# Adobe Illustrator, fonts, ai files and links

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-illustrator-fonts-ai-files-and-links/925940>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 19, 2020, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-illustrator-fonts-ai-files-and-links/925940 "2020-11-19T03:24:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-illustrator-fonts-ai-files-and-links/925940/1 "2020-11-19T03:24:30Z")

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I am not an AI user, so don’t worry about being too simple or too dumb for me.

Is there a way to find the original font name, for the font with no name that is displaying correctly in the .ai file, but not correctly in the updated .idd file?

I’ve got an idd (InDesign ?) document containing some ‘linked’ .ai illustrations.

What I see in the .idd (with broken links) is the same as what I see if I look at the original .ai file, but different to what I see if I update the link. Some of the _fonts_ change.

When I look at the .ai files, one place has no font name, another has a font name, but that font is not installed on my computer. I assume that when I update the link, it pulls in the .ai file, and at the same time tries to update the links _in the .ai file_, loosing the font information for the unnamed font, keeping, for some reason, the font information for the missing-but-named font.

So: discuss fonts in Adobe Illustrator. How did I get a .ai file with an unnamed font, what can I do about it, why is the other value with the named but uninstalled font working?

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**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-illustrator-fonts-ai-files-and-links/925940/2 "2020-11-19T03:40:26Z")

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I think that when you open an inDesign file, it has embedded in it a low-res version, and the full res version requires all the linked or embedded files. Sometimes a full font is properly embedded, which would come with its name, and can be edited in the file. Mostly they are just the vector versions, so they have the appearance of the font, but aren’t editable without becoming a full font, and if you do not have that font, it will replace it with a close match or default instead.

I think that’s how it works.

If you want to figure out what the font is that’s missing, you could print-screen the embedded text using it and match-search for it.

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**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2020, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adobe-illustrator-fonts-ai-files-and-links/925940/3 "2020-11-19T20:13:52Z")

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Thanks. That at least explains what I’m seeing, which I was not understanding.