This article discusses the use of Adobe Fonts for workflows that utilize automation processes with Enfocus Switch and/or Adobe InDesign Server.

BACKGROUND

Adobe Fonts is a font library that is available to all users of Adobe InDesign that have an active Adobe Creative Cloud account. Adobe Fonts are activated online, and do not need to be installed directly on your system. When you activate Adobe Fonts on your system, they will appear in the Adobe InDesign Desktop font menu and may be accessed just like a standard, locally-installed font.

When a document that utilizes Adobe Fonts is opened, InDesign will typically prompt to activate the required Adobe Fonts if they have not been previously activated on the system. There is also an Adobe InDesign preference setting that allows auto-activation of Adobe Fonts at the time a document is opened (accessible on Adobe InDesign desktop systems at the bottom of the File Handling section of the Adobe InDesign preferences).

AUTOMATED WORKFLOW ISSUES

Adobe Support

The use of Adobe Fonts in automated environments such as Enfocus Switch and/or Adobe InDesign Server is not supported by Adobe. Despite licensing considerations, although there is nothing that technically prevents you from using Adobe Fonts in these workflows, it will not be possible to receive assistance from Adobe (or from Meadows) for issues related specifically to the use of Adobe Fonts in automated systems.

Potential Problems

As mentioned, there is nothing that technically prevents you from working with Adobe Fonts in an automated workflow. However, when working with Adobe InDesign documents in an automated workflow using Enfocus Switch and/or Adobe InDesign Server, you may run into issues with Adobe Fonts.

The main issue is that because Adobe InDesign provides no software interface to control, monitor or detect the activation of Adobe Fonts, the only way to process documents using Adobe Fonts is to open the documents on the workstation and allow Adobe InDesign to activate the fonts in the normal fashion (assuming that the Adobe Fonts have not been previously activated on the system).

Once a document has been opened for processing, if the document utilizes Adobe Fonts that have not already been activated, the document will be processed as if those fonts are missing. For AccurioPro VDP customers using Enfocus Switch and/or InDesign Server, the missing font condition will be caught by the Preflight or Merge routines and treated as an error or warning condition.

Possible Alternatives

As mentioned, the use of Adobe Fonts in automated environments such as InDesign Server is not supported by Adobe. However, customers that choose to use Adobe Fonts in automated workflows have reported that for documents that fail due to missing Adobe Fonts, typically routing and processing the document a second time will succeed because the font activation is triggered automatically during the first attempt to open and process the document (assuming the Auto-Activate Adobe Fonts preference has been enabled).

It has been reported that once an Adobe Font has been activated, it remains active on the given workstation/account that was used to activate it, even across restarts of the software or the system. So over time, the missing Adobe Fonts issue tends to become less problematic as the library of active Adobe Fonts on the system continues to grow.

It may also be possible to login to the Adobe Creative Cloud account being used on the Switch or InDesign Server workstation and manually activate any of the available Adobe Font library. This would ensure that such fonts are available for all documents processed by the system.

Summary

For automated workflows, we recommend that you avoid the use of Adobe Fonts completely. If this is not possible, please be sure to consider the potential issues outlined in this article.

IMPORTANT NOTES

Creative Cloud Account Required
Adobe Fonts are tied to a specific Creative Cloud account. Therefore, any workstation that uses Adobe Fonts must be logged into the correct Creative Cloud account in order to ensure access to Adobe Fonts.

Support & Licensing Considerations
Meadows does not recommend or support the use of Adobe Fonts in automated environments. Please check with Adobe for specific requirements regarding font licensing and the use of Adobe Fonts in automated processing systems.