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: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-17T15:01:20+00:00

    Quick update: it looks like other people are having this same problem too: 

    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/office-365/bd-p/Office365General

    HELP!

    Best,

    Tomas

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-17T15:13:31+00:00

    I'm having the same problem in Word, with Garamond Pro (but not with Caslon Pro).

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Jim G 134.1K Reputation points MVP
    2020-08-17T15:18:45+00:00

    When a new behavior occurs, the obvious question to ask is, "What changed?"

    That occurred to you, and you hinted that perhaps this happened after you installed Word updates. This is an easy hypothesis to test. Use Time Machine to restore just the MIcrosoft Word.app in the Applications folder. Choose the Replace option. Then, set AutoUpdate to manual and set a reminder in Outlook to set it back to Automatic around this time next month.

    If the problem goes away when you restore the previous build of Word, then you have your answer. Be sure to let Microsoft know that this problem happened and what you did to fix it by using the Help menu in Word and choose the Feedback/Contact support option.

    Use Time Machine to restore deleted files ... - Apple Support

    If you restore 16.39 build of Word and the problem does not go away, then the Word update wasn't the problem and we have to figure out what else changed.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-17T15:31:08+00:00

    Thanks Jim. I don't use Time Machine unfortunately. And my other backups run nightly and don't preserve the prior states of my computer.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments