Susan wrote:
We are having trouble with our fonts. When we open up a layout it will tell us the fonts are missing. I go to the library to check and they are there. I have replaced them as well. Why is InDesign not recognizing the fonts?
There are many possible solutions here, and I invite readers to write in with your experiences. But here’s one trick I always like to try: InDesign’s Fonts folder. Most people don’t realize that InDesign has its own Fonts folder. It’s located in the same folder as the application itself (along with the plug-ins and presets folders). If you put a font in that folder, InDesign can almost always see it. Even better, you can put an alias (or “shortcut,” or whatever you want to call it) to a folder of fonts and InDesign can see all those fonts!
For example, if someone sends me a document to open, along with their fonts, I do not want to load all their fonts onto my system. Instead, I just make an alias from their fonts folder and place it in my InDesign fonts folder. I don’t even need to relaunch InDesign; it just sees them automatically.
The Fonts folder can do other magic, too. For example, you can put instances of multiple master fonts in them and InDesign can read them (even though multiple master fonts are no longer officially supported). You can put a Windows -only font inside the Fonts folder in the Macintosh version of InDesign and it can use it!
So while I don’t have any good answers to why ID isn’t seeing the fonts that it should see, I would recommend trying to put a font in the Fonts folder and see if it works. Perhaps other folks can recommend other troubleshooting techniques you might try.
This article was last modified on January 16, 2023
This article was first published on December 15, 2006
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Nice trick, but I have one even better. See, like most people I keep an older version along with the update.
Rather than placing shortcuts/aliases of fonts in the InDesign Fonts folder (both versions), I rename the folder to something like Xonts so InDesign can’t access that folder. It’s also a quick way to hide all the foreign language fonts I don’t use (I used to delete them after every install).
I also rename the Fonts folder in Photoshop. It’s in the PDFL>Resource folder.
Then I create a Fonts folder in Common Files>Adobe and place all font shortcuts there, which all versions of InDesign and Photoshop can see.
And yes, for project-specific fonts I do what you do, place font shortcuts in a Document Fonts folder.
I’m confused too. On the Mac, renaming the InDesign Fonts folder (Adobe InDesign 2024 › Fonts) doesn’t hide any foreign language fonts.
Renaming Adobe InDesign 2024 > Resources > Required > fonts or Adobe InDesign 2024 > Resources > pdfl > Resource > Fonts might hide a few but the vast majority are in the System Fonts folder and basically untouchable. What’s the full file path of the folder you’re renaming?
Interesting idea, but: a) I don’t know what you mean by “common files > Adobe”… is that on Windows or Mac? b) why do you need to rename the Fonts folders?
What do you do when there is no InDesign Fonts folder? I recognize that this article was written back in 2006, but the advice seems to be the same…yet when seeking out this folder, it is simply not there!
There’s no folder called “Fonts” inside the InDesign application folder? That is very odd. You could try just creating one, I suppose. But I wonder if your operating system is hiding it or something weird like that.
InDeisgn is not recognizing the letter ţ with Calibre font but it is available in the glyphs to manually change. How to i get Calibre to recognize the letter? Also, can i add my own glyphs within a font?
Good info – Though I found my font folder, on my PC and it is completely empty! How can we download fonts from our Adobe account, and copy to this folder and mitigate all those annoying ‘Font Missing’ messages? I’m also curious as to why my folder has no Fonts at all.
Thanks so much for posting this solution. I have been having problems with InDesign not recognizing certain installed fonts inconsistently, and now I don’t (so far) — Thanks again.
Hi guys,
Do you know how I can make InDesign find my TypeKit fonts please?
I have synched Din 2014, and sometimes when I open InDesign, it’s happy that I have the font, and other times, like today, it is telling me I don’t and need to choose another font to change to so that I can continue to edit a document. I don’t want to change the font of the document to another as this is our companies known font.
Please advise if anyone has had similar issues.
Thank you!
Ellie
I recently had an issue with Malgun Gothic. Dropped it in the InDesign fonts folder on my MAC hard drive; Applications folder. Still didn’t see it. After a little research, found that Malgun is a Korean font, which when scrolling down the InDesign Character pallet, you won’t see it on the top section, but there is was in the Korean section.
Thank You
Thank you much! I was so upset that inDesign didn’t want to work with font and it would screw up my whole design :/. Thanks!
Thank you, thank you. After more than an hour of trying to troubleshoot this perplexing font issue, Indesign can finally ‘see’ my ITC Stone Serif Medium thanks to reading this post and placing the new font (which I bought after getting messages that the older version was corrupt) in the Indesign fonts folder.
I’m working via an older inDesign, and suddenly it was telling me that it wouldn’t recognize one of my fonts. I closed inDesign, and found inDesigns’ font folder within my Applications folder (as suggested in this article). I clicked on the font (because I had previously dropped that into my font folder already). When I clicked on it, it opened in Font Book. Within Font Book, I clicked on “File” and then “validate,” which it validated just find. I then reopened inDesign and viola! my font works again within the document. Hope this helps someone!
Ahhh, a ‘viola’ is a musical instrument. ‘Voila’ is French for ‘look at this’ (very rough translation).
*just fine, not find.
David, You seem to be able to help other InDesign users with font issues, so I’m hoping you can do the same for me. I purchased and downloaded an InDesign template from Envato/Graphic River. The author included instructions to download a free font from Font Squirrel, which I did. However, I still get an error message that two of the font styles – a medium and a semi bold, are missing. I am using Adobe CC 2017 at my school. I do not have a personal Adobe account. Without an account, I can’t get Adobe tech support. Do you have any suggestions how to get the entire font family to work? Because I’m working on a school computer, I can’t make any changes to the program either.
Hi team,
i have also problem we fonts, some otf fonts (i.eurostile condensed,eurostile bold condensed bought from myfont.com )they can be seen in font list but upon open documents the in design still tells the fonts are missing. I tried to install in font folder inside indesign still not change. we are using windows machines.
anyone who has ideal how to deal with this please.
I just wanted to thank you for so easily solving my problem! I worked on it for an hour!! Thanks.
David, awesome and useful post (as always). I tried to create a shortcut to two installed fonts that InDesign isn’t finding. Windows 10 said I couldn’t create shortcuts in that folder. So I copied to font files themselves. Have you heard anyone having this issue? I’m logged in as an administrator.
You would not believe how many times you’ve got me out of a tight spot over the years.. thank you <3
I have InDesign CS5 installed in a Windows 7 machine.
I have two profiles – one is an administration profile which I use for administration of the machine; the other is a basic profile which I, and others, can use for ordinary everyday tasks.
In the basic profile, InDesign cannot ‘see’ many – although not all – of the fonts in the font folder. Minion Pro is one of the ones it can’t see which means that I have to find a working font before I can design anything.
In the Administration profile, InDesign appears to be able to see all of the various fonts.
I don’t want to keep having to switch profiles when I use InDesign so it would be good if someone could offer a way for InDesign in the Basic profile to see all of the fonts.
Learned something new today!!
THIS HAS CHANGED ME LIFE :)
Thanks
constantly a problem with Ind for me as we pass files back and forth – even when I’m the one that initially created the file! Fonts are a HUGE pain and they get duplicated or installed all over the place.
Folder Alias worked like a charm – I just rename the folder to the project so I know where they come from.
Best.Tip.Ever.
I’m using InDesign via Adobe Cloud. Where would I find the font folder? Or, access the font folder?
Kim: Actually there is no such thing as using InDesign in the cloud — the cloud is used just as a way to install and manage the app. But InDesign is living on your computer hard drive just like other software. So you should be able to find it in the normal place (for example, on the Mac, it’s in the Applications folder)
Kim: Oh, you are talking about Typekit fonts? Do you see the fonts in other programs? (MS Word or Photoshop or anything else?) I don’t know why InDesign would not see them.
Using the Creative Cloud app I’ve downloaded and installed the fonts I need. However, after opening and closing InDesign, InDesign is still not recognizing the fonts I downloaded and synched. Any suggestions?
Thank you. Had the same problem with Arial Black and Arial Black Italic. Simply copied them into the ID CC Fonts folder and all is good.
Thanks for this tip! I’m using ID CC 2015 and it wasn’t seeing certain fonts even though Font Book showed them and they were activated in Universal Type Client. I decided to make alias’ of my most used fonts and drop them in InDesign’s font folder. ID recognizes the fonts now and no longer tells me a font is missing. Hurrah!
@Cherry or ayone .. Dumb question but how do you make them an alias? I’m Using Windows/ CS3 / InDesign
I have had to dump a few things from CS4 that I was not using. Now it seems that I have lost fonts from both inDesign and my OS 10.6.8. Any suggestions?
Thanks pal!!! Made my day with this solution!. Have a nice day
I will work on a file and set up all of the fonts. Save it and every thing is fine. Then when I open the file up it is saying it can find the font. The font is there but Indesign now has (OTF) next to the font. And the Font that I have activated does not have (OTF) next to it. What would be my best work around. This has only started heppening with the new CC.
I finally found a solution to why fonts don’t show up in Windows. If the fonts are “green”, encrypted, they won’t stay installed past a reboot. To “fix” this, you need to right-click on the fonts (or the folder containing them — before you install them), choose Properties, then Advanced, and UNCHECK “Encrypt contents to secure data”. Make sure to apply it to subfolders and files (via the pop-up dialog box).
After that, the fonts were recognized.
Thank you to ‘sarabethhunt’ at this link (see last post): https://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/92742-installed-otf-fonts-disappear-after-reboot.html
-David
Hello,
I have a problem with Gotham fonts, I have Indd CC on Windows 8 and the program does not recognize the font entirely, missing diacriticle/some glyphs.
I have the same problem with Indd CS5, but i fixed when i put the fonts in Innd folder.
I try the same thing now but not working, i installed the fonts in Control Panel/Fonts also in Indd folder.
Can you help me?
Thank you,
Alexandra
Great Balls of Fire. Why did I spend 2 hours yesterday when the answer was here. Thanks.
I often encounter an issue where an inDesign document is looking for a font like News Gothic (T1) or Futura (TT). I do have the correct fonts, the one packaged with the document, but it doesn’t automatically replace the missing font. The correct font is in my font list as Futura or News Gothic (no TT or T1) but when I try to manually replace it the name switches back to the missing TT / T1 name.
I think this is caused by saving the document on a machine that has more than 1 version, like both T1 and TT, and inDesign is specifying which one is used. When a machine with only one font version opens the document, inDesign doesn’t find specify that font as T1 or TT and therefore thinks its a different font, even though its the same.
The only solution I’ve found is to change all such missing text to some other font, reopen the document, and then change it all back to the correct font.
This worked!
This worked for me in Illustrator too. (CS4)
There wasn’t an existing font folder so I just made one with the fonts I needed and they showed up.
I know I’m late to the party with this problem, but thank you, as I just spent three hours trying to troubleshoot font problem, and yours’ was the only thing that worked… Opened a large, multi-page Indd publication file I work on regularly and it tells me I am missing this one font. Not getting any error messages in suitcase. I Delete font, re-download, renaming, installing once again into Suitcase. No luck. Installed it into system fonts folder, nope. I then open a Quark Doc and I see font, although I can’t see it in an AI file either now. So run disk utilities thinking this might help, no luck. Thankfully I find your post & presto, you saved the day!
I am working in InDesign CS5. I have my paragraph styles set for my document and what I’m noticing is that on every other page the fonts appear to have different weights (regular and bold). Everything is set to regular for this style and the font size and leading are all the same. Any idea as to what is causing this and how I can fix it?? Thank you.
I’m having the same problem. I’ll keep looking for the culprit.
@Melanie: that is odd. Only thing I can think of is that perhaps on some pages you have some objects that have a transparency effect on them? I remember people talking about this in the comments section of this article.
I am using InDesign CS6 on Mac OS 10.7.5. I recently installed Font Agent Pro which was working well until today. My InDesign documents which loaded fonts successfully from FAP yesterday do not recognize those same fonts today. They are open in the FAP libraries and are not corrupted but don’t show in the InDesign font menu. I am using all OTF open source fonts. I cleaned my font cache today and restarted my computer too. Any suggestions on getting FAP and InDesign to play well together? Thanks!
Using CS3 on a Mac in 2013 seems archaic, but this post was very useful and it fixed our font problem. Thank you!
Rename the folder that contains their fonts to “Document Fonts” (no quotes, but use those initial caps). Keep the INDD file in the same parent folder as Document Fonts. Now open the INDD file and you should see that ID automatically loads their fonts for use only in that document. That’s a new feature from CS5 (or 5.5, can’t remember).
The fonts loaded from that Document Fonts folder appear at the top of the Type > Fonts list as “Document Fonts”.
Some older font types won’t work (won’t autoload), but give it a shot.
AM
THANK YOU! You fixed it!
This tip worked great (in ID CS5)! Thanks a ton!
I am new to this.. I had a company send me an art file so I can take ownership of it and edit it without paying them $500 each time we edit some text. However, they sent all of these files, a font folder, and I am not sure how to get the fonts to open in my new Indesign CS6. I click on the indesign file and it shows missing fonts but I cannot find a “folder” called FONTS on the indesign page.
I do see the fonts folder they sent to me.. how do I get the file to update so I can change copy?
Should be easy, but I am completely lost. HELP!
Thank you!!!!
thank goodness for this post! life saver! XXX
Something might be wrong with the Embellishment font. Perhaps try to reinstall?
I’m using CS2 on a Mac.
I need only 2 fonts for my current project: Palatino and Embellishments Type One LET.
Initially both were listed as missing when I opened my project file the day after I started the project.
I copied the Palatino font into the InDesign font folder and that solved the problem with that font.
However, when I did the same thing with the Embellishment font, it did not solve the problem. The font is still listed as missing.
Is there a solution?
Hello, we have two mac pro machines both running indesign cs5.
When copying the file to the other computer and trying to work on it on there we get the message about missing fonts.
The font in question is the Impact one.
I have made sure that the system/library/fonts folder in both Macs has the same impact fonts but still no luck with opening the file. Would be thankful for any ideas!
LOVE YOU…Awesome and so easy just spent an hour or two trying to get my arial narrow fonts to work and your simple tip fixed it in a second. Thanks for the post.
Thank you for telling me about the font folder!!!
@Laura, the problem with Arial Black is addressed in a MS hotfix for XP:
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/959334
Text that has the font set to Arial Black and the font style set to bold may change so that the font is set to Arial Black and the font style is set to Italic when you open the document on a computer that is running Windows XP
Hi everybody,
I just discovered this site trying to solve the Helvetica duplicate type issue. I just bought a new (leftover) Mac Pro (from a hot rodded 10 year old G4) and am reinstalling my old software. I ran CS3 and never even thought about type issues with it. Now with 10.6.3, I’m having the same issues a lot of other people are. I was all excited to read about installing fonts into the InDesign font folder until I discovered CS3 doesn’t have a font folder. I’ve screwed around with this thing for too long now without getting any work done, so just to save my own sanity at this point, I just substituted the few of Helvetica Neue fonts for Univers. I know it’s not an ideal solution, but it works for right now so I can get this ad out! Maybe I’m old school, buy I’ve always likes Univers anyway.
Great Forum everybody!
I am having the same issue as some of the others with Arial Black regular not being seen by InDesign CS5 on a PC. When I was using CS3 it was no problem. I have tried putting the font into the InDesign font folder and then restarting the program but it still isn’t seeing Arial Black regular, only Arial Black italic. Any other suggestions?
Thanks!
Hi Lynn,
Have a look at this: https://creativepro.com/hotfix-corrects-arial-narrow-problem-on-windows.php
In CS5, I cannot find Arial Narrow fonts. What is the solution? These fonts worked fine in CS4. Do I need to buy new fonts? If so, what is the best format to buy – True Type or Open Fact Type?
Help – this is really slowing my production updates within existing documents using Arial Narrow.
Thanks!
Lynn
I have two questions…
1. I work at a small publishing company and we recently installed a version and image browser-tracking system called XINET. When we did this, some of our font files got corrupted. When this happened, we installed uncorrupted font files in each of our computers (in our font library folder) and they work fine when we open some Indesign files but they are not recognized when we open other Indesign files which seems strange to me. Do you have some explanation for this? Shouldn’t the fonts be recognized by every file?
Finally, we installed them in the Indesign Font folder and that worked, but I still would like to know what happened.
2. Since we are a large team, do you recommend:
? working with fonts right from the server
? installing the fonts in each computer
? using font book or other font managing suite?
Mary, those are great questions but I’m afraid not enough people will see them, buried here in the comments list. You might consider copying and pasting your comment as a new forum post, where a lot of helpful people hang out: https://creativepro.com/forum
THANK YOU! This worked perfectly!
@clets: Sounds like you have a permissions problem on your computer; nothing specifically to do with InDesign.
Am using InDesign CS4 and also having a problem with fonts. Arial Narrow family is not recognized in InDesign. I’ve tried the technique of loading it to InDesign folder but it says: “the folder is write-protected or used by another program.” In CS3, there’s no problem loading the fonts. Please help. Thanks
As far as T1 fonts are concerned, when I upgraded to a 64 bit Windows machine and installed CS3, it no longer recognized my T1 fonts, even though they were in the system font folder and recognized by Microsoft Office. This was never a problem on a 32 bit Windows XP machine.
Long story short, placing copies of the T1 fonts in the InDesign font folder solved the problem. When I upgraded to CS5, same problem, same solution.
I don’t think this is a bug so much as the ugly reality that old equipment/software just doesn’t play especially well with new equipment/software and require tweaks and workarounds, if you are lucky.
We’re using CS4 and Font Agent Pro. ID seems to look for font first in the Library – fonts before Font Agent Pro (discovered this by using Reveal in Finder in Find Font). This means I cannot utilize FAP use of libraries, etc. How do I set up ID to go to FAP first to look for fonts or is this even possible? Help
Obviously using ID’s fonts folder is a workable workaround. But, has ID recognise this being bug?
We are using CS3 and having problems with Helvetica TT vs T1.
have you solved this problem? I have the same problem with these fonts.
Thank you! I just spent 2.5 hours trying to figure out how to get Helvetica Neue Cond – not part of the adobe font – onto my system. I had successfully deleted the .dfont, but neither Font Book or Suitcase would recognize it. I really didn’t want to spend $$$$ on the Open Type version of Helvetica Neue.
This simple fix works!
w00t! This suggestion cured my Arial Black problem.
David Blatner FTW!!
Missing fonts in indesign, load as medium when suitcase sees them as plain? This happens frequently with times & helvetica. I’m using suitcase 12.1.7 and mac os 10.4.11. with any version of indesign.
i realised what was the problem with MY font not displaying rightly. my language toolbar was set to Japanese instead of US English!! ack.
@Carabeth: I wonder if the fonts have become corrupted, which can cause all kinds of other indirect problems.
We are using CS3. Up until about 1 week ago when our lead designer’s computer started going nutso with repeated different crashes. She had to repeatedly restart InDesign with deleting her preferences. We kept a log and found that it was not the same files or graphics and so knew we needed to create a different user. Anyway, after creating a new user, we now have font problems. She has several fonts that are in many of her advertisements that have T1 fonts in them. I have found the fonts and put them back on her system and the files SAY they are T1 fonts BUT they do not say T1 in the name of the font which they did when she created the files… SO, the fonts are all pinked out. Any ideas about what I should do to make the fonts once again have the (T1) after the name of the font?????
I haven’t gotten InDesign to see all my Windows fonts yet, but I did resolve a problem with Arial Black. It’s installed in Windows, but ID can’t see it under that name. However, “Black” is a type style for “Arial”, and that’s how I get to it. So in some cases, ID only lists the family name, but not all the styles.
Ah ha! Thanks! I needed that fix.
@Abdelmajid: This is a great question for the forum (you can creat a new topic by clicking Forums in the nav bar above). In the meantime, I suggest putting the text on a master page; that’s where all repeating elements should go.
Hello,
I want to know how to add a word in each page of my document in InDesign. The word is “Draft” for example and I want it in the background of the doc. However, I don’t know how to do it.
Please help.
Thank you,
Abdelmajid.
Not sure. Why copy/paste? Does drag not work? (I assume you’re on Windows; copy/paste files doesn’t work on a mac, last time I checked.)
I’m not able to copy/paste fonts into the InDesign Fonts folder. The Paste option is greyed out. I’m at the Administrator level but this isn’t working. Any ideas?
Wow, this is one of my favorite tips in a long time. I work so often with other people’s files, and their fonts. Being able to just make an alias of their collected fonts and put it into InDesign’s fonts folder has solved so many problems for me. Now I don’t try to manage “OPF” (other people’s fonts) — I just keep them with the job folder, alias them as I need them, then dump the alias.
I’m also having the exact same problem with Arial Black. I can see Italics, but not other versions of Arial Black. The OTF fonts appear missing and the TTF fonts are there but In-Design can’t seem to see them…
Great article, solved my problem in InDesign CS2 with arial narrow bold ttf and arial narrow italic ttf. Uninstalled my 2008 versions of the font, installed newer 2009 versions through the Windows Control Panel, rebooted for good measure. InDesign still could not find either font. Based on this article copied the same fonts into the fonts folder in the InDesign installation folder and it immediately found the fonts after reopening the document. Many thanks!!
i’m having problem with my symbol.ttf font. I’m using winxp indesign cs2. it shows as symbol regular in my machine but on the other machine it shows as symbol medium. i’m using the same font file. please help… don’t know what to do anymore.
(Mac) I had this issue as well. Not only were all my fonts ‘missing’, but the only ones I had available to use were Apple’s Braille and Symbol fonts (wtf?).
The solution was to open CS3 from the Applications folder, instead of getting it to launch by trying to open the document. I suspect it looks for the fonts folder in the path it starts up from, so if you launch it by opening a document, it’ll look for the fonts folder in the same folder as the document – which more than likely won’t be there.
Anyway, that’s what worked for me.
You saved my day! On Monday morning certain weights of our most used font stopped showing itself in InDesign CS3, though was available in CS2, Quark, and Word. Spent hours replacing, reinstalling, ad infinitum. I put a copy in the Indd font folder as you suggested, and voila! It’s working again. Thank you!
@Chanda: Read through this:
https://creativepro.com/hotfix-corrects-arial-narrow-problem-on-windows.php
I have tried all these fixes for getting Indesign CS3 to see Arial narrow…. NOTHING is working….
It works on my other computer but that one is otherwise broken.
Any other ideas?
I have replaced Arial Narrow fonts in the windows font folder.
I have created a link to the font folder in the indesign font folder
I have copied the arial narrow font into the indesign font folder.
Help!! Running Windows XP…
Katlyne,
That is a known issue with new versions of Arial Narrow. You discovered the fix…replace it with an older version.
I believe the version that has the problem ships with Office 2007 and you need to find a machine with Office 2003 and copy the fonts from there.
Thanks so much, David–it worked! I completely deleted all versions of Arial Narrow (I’m on Windows XP Professional) from the system Fonts folder, re-installed the fonts from a stashed folder (different date on the files), closed down and rebooted, and IT WORKED! Yeah!
@Katlyne: I wish I had another suggestion. Sounds very strange. I wonder if the font is corrupted somehow. Perhaps try to install a “clean” version?
I appreciate all the suggestions, but I’ve tried ’em all, and nothing is working! CS3 can’t see Arial Narrow (and its variations), and I have a doc for which I need it! What’s even weirder: CS2 DOES see it. What’s THAT all about? Any other suggestions?
Had this problem and putting the font in ID’s font folder solved the “seeing” part. Now when I export to PDF, the font in question is there but appears to have wacky kerning which is not present in the ID file. Any ideas?
I am also having the same issue with CS3. We have a machine with it installed and some of the fonts do not seem to appear on it. I have tried some of the ideas above but to no avail. Does anyone know anything that is worth trying?
Hi, I am working off windows xp platform, using CS2. I have no problems seeing Arial Narrow, but my fellow work mates using the same versions etc can not see Arial Narrow in the ‘replace with’ drop down menu. Any solutions??? We have tried creating a shortcut to C:\Windows\Fonts in the InDesign fonts folder, also re-creating the Adobe font list files. Not thing is making this font appear in the Indesign font list!!!Please help!
Charlie, yes, same thing. Right-button-drag the Fonts folder icon…
Exactly how do you create a shortcut to C:\Windows\Fonts? Is it just like a shortcut I would create on my desktop, for example?
Thank you! Thank you! I stumbled upon your site after struggling with this very issue for a week. I tried it and it worked immediately.
I’m running Vista and I was having problems with InDesign CS3 recognising Arial Narrow. I figured if it was not recognising that font, there were bound to be others… so I thought I’d try something and create a shortcut to C:\Windows\Fonts in the InDesign fonts folder, and guess what? It works like a charm… anyone have any idea why this might be?
Thank you David, worked great, saved me lots of time trying to re-do them :)
Rosa, the only way to get vector (non-bitmapped) fonts from Photoshop to InDesign is to save the file as PDF. To see them at high-quality in ID, choose View > Display Quality > High Quality.
I have a different prob. I have created a few docs, using text boxes in adobe photoshop. When I then place them in Indesign, they become distorted and pixelated. Does anyone know the reason why?
I’ve run into this problem as well. I start ID CS2 and most of my fonts aren’t activated, though according to the system AND Fontbook, they are. Simple runaround fix? Quit ID and restart the program, voila… the fonts are there.
Great tip, David. You just saved me a bunch of time. Thanks!
oh! good to know! thanks!
Lexi, sorry I wasn’t more clear: I meant select the paragraph and choose Break Link to Style from the Paragraph Styles palette menu. That’s like applying “no style” to it.
thanks for your quick response! i am not sure what you mean by breaking the link other than setting it to another paragraph style. The only problem is that I have already applied a lot of kerning and adjustments to the text so that if I applied a paragraph style, I am afraid they would reset the spacing etc. i guess i’ll try that and reset the type. i suspect it will work. thanks!
Lexi, your comment doesn’t really have to do with finding fonts, but: My guess is that the text inside the text frame is set to Basic Paragraph Style. Yes? Try either breaking the link to the BPS or applying a different paragraph style to that text before copy/pasting the frame.
All I’m trying to do is paste a formatted box from one ID doc to another with all of the formatting intact. [CS2] the originating box is set to NONE for object styles, but when i paste it in the new doc, it automatically makes it a basic text frame – even if i select NONE in the new doc before pasting. So it shows up in the basic paragraph format AND pinked out even though it’s loaded. UGH! HELP!
Cynthia, you should definitely check out the InDesigner topic on indexes (click “Watch the Videocast” button on the left). As for a font: InDesign ships with several that are quite good, including Myriad Pro and Minion Pro. These Pro fonts have a number of multi-lingual glyphs in them already, including Cyrillic, Greek, and some characters that I can’t identify (probably Klingon or something).
I am new to InDesign and new to this discussion page. My current task is to create a large technical manual using InDesignCS2 in a MS Windows XP Environment. The initial draft is a 200-page MS Word document.A critical section of the manual is the index. Once final, the English version will be translated into more than 35 languages, so I must be sure to use a Unicode font. Any and all advice for such a project is most welcome! I am most eager to hear how others have created comprehensive Indexes, Tables of Contents, Cross-references, and other standard textbook features. Thank you in advance for any and all dialogue on this topic.
I have seen this happen before, and it’s often very confusing. Sometimes it’s a Mac vs. Windows thing (Regular vs. Roman). Sometimes it’s just cosmic rays.
Just to say I’ve solved my problem of Jan. 7: Answer ended up being simple although cause not clear: In preflight, I “changed” the name of the missing font showing (News Plantin Roman) to plain News Plantin…which doesn’t even have a Roman but a Regular…how the name got corrupted, I don’t know for sure. Thanks David B. for responding to help.
Excellent points, Jason. Thanks for the reference!
Hey fontlovers… there is a great review comparing Suitcase Fusion, FontExplorerX and FontAgentPro at Ars Technica at https://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/fontmanagers.ars (no I don’t work for those companies or write for ArsTechnica) and as it turns out, there is something wrong with all 3 of them. Also no one has mentioned the Keyboard Shortcut that David mentioned in an earlier podcast– “Update Missing Font List” {the last item in the “Text & Tables” Product Area} sometimes this might work when other apps can see an activated font but InDesign still says no.
Thanks for the tip about placing a font file or alias in the ID font folder. But this one font, News Plantin MT -postscript (which is there and activated in my Linotype FontExplorer X and prints fine in, say, Illustrator) is missing in ID…but isn’t pinked out…just missing to print. Wouldn’t ya know I’ve already used it in a banner header plus want to use it as the body text in current job. BLAH! Any fast suggestions would be much appreciated..??
I wish I could get away with not using a font management app but I use far to many fonts to manually manage them using the user font folder. I had so much trouble with Suitcase I tried everything else and found FontAgentPro to be the best.
Worked beautifully with CS2 on OS X 10.4.8. Many many thanks for the tip. On a lark I copied the aliases to my AI folder as well, just in case it decides to act up sometime in the future.
Yes, InDesign sometimes takes a bit of time loading a font, but it always does it eventually (using FontAgent Pro) unless like Anne-Marie says, you have a TT and T1 battling it out. Recently though, I was converting files from Quark 6 to InDesign. Lordy, Lordy, you want font problems? With every single file, Quark would ask for and then refuse to see some or all of the required fonts after loading them. I’d go back and forth, InDesign could see them everytime. Quark: uh uh.
At work i’m connected to a network and it seems that sometimes one computer has named a font a little bit different ie. Swiss 721 or Swiss721. I find myself replacing fonts regularly if someone else has worked on the same job.
We have Suitcase here at work and I absolutely hate it. It’s sooo slow to open fonts and then it automatically closes fonts when a file isn’t open which takes even longer! Synchronizing fonts is a pain in the azz! hate it hate it hate it!
Thanks for letting me vent. :)
This is a great trick. My newspaper’s body text is set in Times Europa. IDCS very often would NOT show it formatted as small caps (it would be pinked out). The problem resumed last week in IDCS2, and putting the Times Europa screen and printer fonts into the InDesign Fonts folder solved it immediately. Note that I was using Linotype Font Explorer and it still happened.
I’m like Steve, I go commando without any font management tool at all (I don’t even use Font Book), and have ever since OS 9.2. In OS X it’s a dream, I drop fonts into my user > library > fonts folder *while ID’s “missing fonts” dialog box is up* and when I come back to ID, it thinks about it for a while and then it goes away.
And I too have seldom (if ever) had the problem of ID not seeing fonts that other apps could.
One thing that *will* mess up ID though is if you have two+ typefaces active but they’re in different formats… Helvetica TT and Helvetica T1 for example. You get a lot of TT fonts in Mac OS X because of the .dfonts preinstalled in the OS. Font managers can clean that up for you but you can also do it yourself.
One other thing I’ve found very useful when diagnosing font problems in ID is to look at Type > Find Font > More Info to see *where ID is finding the font* … the suitcase folder? the system > library folder? etc.
I like David’s technique of using ID’s own Fonts folder, though I can’t say I’ve ever used it myself.
And, strangely enough, I almost never have had that happen to me. But I don’t use a font manager. (Or more precisely I use FontBook, but generally don’t open and close the fonts at all.)
Oh my, what a topic!
I can’t count the hours I’ve wasted on this exact issue. My favoirte line is “why is it that we have the technology to put man on the moon, but we can’t get our friggin’ fonts to work right?”
Let me start by stating that I’ve experienced this exact issue MANY a time — where a font is loaded — other apps can see the font — but the text is pinked out in InDesign. I’ll go further than that — with two documents open in InDesign, I’ve seen where the font is available in one of the documents, but not the other!
I’ve spoken to Will Eisley about this, and it was a bona fide bug for a while. Especially in CS — although I’ve encountered this FAR less in InDesign CS2 (in fact, I can’t remember seeing it happen in quite a while, so maybe a dot-release fixed it?).
Just for the record, I use Font Reserve.
When I had this issue, the only way to resolve it was to quit and relaunch InDesign. I think the bug had something to do with being in InDesign, and then switching to another app, and then switching back again, at which time InDesign would “forget” about which fonts it was using.
In either case, as I said earlier, I haven’t seen it happen on my system for several months now. I would suggest that you make sure you’ve got the latest update installed.
I used to use Suitcase & even bought the latest version for both of my Macs. But it simply does not work! Fonts that are reported fine by Font Doctor (part of the Suitcase Fusion bundle), are reported as corrupt by Suitcase, even though the previous version would happily load them!
So I tried using the previous version for a while, but I would still get strange problems no & then.
So I decided to try Linotype Font Explorer – WOW!
No more font problems for me.
I don’t like the way it can’t add a font temporarily without adding it to it’s library (but I get around this by labelling a font like this).
It’s by no means perfect, but I spend less time fiddling with fonts now :)
One word of warning – you can get VERY strange results at times when sending a job to a client, who uses Suitcase, text re-runs etc… But this has only happened once & I get around this by checking if they need the InDesign files rather than a PDF & if they do need the InDesign files, then I use Suitcase X1.
One last thing… On a regular basis, I clean Font Cache files using Tiger Cache Cleaner by Northern Softworks, works for me & I have very few font problems now.
I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been using Linotype FontExplorer X and it works wonders.
After suffering with Suitcase (oh, gawd I HATED that Suitcase) for years, FontExplorer X just works.
The best part is: it’s free.
And no, I don’t work for them :-)