Expert: Amy - 11/3/2007

Question
Amy, I have some fonts (corrrectly) installed in my system which are not
available to me in Illustrator.  What do you think might be the problem?  I
have contacted the font company, and they sent me different versions of the
problem fonts to try, but ... still -- certain fonts are just not available!  This is
especially troublesome, as I have been purchasing fonts for specific jobs &
not been able to use them!  Is there a LIMIT as to how many fonts Illustrator
can use at a time?  Any thoughts would be GREATLY appreciated!

Answer
Hi Pamela.

A few thoughts.

1 - Yes, there is a limit to how many fonts your machine/AI can handle. Depends on your setup. You could TRY removing everything but the system fonts and the problem fonts and see if that does anything for you.

2 - You could recreate Adobe's fonts lists.
   a - Quit all Adobe programs.
   b - Locate and delete all files matching the pattern adobefnt*.lst (make sure they are .lst files).
   c - Restart Illustrator. The font cache (those lists) will be re-created.

3 - There is also a possibility that you have a corrupt font (not one of the new ones) among your collection. Removing all and putting back little by little will help you figure out which one might be bad. It's a long and arduous process, so I hope it's not the problem.

Well, try that and let me know. I'm bankin on #2!

-Amy