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Extensis Font Panel

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Jeff
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The Connect Fonts desktop app includes the Extensis Font Panel for Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop, providing direct access to your Connect Fonts, system, Adobe Fonts, and Google Fonts collections.

 

PHOTOSHOP AND APPLE SILICON SYSTEMS

The Extensis Font Panel in Adobe Photoshop does not run natively on Apple silicon systems. If you need the Font Panel in Photoshop on a Mac with Apple silicon, you can run Photoshop using Rosetta. See this article for information.

The auto-activation features of the plug-in work both natively and using Rosetta.

The Font Panel offers a convenient way to select and activate your fonts directly within your creative applications.

 

NOTE: The Extensis Font Panel is part of the auto-activation plug-in; if you have disabled the plug-in for an application, the Font Panel will not be available.

 

To open the Extensis Font Panel, choose Window > Extensions > Extensis in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign.

You can move, collapse, or group the Extensis Font Panel just like you do other panels within Adobe applications.

 

The Extensis Font Panel:

 

Using the Font Panel

Use the pop-up menu at the top of the panel to display a subset of your fonts: your local, Personal, and Team libraries collected together asMy Fonts;Google Fonts;Adobe Fonts; system fonts; or custom collections called font digests.

To apply a font in Illustrator and InDesign, click a block of text with the Move tool or select some characters with the Type tool , then click a font in the Font Panel.

 

The Font Panel in Adobe Illustrator:

 

To apply a font in Photoshop, select a type layer in the Layers panel, then click a font in the Font Panel. (In Photoshop, you can use the Font Panel to apply a font to a layer, but not to a text selection.)

 

The Font Panel in Adobe Photoshop:

 

When you apply a font in the Font Panel to text in your document, the font becomes activated.

When you save the document, Font Sense data will be saved with the document, and that font will be automatically activated the next time you open the document. (Font Sense data will only be saved if you haven’t disabled this option.)

When you quit the application, the font will be deactivated, unless it is in use in another document or application.

 

Font digests

You can create your own groups, called font digests, that include fonts that you want to access quickly.

NOTE: All font digests are available in the Font Panel in all supported design applications.

To create a font digest:

  1. Click + Add at the top of the Font Panel.

    The panel will show a hierarchy of all your local and cloud libraries, sets, and Smart Searches.

  2. Check the box next to a font group to include those fonts in your digest.

    The pane at the bottom of the Font Panel lists all the fonts that you’ve included so far as well as showing how many fonts you have selected.

  3. Type a name for the font digest at the top of the Font Panel, then click Done to create your digest.

Font digests are added to the pop-up menu of font groups.

To remove a digest, select it from the pop-up menu and click−Remove.

To edit a digest, select it in the list and click ⋯ Edit. Check the boxes next to sets, Smart Searches, or libraries to add those groups of fonts to the digest. Clear checked boxes to remove groups from the digest. Click Done when you are finished editing.

TIP: You can create sets within Connect Fonts that you can use specifically to make more focused font digests.

 

Enabling the Font Panel

Some users may encounter problems trying to use the Font Panel. Most of the time, these issues have to do with how the Extensis plug-in is configured.

Update your apps and plug-ins

  1. Update your Adobe applications.

    1. Quit your Adobe applications.

    2. Use the Creative Cloud application to make sure that your Adobe applications are up-to-date.

    Do not launch any Adobe applications until you have updated the Connect Fonts desktop app and its plug-ins.

  2. Update the Connect Fonts desktop app.

    1. Quit the desktop app, then start it again.

    2. If you are prompted to update the application, do so.

    You can check for an available application update at any time; choose Connect Fonts > Check for Updates (Mac) or Help > Check for Updates (Windows).

  3. Update the plug-ins.

    After you start the Connect Fonts desktop app, if you are prompted that there are new plug-ins to install, update them now.

    You can check that your plug-ins are up-to-date at any time:

    1. Choose Connect Fonts > Manage Plug-ins (Mac) or Edit > Manage Plug-ins (Windows).

    2. If there is a message that some plug-ins are out of date, you can clickInstall All Plug-insto update and install all available plug-ins.

    3. If you want to check individual plug-ins, then use the pop-up applications menu at the top of the Preferences window to select each application.

      If any plug-in version numbers are in red, those plug-ins are out-of-date. Click Install All Plug-ins to update and install all available plug-ins.

  4. Ensure that the plug-ins are available to your applications.

    The Connect Fonts desktop app can install or remove its plug-ins from your applications.

    1. Choose Connect Fonts > Manage Plug-ins (Mac) or Edit > Manage Plug-ins (Windows).

    2. Use the pop-up Applications menu at the top of the Preferences window to review each application.

      • If an application name is inactive, it is not available on your system.

      • For available applications, you can select or deselect them to install or remove the available plug-in.

Check that the Font Panel is available in your apps

The Font Panel is available for Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop. To make sure it is available for each application:

  1. Start the Adobe application.

  2. Choose Windows > Extensions > Extensis.

    If the Extensis option is not available, check that the plug-in is recognized by the application:

    • In Illustrator and InDesign, click the Type menu. If there is an entry Connect Fonts on the menu, then the plug-in is functioning.

    • In Photoshop, choose File > Automate and look for Extensis on the menu. If the entry is present, then the plug-in is functioning.

If the plug-in is not functioning, or it is functioning but the Extensis option is not available from the Windows > Extensions menu (except see the note about Photoshop and Macs with Apple silicon at the top of this article). If you are experiencing issues with the Font Panel, please submit a support case using the form here:

Support Form.

 

For best results

The Font Panel doesn’t have any settings that you can change that affect its behavior. There are some settings in the Connect Fonts desktop app and in the application plug-in that you can set to get the best results out of using the Font Panel, the plug-in, and the desktop app.

To open the plug-in preferences:

  • In Adobe Illustrator and InDesign, choose Type > Connect Fonts > Connect Fonts Auto-Activation Preferences.

  • In Photoshop, choose File > Automate > Extensis, then click Preferences.

NOTE: By default, all of these settings are enabled, so you shouldn’t have to do anything to get the best experience from your applications. But it’s always good to check in the event that something is misbehaving.

 

Enable Auto-Activation

With auto-activation turned on, the Extensis plug-in will activate the fonts used in your document when you open the document.

If you have auto-activation turned off, the application will warn you if the fonts used in the document are not activated.

However, if a similar font is activated, the application may use it instead. This could have unintended consequences in your document.

 

Enable Font Sense Support

(This feature is always on in the Adobe Illustrator plug-in)

When you perform a Save with this feature turned on, the plug-in will add a unique Font Sense ID for every font in your document to the document’s metadata.

When you (or anyone else with using the Extensis plug-in) opens the document, the plug-in uses the saved metadata to identify each font in use, and activates them.

 

Pick the best match when the original is missing

(This feature is always on in the Adobe Illustrator plug-in)

This setting determines what the plug-in will do if the original font is missing. With this feature turned on, the plug-in will use other information (such as the font’s PostScript name) to identify a substitute, and activate the substitute.

If this feature is turned off, the application will either use a similar font that is already activated, or it will present its usual “font missing” dialog, and you will need to choose a replacement manually.

 

Activate the requested font

This setting is found in the General panel of the Connect Fonts desktop app Preferences.

Choose Connect Fonts > Preferences (on Mac) or Edit > Preferences (on Windows).

Under Activation Options, you can determine what will happen if a font that you try to activate conflicts with a font that is already active:

  • Activate the requested font:With this option selected, Connect Fonts or the application plug-ins will activate the font that you asked for (or that is used in a document you are opening), and deactivate the conflicting font. This is usually what you would want to have happen.

  • Keep the current font active:With this option selected, the already-active font will be left active, and Connect Fonts or the plug-ins will ignore calls for a different font.

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