Indesign missing fonts - Graphic Design Courses

Occasionally an Indesign document may have missing fonts – this is a problem which occurs less and less these days with the introduction of the Adobe Creative Cloud. But it can be easily remedied – we show you how in our Adobe Indesign classes.
Sometimes when you first open a document, you’ll get the message: Font Problems – this document uses fonts or characters which are not available or are in a different format than originally specified. Do you still wish to open this document?
Hit Open to see the Find Font dialog box – it’s a bit of a misnomer – a better description would be Replace Fonts, because Indesign can’t find a font that’s not on your machine. This usually occurs because a colleague has sent you an Indesign document without packaging it. If you don’t have a font they used on your machine, Indesign has a problem. The default is simply to replace the missing font with Times New Roman, or a font of your choice. Alternatively, if you really must use the original font, you need to contact your colleague and ask them to Package the document (File > Package) – this will pack up copies of the fonts and graphics used in the document, together with the Indesign document. And it’s this package that they need to zip and send to you.
When you receive the packaged folder, you then need to copy the fonts into your system fonts folder (Start menu > Settings). Reboot Indesign and the missing font will be included in the list of fonts.
However, with the introduction of Adobe’s Creative Cloud in 2013, the missing font issue is becoming a thing of the past. When you subscribe to the Cloud you have access to the Adobe Type Kit which has over 500 versatile fonts, worth $100,000 apparently. With everyone subscribed to the Cloud and using these fonts, there will be no missing fonts in future – what a great prospect to look forward to! So if you’re not already signed up to the Cloud – do it today and say goodbye to Missing Fonts!
More tips can be found at the Sydney Indesign User Group which meets regularly in the city, and is a free forum for designers to discuss topics and the latest Indesign features. See many examples of our own clients’ work on our Facebook page.
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