Keynote fonts not reading correctly Mac OS Monterey

It seems to be a font cache problem. You can temporarily fix it by clearing the font cache but the problem will reappear after a while. Execute these commands in Terminal to clear the cache:

1. $ sudo atsutil databases -remove
2. Enter your system password and hit return.
3. $ atsutil server -shutdown
4. $ atsutil server -ping
5. Reboot

Of course, if you rarely use Apple's apps (Pages, Keynote, Numbers, TextEdit), you can continue to use 3rd party font manager software like Font Explorer, Suitcase Fusion, RightFont, etc. …, since this bug doesn’t occur with all non-Apple apps (e.g. Affinity Apps), at least for me.

But if you're of course dependent on Apple Apps and you want to work around this bug you have to use Apple's Font Book for better or worse until Apple releases an update to get rid of this problem (hopefully very soon).

And within the Font Book App you just click on the "+" button and add your fonts, that's it. The fonts will then be added to your user folder (user/library/fonts/). And they are all correctly listed and displayed in the Apple apps font menus , no more lastResort glyphs. :)

I've had this issue and after exhausting everything this worked for me (via adobe support)

It's a font cache problem.

1. Open Terminal

2. Type: sudo atsutil databases -remove

3. Enter your system password and hit return.

4. Type: atsutil server -shutdown

5. Type: atsutil server -ping

6. Now it is important that you restart you Mac, or the cache issue will reappear.

I can confirm that updating to Keynote 11.2 and also doing the suggested terminal procedure (Cut and pasted below from Colouryum) has solved this problem for me.

Procedure I Followed:

1. Open Terminal

2. Type: sudo atsutil databases -remove

3. Enter your system password and hit return.

4. Type: atsutil server -shutdown

5. Type: atsutil server -ping

6. Now it is important that you restart you Mac, or the cache issue will reappear.

I found a temporary solution: the issue is Adobe Creative Cloud related.

If you uninstall the fonts via Creative Cloud and then "manually" download and install fonts on Font Book, everything work as expected.

Don't ask me why, but I had the same font installed manually on Font Book and installed via Creative Cloud.

Could this be a permission issue?

I think the problem is not only with Adobe Creative Cloud fonts, but generally with the use of third-party font manager software (I've tested a few, and the error occurred with all of them), but as soon as I quit the third-party font manager software and did not use these at all, instead only using Apple's Font Book the problem no longer exists. It works correctly again, but unfortunately this is not a permanent solution if you are forced to work only with Apple’s Font book.

Thank you for posting your experience, Colouryum. It worked for me.

Procedure I Followed:

1. Updated to Keynote 11.2

2. Open Terminal

3. Type: sudo atsutil databases -remove

4. Enter your system password and hit return.

5. Type: atsutil server -shutdown

6. Type: atsutil server -ping

7. Now it is important that you restart you Mac, or the cache issue will reappear.

@Colouryum

After a fresh install of OS Monterey (to fix a different problem) there were only a handful of fonts. Tried numerous fixes from this thread and other websites, but this solution from you was the one that fixed it for me :-)

1. Open Terminal

2. Type: sudo atsutil databases -remove

3. Enter your system password and hit return.

4. Type: atsutil server -shutdown

5. Type: atsutil server -ping

6. Now it is important that you restart you Mac, or the cache issue will reappear.

Installed the 12.1 update and confirm, the problem has finally been fixed on both Keynote and Pages.

That was a good hint!

I just updated my FontExplorer Pro from 7.0.0 to 7.3.0 and now the problem is gone.

This problem occurs in all Apple apps (TextEdit, Keynote, Pages, Numbers).

I've already cleared all of the font caches, but nothing seems to help, the problem still occurs.

But if I quit my third party fontmanager (e.g. RightFont, Typeface app, …) and use Apple's Font Book instead, the problem is gone, unfortunately I don't want to use Font Book, but unfortunately I have to, it seems.

I was having this same problem, and permissions in system preferences is actually what helped me fix it.

Here is what I did:

1. Opened up system preferences.
2. Clicked Security and Privacy
3. Clicked the Golden Lock Button in the lower-left corner and entered my computer user account info
4. Scrolled down on the left column to FULL DISK ACCESS
5. I clicked the "+" button
6. I navigated to my Applications Folder
7. I added Adobe Creative Cloud, Keynote, Numbers, Pages, and Apple's Font Book all to the list and made sure that the checkmark was active by each app.
8. Just to clean up my system a little bit, and also to take advantage of Adobe's new feature that activates missing fonts in projects "On-Demand", I went into Creative Cloud and on the left column selected "Manage Fonts"
9. In the upper right-hand corner, in the "..." submenu, I selected "Deactivate all fonts"
10. I then manually turned on the 3 font families that I used the most for the brands that I manage, just to make sure that they were fully accessible.
11. When I reopened Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, all of the Adobe fonts that I had activated were now working correctly!

I can confirm that this problem is fixed with the most recent update for Monterey version 12.1.

Using Font Explorer X I activated 3,600 Google Fonts and they all displayed and typed properly in Pages.

Of course, you have to start from scratch, since none of the 3rd party font software can be used and all the fonts installed with these font managers are displayed incorrectly. 

So deactivate all these fonts, quit the 3rd party font software and now, of course, only all system fonts and pre-installed fonts from Apple are active again.

Now you just start Apple’s Font Book and install all your needed fonts in this app and only in this app again.

It is strange that you have to restart the system after installing your fonts, they should actually be usable immediately after installation. But if it works that way, it's probably okay too.

I had the same issue as described above after manually installing some OTF fonts. I could solve the matter by changing the access rights in the terminal:

1. cd /Library/Fonts
2. sudo chown root:wheel myFontName
3. sudo chown 644 myFontName

Whereby myFontname needs to be replaced with the name of the font that is having the issue. Hope this helps you too :).