Mystery Box – Missing Fonts
Could you use a little help sorting through the gobbledygook of warning dialog boxes in Photoshop Elements or Adobe Photoshop?
Mystery Box Series
In my Mystery Box series, we’ll take a look at sorting through all the words and options of some of Adobe’s most common warning dialog boxes to simplify them and get you back to doing what you do best … telling your stories.
Mystery Box – Missing Fonts
- When will you most commonly encounter this warning box? Opening a layered PSD grayscale template.
- Why does it happen? The person who designed the template you opened used a font that is not installed on your computer.
- What should you do? Click Don’t Show Again, and then click OK. The warning dialog box is not needed because there will be warning signs (⚠️) in the Layers panel after you click OK.
How To Proceed
- As a scrapbooker, how can you avoid this warning box? You cannot avoid it the first time you see it. But you can keep it from disturbing your workflow by clicking on Don’t Show Again before you click OK.
- Where do you look for the signs (⚠️)? You will see them in the Layers panel.
Here’s where it can get tricky. There are two different signs in both PSE and PS. Yes, those two signs in PSE are different!
- The top sign in each image (above) indicates that the font used in that layer needs to be updated. It’s not really related to the warning box we’re talking about here. We’ll cover that in a different Mystery Box segment.
- The bottom sign in each image (above) indicates that the font used in that layer is not installed on your computer. Here are your options when seeing this sign.
Option 1️⃣, Trash It. Drag the offending type layer to the Trash icon and create your own type layer to replace it. This is usually what I do. Why? Because these layers are usually formatted in a way I don’t like anyway!
Option 2️⃣, Replace It. In the Layers panel, click on the offending type layer to activate it. Get the Horizontal Type tool. In the Tool Options, open the Font Picker and choose a font to replace the offending one.
Option 3️⃣, Install It. In the Layers panel, click on the offending type layer to activate it. Get the Horizontal Type tool. In the Tool Options, you’ll see the offending font listed in the Font Picker. It will be in [brackets] because it’s temporary and not installed on your computer. Hunt down the font and install it on your computer. Once it’s installed, you’ll be good to go.
‼️ Attention Template Designers
If you are someone who designs grayscale templates for scrapbookers, there are two things you can easily do to avoid this from happening to your customers.
- Only use system-native fonts in your templates. Cross-reference the system-native font list from both Windows and Mac to make sure you’re covering your bases.
- Save your templates in the software program that most of your customers use. So, if the majority of your customer base uses Photoshop Elements, then save your templates in PSE before packaging them up.
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Author: Jen White | Contact Us
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I know I’m going to love this series Jen, thanks for always knowing what we need!
You solved a mystery for me! I never realized there were 2 different triangles! I have often wondered why a font was flagged when I had that font. I’m looking forward to Dr. Jen Sherlock solving more mysteries!!
That waring is so frustrating. Thank you for this. It’s perfect.
Thank you Jen and I love this series Cannot wait for the next installment. Using this to figure out what those triangles mean! Now I know and can avoid the warnings in the future.
As a designer, I happen to like the fonts I’ve chosen for a template, especially if it’s for titles. I do always include font information on what the font is and where to find it. They are almost always free! I also add that people are, of course, free to choose whatever font they like. (I usually change them too, for my personal scrapbooking, to a handwritten type of font)
I have so many fonts installed tight now, I don’t even know which ones are the system native fonts, lol! Does our mystery solving Jen know how find that out?
I’m so glad you chimed in, Marlene! I also like it when designers use “prettier” fonts on their templates. It probably increases sales/downloads. But the unfortunate reality is, it causes confusion to those who are new to their software. :/
When I need to find a list of fonts native to a system, I Google it. So for example, here is the list for Windows 11. Unfortunately, other versions of windows will have a slightly different list. And Mac versions have different lists too. For people like you and me, our best bet is to find fonts that work for ALL operating systems. They call those “common fonts.” That’s even trickier to find and a lot of the data is linked to “web-safe” fonts or it’s out of date. But it can be a start!
Your best bet is to try a font on one of your templates and then see if anyone on your creative team gets a warning. Then, start making a list of fonts you like that don’t confuse you customers. 😀
Thanks Jen, you are always so helpful. I’m working on some templates right now, I’ll try to find some “common fonts”!
Ah, but are all of these OK for commercial use? I want to make sure my templates contain CU fonts. So can I use “arial” in products I sell? I know, more googling, lol!
That is a great question, Marlene. YES! All system fonts are okay for commercial use.
…and I continue to learn something new every day here at DS! I’ve always known how to work around it, but I always feared checking the “don’t show again” box. This Mystery Box Series is going to be FUN and educational!
Love all of your great information and definitions. Your name should be Jen Webster 🙂