Appreciate the thoughts… yeah, spellcheck is how I’m doing it now, and it’s agonizing.
A handful of errors per page x hundreds of pages. I can’t go back to the original source.

Annoyingly, spellcheck’s suggestions are not consistent. One problem word might have the correct solution as the first choice, then another might have it as the 4th choice with some nonsensical suggestions ranked above it like “been-pulled” (why??).

If the first choice was always consistent, like the [word][space][word], then I could at least rapidly spam double clicks on the first suggestion, and fix 99% of the problem words in a matter of minutes. But the slight mental effort and wasted time of finding the correct choice from the suggestion list, turns minutes into hours.

A script that would run a spellcheck, and automatically replace the problem words strictly with [word1 word2] suggestions, would essentially do the trick. Or a script that uses a custom dictionary, which is just the normal dictionary, but maybe culling words less than 5 characters to reduce the amount of false positives (“the me” instead of “theme”).

The shortcut you gave is useful, but mostly it’s not about finding a specific font,
it’s about having a shorter, manageable list of fonts, for when I’m sort of browsing the possibilities.

Maybe it’s just the neat freak in me, but situations like this are just unacceptible.

View post on imgur.com

If I can solve this mystery, I may waste some time getting it right once,
but then it’ll never bug me again.

I wanted to add another fix I had recent font issues that drove me nuts, and now I finally understand what happens. Not just with Indesign but just about all windows font issues.

For a font to work in indesign, you have to have the following issues straightened out.

1. It’s correctly installed (this is where most problems are coming from).
2. It’s not missing or incorrect in Adobe’s font list files, which float around various adobe folders on your PC.
3. It’s not missing or incorrect in the windows font cache (which lives in C:\windowsystem32 in windows 7, and is called fntcache.dat)
4. It’s not incorrect in your Indesign general preferences.

Issues 2 and 3 are pretty easy fixes, and you may have already tried them. Basically, you delete fntcache.dat, and let windows rebuild it when you reboot the PC. And/or you delete the (whatever)fnt.lst files from various adobe folders, and let Indesign rebuild them.

But if you had no success, it’s issue 1, possibly combined with issue 4, and this is poorly explained almost everywhere I’ve found, so I’m gonna try to explain it better.

You have a few different ways of installing a font on Windows (sorry Mac users, I got no knowledge of mac font issues).
• Right click the font file, choose install
• Drag the font into C:\windows\fonts\
• other ways (but nevermind, let’s move on)

When you right click and install a font, 2 things happen.
1. Windows copies the file to C:\windows\fonts\
2. Windows creates an entry in the registry. The registry keeps a list of installed fonts, and your freshly-installed font gets added to this list.
3. If the font is a Type 1 font (the ones that are made of 2 files, like something.PFM and something.PFB) then those fonts get added to a *different* list in the registry.

I think 90% of windows font problems come from issues with this registry list.
If a font is on the list, but not in the windows folder… you can’t use it.
Worse, it may appear in Indesign, but give an error when you try to choose it, or just all blanks.
If a font is in the Windows Font folder, but not on the list… you can’t use it.
If you try to reinstall it, and it’s already on the list… you get an error like “this font is already installed”.

It’s also possible for a font to be in the correct folder, and be in the registry list… but it still doesn’t work because the registry list points to an incorrect filename. Like the registry thinks your Scriptina font file is called “Scriptina.ttf”, but it’s actually called “Scriptina_0.otf” or something.

On top of all that, Windows makes it difficult to easily view and delete the font files contained in C:\windows\fonts. If you go to that font folder “the usual way” you get a special folder view, where fonts get big preview icons and you see their full pretty name (e.g. “Times New Roman Bold” instead of “TimesNRB.ttf” or whatever). Unfortunately, this special view has a ton of issues.
• The icons you see here are governed by the registry list. So if the registry list is wrong, the windows font folder will be also.
• You can’t see the true filename, which is necessary to make that registry list work.
• You don’t see duplicate files. It’s very possible to have something like… curlzMT.ttf, curlzMT_0.ttf, curlzMT_1.ttf, curlzMT_2.ttf, etc.
• It displays fonts with multiple weights under one icon, which acts sort of like a windows folder… you double click it to see the fonts within the folder. But it’s not always consistent with adobe apps, e.g. you might have 20 fonts under “Meta” in the font menu, but windows shows 20 Meta icons, or worse, something weird like 10 Meta icons, with 2 fonts within each… a regular and an italic.
• If you try to delete a font in this special font folder, you very often get an error that windows just can’t delete it. And even specialty programs like “unlocker” don’t work.

OK, so here’s the fix that will solve almost all windows (and InDesign) font issues.

STEP 1

• You must straighten out that registry list first, then straighten out the windows font folder too.
I won’t explain the whole registry and how it works, if you haven’t heard of it then be careful poking around in it, or get a more techy friend to help.

Run regedit.
Navigate to this “folder” (actually called a key): HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts
*note: it’s windows NT, not just “windows”.

After highlighting the key on the left, you’ll see a bunch of values on the right (basically each value = one font in the list).

If you have a particular font you’re having issues with, look for it in the list, right click on it, and choose “delete”.
Try not to delete any basic windows system fonts like arial, times new roman, and those weird language fonts like GulimChe.
Google to find a list of system fonts for your version of windows.

If the font is a Type 1 font, you need to go here instead: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Type 1 Installer\Type 1 Fonts\
Same deal, look for troublesome fonts in the list on the right, right click them, choose delete.
Note – this doesn’t delete the font file itself, just removes it from the list of installed fonts. It will still be on your computer, whether it was located in the windows font folder or somewhere else.

Go through the list and delete fonts that you know you’ve tried to remove before, or know you don’t want. Delete fonts that give errors in your adobe applications.

STEP 2

• Now to clean out the windows font folder.

Instead of viewing the windows font folder normally, you must view it in a different way. This alternate way of browsing the folder will let you see the files as usual, organize them however you want, and see the actual file names (including duplicates). This view is unaffected by that registry list mentioned above.

To get this true view of the windows font folder, open up any folder on your PC, and at the top (where you see “address” and can manually type stuff) try copying and pasting this:
localhost\C\Windows\fonts\

If it works you’ll see your fonts the same way you see any other files. All those ugly duplicates with _0 and _1 in their filename will be visible. And if you delete a font, it actually works without any issue (usually). But before we delete anything – copy all the files in this folder to a new folder located somewhere else, like your desktop or wherever. We want to play it safe, because when you delete fonts in this “true view” of the font folders, I believe it’s permanent, it doesn’t move them to your recycle bin.

Now find and remove the problem font file(s)… be aware that it might have a weird name that doesn’t make it immediately obvious. Like Palatino Bold is “palabi_0.ttf” or your Univers fonts might all start with L because they’re made by Linotype. If you see a file and are unsure what font it represents, you can just double click it and get a preview with the font’s full name.

Now that you have a cleaned up registry list, and a cleaned up windows font folder, you can reinstall the problem fonts. I recommend you do this by making sure they’re somewhere outside of the windows font folder, then right clicking and choosing install. If all goes well, the font will be available in indesign and elsewhere, and work without any errors.

If not, try those other fixes mentioned earlier, deleting those .lst files and the windows font cache.

Finally, I’ve had fonts give me problems because they were somehow listed erroneously in my Indesign preferences file. I think that file keeps a full list of fonts too, if you open it in a text editor you’ll see tons of font names. If you try everything else and are about to give up, try trashing your indesign preferences. I’ll leave you to google how to do that.