Microsoft is getting rid of another Windows feature soon

Over time, Microsoft deprecates features in Windows depending upon low usage or the presence of potential security vulnerabilities. In the past few months, the company has announced deprecations for VBScript, Windows Mixed Reality, and Legacy Console mode. Now, the Redmond firm has revealed that yet another feature will join its graveyard of deprecated capabilities in Windows.

What is Microsoft removing from Windows this time?

On its Microsoft Learn website, the tech giant has announced the deprecation of Adobe PostScript Type 1 fonts, as spotted by Neowin. That said, it is important to note that this is in response to Adobe’s own decision to end support for this font series in January 2023. As such, Microsoft has recommended that developers should remove any dependencies for Type 1 fonts in their applications and switch to a supported font type. In the meantime, users can also head over to Settings > Personalization > Fonts to see the list of installed fonts on their Windows machine.

How will this move impact users?

Adobe products no longer have Type 1 fonts available as content authoring options. Most mobile operating systems and browsers don’t support the font either, and Windows PCs will discontinue it in a future release of the OS too, although Microsoft hasn’t disclosed a concrete timeline for this discontinuation yet.

PDFs with embedded Type 1 fonts will continue to display in Acrobat Reader as before, but if the font has not been embedded, it will be replaced by a font based on Adobe’s font substitution table and the fonts installed on the system; the same fallback method will be followed if users attempt to edit such a PDF file. However, Adobe has emphasized that if you open PDFs in a browser or PDF viewer other than Acrobat, then the company cannot control any unexpected behavior that may occur. You can find more details in Adobe’s support document here.