At some point I made it my life’s mission to find ALL of them and deactivate of the ones I wasn’t using. Eventually, I got to the difficult ones. My Mac argued “Are you SURE you want to delete these?” three different times before it finally did it.
Immediately every system font was gone. No more screen fonts. Icons had no words. No tool bar across the top of my monitor. Nothing was labeled anywhere. I had created my first text-free machine. I could feel the blood drain from my face in panic as it dawned on me what I’d done.
Eventually, after changing my pants and reinstalling the system, all was okay again. But, I learned quite a lesson. LOL.
Here is an anecdote. I spent a bit of time doing customer support for an IT company that specialized in selling hard- and software to the design industry. So, the majority of the customers calling the helpdesk were designers. In many of the occasions where Adobe apps would crash, computer would be slow, Adobe documents being slow, Office acting up … it was the fonts. Removing 1,000 fonts, clearing font cache, resetting the font management system, very often helped to “flush” the system. I don’t know the reasons, nor logic, behind some of the confusion described in this article. But I know I am no longer a fan of activating (and keeping) a few thousands fonts on my system because of this experience.
Thanks, Bart. That’s good info. Were those fixes applied one at a time or all at once? I just wonder if it was the number of fonts or the cache, which often is the culprit in those situations. Of course, you could argue that having more fonts active makes it more likely that the cache will be corrupted at some point, and I wouldn’t disagree with you.
Is there something on the website about using something other than Extensis for font management?
Hi Terre- Our most recent roundup of font management solutions is Jamie McKee’s article in issue 147 of InDesign Magazine https://creativepro.com/issue-147-illustrator-vs-indesign/
Well into the 21st century and typefaces are still a confusing mess on whatever platform we use!