Several installed fonts don’t show up in the fonts list

L
Posted By
LenHewitt
Aug 12, 2003
Views
334
Replies
4
Status
Closed
Fonts in Illustrator and Photoshop are ordered alphabetically by writing script code, and use the PostScript Name. Consequently many fonts will not be where you expect them to be in the listing. For instance ZaphDingbats will be displayed as ITC ZaphDingbats. Additionally many TTFonts have the incorrect writing script as many foundries were using a font creation program with a bug in it. These will be in a 2nd alphabetically ordered listing below the first.

If you open the adobefnt*.LST file(s) (and there can be in excess of 50 of them), you will find those problem fonts have an entry for:

writingscript : easteuropean (or Greek or something other than Roman).

By editing the Adobefnt*.LST file(s) so those entries read writingscript: Roman, they will appear in the correct order and be usable. However, you will also need to set the adobfnt.lst file to read only, or it will revert when Illustrator is next opened. This means that Photoshop/Illustrator won’t see any additions or deletions to/from your active fonts.

The real cure is to get versions of those fonts that do not contain the bug.

Lastly, you can delete all adobefnt*.LST files on your machine – they will be rebuilt as required.
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GM
George Masi
Aug 12, 2003
The Windows Search function located 29 AdobeFnt.LST files but none of them could be opened by Windows, so I was not able to determine the writingscript designation.
I should point out that all of the fonts in question, i.e. those which do not appear in PS, were installed from the Adobe Font Folio 9 CD. Is it likely that these fonts contain the bug?

To take the Neue Helvetica font family as a specific example, 5 typefaces from this family are installed in the Windows fonts folder, the name of each face always begins with the words Neue Helvetica, and yet only one of these appears in the PS fonts list.

Lastly, can you explain what curative value would be achieved by deleting all adobeFnt.LST files. Would the rebuilding of the files necessarily bring a solution?
GM
George Masi
Aug 13, 2003
I’ve found the happy but unexpected solution to this mystery. Although only one face of each font family shows up in the fonts list the drop-down list just to the right of the fonts list displays all of the variations on that face. The fonts are actually all available after all but not directly from the fonts list.

The two lists must be used together.

This is a very pleasing outcome because PS has the best text-editing options of any application I’ve ever used.
DM
dave milbut
Aug 13, 2003
eek! don’t say that!!! we want them to make it better!!! 🙂
L
LenHewitt
Aug 13, 2003
George,

PS has the best text-editing options of any application I’ve ever used.<<

You’ve obviously never used InDesign, Illustrator or even PageMaker….

Pleased to hear you have it sorted.

You can open .LST files in any text editor – but you won’t open them by double-clicking them

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