How To Import Fonts Into Adobe Illustrator

Illustrator User Guide
Get to know Illustrator
1. Introduction to Illustrator
  1. What's new in Illustrator
  2. Common questions
  3. Illustrator system requirements
  4. Illustrator for Apple silicon
2. Workspace
  1. Workspace basics
  2. Create documents
  3. Tools Default keyboard shortcuts | Illustrator
  4. Customize keyboard shortcuts
  5. Artboards
  6. Customize the workspace
  7. Properties panel
  8. Set preferences
  9. Touch Workspace
  10. Microsoft Surface Dial support in Illustrator
  11. Recovery, undo, and automation
  12. Rotate view
  13. Rulers, grids, and guides
  14. Accessibility in Illustrator
  15. Safe Mode
  16. View artwork
  17. Use the Touch Bar with Illustrator
  18. Files and templates
  19. Synchronize settings using Adobe Creative Cloud
Illustrator on the iPad
1. Introduction to Illustrator on the iPad
  1. Illustrator on the iPad overview
  2. Illustrator on the iPad FAQs
  3. System requirements | Illustrator on the iPad
  4. What you can or cannot do on Illustrator on the iPad
2. Workspace
  1. Illustrator on the iPad workspace
  2. Touch shortcuts and gestures
  3. Keyboard shortcuts for Illustrator on the iPad
  4. Manage your app settings
3. Documents
  1. Work with documents in Illustrator on the iPad
  2. Import Photoshop and Fresco documents
4. Select and arrange objects
  1. Create repeat objects
  2. Blend objects
5. Drawing
  1. Draw and edit paths
  2. Draw and edit shapes
6. Type
  1. Work with type and fonts
  2. Create text designs along a path
  3. Add your own fonts
7. Work with images
  1. Vectorize raster images
8. Color
  1. Apply colors and gradients
Cloud documents
1. Basics
  1. Work with Illustrator cloud documents
  2. Share and collaborate on Illustrator cloud documents
  3. Upgrade cloud storage for Adobe Illustrator
  4. Illustrator cloud documents | Common questions
2. Troubleshooting
  1. Troubleshoot create or save issues for Illustrator cloud documents
  2. Troubleshoot Illustrator cloud documents issues
Add and edit content
1. Drawing
  1. Drawing basics
  2. Edit paths
  3. Draw pixel-perfect art
  4. Draw with the Pen, Curvature, or Pencil tool
  5. Draw simple lines and shapes
  6. Image Trace
  7. Simplify a path
  8. Define perspective grids
  9. Symbolism tools and symbol sets
  10. Adjust path segments
  11. Design a flower in 5 easy steps
  12. Perspective drawing
  13. Symbols
  14. Draw pixel-aligned paths for web workflows
2. 3D effects and Adobe Substance materials
  1. About 3D effects in Illustrator
  2. Create 3D graphics
  3. Create 3D objects
  4. Create 3D Text
3. Color
  1. About color
  2. Select colors
  3. Use and create swatches
  4. Adjust colors
  5. Use the Adobe Color Themes panel
  6. Color groups (harmonies)
  7. Color Themes panel
  8. Recolor your artwork
4. Painting
  1. About painting
  2. Paint with fills and strokes
  3. Live Paint groups
  4. Gradients
  5. Brushes
  6. Transparency and blending modes
  7. Apply stroke on an object
  8. Create and edit patterns
  9. Meshes
  10. Patterns
5. Select and arrange objects
  1. Select objects
  2. Layers
  3. Group and expand objects
  4. Move, align, and distribute objects
  5. Stack objects
  6. Lock, hide, and delete objects
  7. Duplicate objects
  8. Rotate and reflect objects
6. Reshape objects
  1. Crop images
  2. Transform objects
  3. Combine objects
  4. Cut, divide, and trim objects
  5. Puppet Warp
  6. Scale, shear, and distort objects
  7. Blend objects
  8. Reshape using envelopes
  9. Reshape objects with effects
  10. Build new shapes with Shaper and Shape Builder tools
  11. Work with Live Corners
  12. Enhanced reshape workflows with touch support
  13. Edit clipping masks
  14. Live shapes
  15. Create shapes using the Shape Builder tool
  16. Global editing
7. Type
  1. Create text
  2. Fonts and typography
  3. Format type
  4. Import and export text
  5. Format paragraphs
  6. Special characters
  7. Create type on a path
  8. Character and paragraph styles
  9. Tabs
  10. Text and type
  11. Find missing fonts (Typekit workflow)
  12. Update text from Illustrator 10
  13. Arabic and Hebrew type
  14. Fonts | FAQ and troubleshooting tips
  15. Create 3D text effect
  16. Creative typography designs
  17. Scale and rotate type
  18. Line and character spacing
  19. Hyphenation and line breaks
  20. Text enhancements
  21. Spelling and language dictionaries
  22. Format Asian characters
  23. Composers for Asian scripts
  24. Create text designs with blend objects
  25. Create a text poster using Image Trace
8. Create special effects
  1. Work with effects
  2. Graphic styles
  3. Create a drop shadow
  4. Appearance attributes
  5. Create sketches and mosaics
  6. Drop shadows, glows, and feathering
  7. Summary of effects
9. Web graphics
  1. Best practices for creating web graphics
  2. Graphs
  3. SVG
  4. Create animations
  5. Slices and image maps
Import, export, and save
1. Import
  1. Import artwork files
  2. Import bitmap images
  3. Import artwork from Photoshop
  4. Place multiple files | Illustrator CC
  5. Unembed images
  6. Import Adobe PDF files
  7. Import EPS, DCS, and AutoCAD files
  8. Links information
2. Creative Cloud Libraries in Illustrator
  1. Creative Cloud Libraries in Illustrator
3. Save
  1. Save artwork
4. Export
  1. Export artwork
  2. Collect assets and export in batches
  3. Package files
  4. Create Adobe PDF files
  5. Extract CSS | Illustrator CC
  6. Adobe PDF options
  7. File information and metadata
Printing
1. Prepare for printing
  1. Set up documents for printing
  2. Change the page size and orientation
  3. Specify crop marks for trimming or aligning
  4. Get started with large canvas
2. Printing
  1. Overprint
  2. Print with color management
  3. PostScript printing
  4. Print presets
  5. Printer's marks and bleeds
  6. Print and save transparent artwork
  7. Trapping
  8. Print color separations
  9. Print gradients, meshes, and color blends
  10. White Overprint
Automate tasks
1. Data merge using the Variables panel
2. Automation with scripts
3. Automation with actions
Troubleshooting
1. Crash on launch issues
2. Recover files after crash
3. File issues
4. GPU device driver issues
5. Wacom device issues
6. DLL file issues
7. Memory issues
8. Preferences file issues
9. Font issues
10. Printer issues
11. Share crash report with Adobe

Looking for the right font for your artwork? Learn how to access, activate, and edit a font that's perfect for your typographic design.

Illustrator automatically imports and loads all fonts that are installed on your Windows or macOS. To use a new font, you must download that font on your computer. For more details, see Add a new font.

Fonts in Illustrator

Font Types	Icons
OpenType
Variable fonts
SVG Provides multiple colors and gradients in a single glyph. Covers Emoji fonts – smileys, flags, street signs, animals, people, food, landmarks, and so on.
Adobe Fonts
Type 1
TrueType
Multiple Master
Composite

Access fonts

Before you start, type your text using the Type tool. For more details, see Create text.

To view and browse through a wide variety of font families and font types:

Open theCharacter panel. Do one of the following:
- ChooseWindows>Type>Character.
- Select the text to viewCharacter settings in the Control panel or Properties panel.
- PressCommand+T (macOS) orCtrl+T (Windows).
Click theSet Font Family drop-down.

To look for a font, you can type the font name (if you know it already) in the Font family drop-down in the Character panel or Control panel.

View the font list

Preview fonts in real time

Select a text on your artboard or choose a sample text from the drop-down.
Hover the pointer over a font name in the font list available in the Control panel or Character panel.

To turn off the preview, deselectPreferences > Type > Enable in-menu font previews.

Change the text size while previewing by clicking Sample Size small, Sample Size medium, and Sample Size large icons.

Auto-activate missing fonts

When an Illustrator document contains any missing Adobe Fonts, they are automatically activated if all the fonts are available in Adobe Fonts. This task runs in the background without displaying the Missing Fonts dialog.

By default, thisAuto-activate Adobe Fonts is disabled in Illustrator. To enable, selectAuto-activate Adobe Fonts fromEdit >Preferences > File Handling.

When Auto-activate Adobe Fonts is enabled

If there are missing fonts in your document, then Illustrator checks and automatically activates fonts from Adobe Fonts site as per the below scenarios:

If all the missing fonts are available in Adobe Fonts, they are activated in the background. You can continue to work with documents.
If only some of the missing fonts are available in Adobe Fonts, they are activated in the background. AMissing Fonts dialog appears with a list of missing fonts.
- Click Replace Fonts and get the missing fonts from other sources or
- Closethe dialog. The missing fonts will be replaced with default fonts.
If none of the missing fonts are available in Adobe Fonts, a Missing Fonts dialog appears with a list of missing fonts.

You can also check the progress of activation of missing fonts in Background Tasks panel. To view the background tasks, use one of the below two options:

Click Window > Utilities > Background Tasks.
Click the blue spinner icon in the upper-right corner of Illustrator application header.

Activate Adobe Fonts

Not found that right font? Activate more fonts from Adobe fonts.

You can choose a font from the Adobe's subscription-based online fonts library (Adobe Fonts) that offers unlimited high-qualityfonts from hundreds of type foundries. Browse and activate these fonts instantly from within Illustrator or go to fonts.adobe.com. Activated fonts become available for use in all Creative Cloud applications.

In the Character panel, click theFind More tab.
Browse the font list and select a font. To preview the font on the selected text, hover over the font name.
Click theActivateicon displayed next to the font. The Activate icon shows a check mark after the font is activated and available for use.

Know more about Adobe Font icons

Activate Adobe Fonts icons

A. Activated fonts filterB. Activated family fontC. Font to be activatedD. Activated fontE. Deactivated fontF. Activate fontG. Font activation in progressH. Font family drop-downI. Number of font family stylesJ. More details about this font

Looking for a Japanese font?

In theFind More tab, you can browse and preview all Japanese fonts available on fonts.adobe.com.

To set the preference to enable the preview of Japanese fonts:

ChooseEdit>Preferences>Type.
SelectEnable Japanese Font Preview in 'Find More'.

The changes are applied only when you relaunch Illustrator.

More resources

Organize and filter fonts

You can quickly find fonts that you use frequently and filter them in the Fonts tab of the Character panel or Properties panel.

Filter options for fonts

A. Classification filterB. FavoritesC. Show recently addedD. Activated fontE. Sample text optionsF. Sample text size optionsG. Font typeH. Add to favoritesI. View similar

In theClassification Filterdrop-down list, select your preferred font classes to narrow down the font list. By default, all font classes are displayed. Only Roman fonts can be filtered using this filter.

Click Clear All to remove the filter.

Font classification filter — Apply Classification filter

To set frequently used fonts as favorites, hover over a font and then click theFavoriteicon displayed next to the font name. To filter all your favorite fonts, click theShow onlyFavoritesfilter.

Apply favorites filter — Apply Show only Favorites filter

To filter all the fonts that you added and activated in the last 30 days, click theShow Recently Added icon.

Note: Recently used and starred fonts are preserved across Illustrator sessions.

To filter fonts that are visually similar, hover over a font and click theView Similar icon. Fonts closest in visual appearance to the selected font appear on top in the search results.

Use variable fonts

The variable font is an OpenType font for which you can customize the attributes, such as weight, width, slant, optical size. These fonts provide flexibility and customization of font attributes to create responsive web lettering and typography.

To adjust the weight, width, and slant for variable fonts using slider controls:

Edit fonts

You can modify the font size, font family, font style, and typeface to match your requirements.

You can also change the default font (Myriad Pro) in Illustrator. For more details, see How to change the default font in Illustrator?

Change the font size

Select a text and do one of the following:

Choose a size fromType > Size.
Set a font size in Font Size drop-down the Character or Control panel.

By default, font size is measured inpoints(a point equals 1/72 of an inch).

You can change the unit of measurement for type in the Preferences dialog box.

Change the font family and style

Select the text you want to change. If you do not select a text, the font applies to new text you create. Do the following to select a font type or a style:

In the Control or Character panel, choose a font and a font style from the Font Family and Font Style drop-down list.
ChooseType>Font/Recent Fonts and select a font name.
Click the current font name and type the first few characters of the font you want.

To change the number of fonts in the Recent Fonts, choose Edit> Preferences> Type (Windows) or Illustrator> Preferences> Type (macOS), and set the Number of Recent Fonts option.

Find and replace fonts

find fonts — Find and replace fonts in a document

To find and replace fonts in a document:

ChooseType>Find Fonts.
Select the name of a font. The first occurrence of the font is highlighted in the document window.
Select a replacement font in the Replace With Font From drop-down.
- Choose Document to list only the fonts that are used in the document
- Choose System to list all fonts installed on your computer.ClickChangeto change just one occurrence of the selected font.

ClickChange Allto change all occurrences of the selected font.
Font name is removed from the list when it's all occurrences are removed from the document.

What's next

This article got you started with adding, activating, and editing a font in Illustrator. Now, use the power of fonts to design your typographic artwork. If you still have any questions, check out the Fonts | FAQ and troubleshooting tips.

Want to create your own font? Check out this page.

Have a question or an idea?