Expert: Ken Black - 5/28/2010

Question
QUESTION: Hello! Hopefully you can help me out...

My problem is with my work computer. I'm on a Mac using OS X and Adobe CS3.

My boss bought our computers second-hand reconditioned. Mine came with a lot of random fonts and software on it. When I use InDesign, I have 52 different fonts that I can't use because I get the warning about the outline file being missing.

I figured I could take care of this by simply purging my system of these fonts. However, I can't find any of them on my system! I've checked the system fonts, the Library > Fonts, the InDesign font folder and Font Book. They don't seem to exist anywhere but in InDesign. So I'm not sure how I can get rid of them... And I can't reinstall them because I didn't install them in the first place and I don't know where they came from.

A few examples are Camanetti, Catullus, Danton, Hassan, Lesline, Ittery, Keeple, Lapidary, Tribute.... and many, many others.

I hope I'm directing my question at the right person. I'd really appreciate it if you could help me out. It's so frustrating to be scrolling through fonts trying to decide which to use only to find that I can't use them.

And if you can't help, perhaps you could refer me to someone who could.

Thank you for your time.

Marissa
Las Cruces Bulletin

ANSWER: Hi Marissa,

Adobe products install a default set of fonts in a separate folder from the usual font locations. Those don't sound like the standard fonts that install with Adobe products, but the previous user may have installed those in the same folder.

To find the folder go to:

"Your Hard Drive Name" -> Library -> Application Support -> Adobe -> Fonts

Also do this for the users home folder (the icon usually looks like a little house)

"Your Hard Drive Name" -> "Your User Home Folder" -> Library -> Application Support -> Adobe -> Fonts

Mac OS X sets up a font folder not only in the root Library but in each users Library as well.

Check these places as well:

"Your Hard Drive Name" -> Library -> Fonts

"Your Hard Drive Name" -> "Your User Home Folder" -> Library -> Fonts

And if the fonts do not exist in any of those, you might try clearing the Cache file Indesign uses.

For this go to:

"Your Hard Drive Name" -> "Your User Home Folder" -> Library -> Caches -> Adobe Indesign

You are looking for the file FontMaskCache.

Remove it from the folder, either by trashing it or putting it somewhere else.

This will force Indesign to rebuild the font list you see when choosing fonts. If the fonts don't exist, Indesign shouldn't add it to the list.

Lastly, try trashing the preferences for Indesign.

"Your Hard Drive Name" -> "Your User Home Folder" -> Library -> Preferences -> Adobe Indesign

This will force Indesign to rebuild the preferences with a default set, just like out of the box, only it should be missing the fonts if you have removed them from any of the steps above.

Thanks,

Ken Black

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello,

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, none of the solutions were successful. I wasn't able to find the fonts in any of those folders, I removed the cache files, the AdobeFnt file, and I removed the preferences for InDesign. InDesign did revert back to the default settings, but the non-working fonts are still there. Is there anything else you can recommend?

Thank you,
Marissa

Answer
Hi Marissa,

I am not sure if you have already tried this or not, but, try searching your hard drive for any of the fonts in the list. It may be possible that they came from some other software installation that has automatically installed them and custom mapped them into the system.

Thanks,

Ken Black