Word now only recognizing the bold font of my Adobe Pro typefaces--Powerpoint and Excel work as expected

Anonymous
2020-08-17T03:45:00+00:00

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can help me with a weird thing where two of my Adobe Pro fonts stopped working properly in Word. This is occurring both on my 365 account on my home computer (iMac Pro) and my Office 2019 license (MacBook Pro 13" 2017) on my work computer. Both are running the latest Catalina (10.15.6). I only just noticed the problem in the last few days. So I don't know if it was a recent Microsoft update or what. Everything was working well before I went on vacation at the end of August [edit: I meant end of July].

The two affected typesets are Adobe Garamond Pro and Adobe Caslon Pro. Long story short, the version of Word on my 365 subscription (16.40 20081000) and my Volume License 2019 (16.40 20081000 & and on the most recent prior version of 16.39) both are acting as if I only have Adobe Garamond Pro (and Adobe Caslon Pro) bold on my system. So all my text is now bold. Word is able to see that I have regular, italic, and semibold (as it lists them as part of my fonts), but when I try to manually select regular, italic, or semibold it ignores my request and still shows only bold (with a checkmark next to it indicating that I have selected bold). No matter what I do, it only allows me to select bold for those typefaces. Other typefaces seem to work fine, though I admit I have not tested them all. 

Importantly, this problem does not occur with Powerpoint or Excel. When using those applications, the Adobe typefaces work as expected. Those applications see that I have regular, italic, and semibold and it lets me choose among them. Same when I use the Apple Pages application. Everything works as expected there.

Anywho, Adobe Garamond Pro is my go-to typeface for work, and so now I'm in a pickle. 

I'd appreciate any help you might be able to offer in tracking this problem down.

Best,

Tomas

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2020-08-27T14:36:11+00:00

I just launched Word on my work laptop and it was still exhibiting the problem even though this computer already had the new Adobe Acrobat Reader update. BUT, I then launched Acrobat and asked it to read a PDF that had Adobe Garamond Pro as the typeface. It loaded up fine in Acrobat of course. I then quit Acrobat and launched Word and Garamond Pro started working on this computer too! So MAKE SURE YOU LAUNCH ACROBAT on your computer, as RebCran indicated. I'm not sure if Garamond Pro must be in the PDF you launch, but that's what worked for me.

Tomas

Was this answer helpful?

1 person found this answer helpful.
0 comments

41 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-17T21:05:53+00:00

    i dont have the Adobe update.  My auto updater isnt working so I will download from Adobe manually.  It will take some time.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-17T20:57:30+00:00

    HI L_L123,

    Sounds like you are able to use Adobe Garamond Pro with 16.40? If so, I wonder if you might be willing to look at your installer logs to see what pops up in the last 15 days or so?

    Thanks,

    Tomas

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-17T20:49:05+00:00

    Thanks Bob for your response. Adobe Garamond Pro is OpenType Postscript (according to Fontbook) but I don't think that is it. The typeface has worked well for years on my Macs with Word, right up until around the time some updates pushed out from Adobe and Microsoft in the last week or so. I also have a ton of other OpenType Postscript fonts that continue to work flawlessly today.

    In looking at Layne and my installer logs (see above), the things that stand out in common are:

    ARMDC Agent Installer (which is adobe's update manager)

    Microsoft 16.40 updates

    Acrobat Reader update

    Because I was having problems on my laptop with 16.39, only in the last few days, that suggests to me that it might be one of the Adobe updates. But I have no idea why the two Adobe updates would affect a few of their typefaces.

    And again, Adobe Garamond Pro still works with Excel, Powerpoint, Pages, etc. Seems to only be Word that is bugged. But is it really?

    Such a mystery! And an annoyance. All my documents are in Adobe Garamond Pro, and now all the formatting will be thrown off if I have to change typefaces... Yikes!

    Best,

    Tomas

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-17T20:43:51+00:00

    So your hypothesis is that a font that our designers have been using for years with all of our branding without issue all of a sudden stopped working because it's incompatible?  We've been using it since 2014 and with Office 2016 and until recently with 2019.  It still works on my 2019 install without issue.  So I think it may be more than a global incompatibility.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments