Font problem - Helvetica Neue

I would have to say that the error telling you that there's a conflicting font in the system folder is wrong. Rather, it would be a conflict between one of the PostScript Helvetica fonts you installed. If you deactivate the PostScript fonts and launch the widget, do you still get a conflict error?

I would have to say that the error telling you that there's a conflicting font in the system folder is wrong. Rather, it would be a conflict between one of the PostScript Helvetica fonts you installed. If you deactivate the PostScript fonts and launch the widget, do you still get a conflict error?

No, if I deactivate the PS fonts I don't get the error but I also don't have Helvetica as a font in a lot of widgets either - the weather widget, for example, defaults to a serif font — Times perhaps?

I didn't want to keep the system Helveticas permanently inactive because who knows what process or application might stop functioning without them - not to mention the widgets look pretty ugly with a serif font. 🙂

Well, at least you now know where the conflict is. Not surprising since the Type 1 PostScript Helvetica and Apple's Helvetica fonts almost all have the same internal names.

Apple's insistence to use any form of Helvetica as a system font was a monumentally bad idea. It's used everywhere in publication. Books, legal forms, practically every nutritional information box on the food you buy, and lots more.

Worse, as one person noted in another thread on the subject, there's various forms of Helvetica. Using the wrong version of seven or so they have on file will cause text to reflow. It's bad enough the the publishing industry has to keep their older versions of Helvetica straight without having to fight OS X in order to use them.

I'm just wondering why the conflict happens at ALL when I've removed the Helvetica fonts from the system folders entirely - that's the biggest mystery here that still hasn't been solved.

When all is said and done, OpenType should do the job - I've been using OT versions of HelvNeue at my job for quite some time now, and I'm pretty confident in not wrecking my layout if I have to make a swap. And any new jobs that come down the pike I'm using OT versions of my fonts as well.

Maybe one day Apple will sort all this out for us...

I'm just wondering why the conflict happens at ALL when I've removed the Helvetica fonts from the system folders entirely - that's the biggest mystery here that still hasn't been solved.

The location of the fonts are irrelevant. If more than one font gets activated that has the same internal names, you will get a font conflict. So when you had the PostScript fonts already open and the widget forced FAP to auto activate the .dfont versions, you got a conflict.

How would FAP activate the .dfont version of HelveticaNeue when it wasn't in FAP's library or the system?

I removed it from the system folder and stored it in on my desktop. FAP only had access to the PS versions of Helvetica.

There must be a copy of the .dfont versions in FAP's font location, or it would be impossible for the widget to force it open. Look in the folder of fonts FAP copies everything to in your user account. It's likely in there.

Looked everywhere, and the only time a Spotlight search turns it up is when I have it in the System/Library folder - there or when I move it to the desktop...

Spotlight will not return matches for a lot of the hard drive. Notably the System of Library folders. Download File Buddy. It's shareware, but you'll be able to do a search with it. File Buddy will show you matches anywhere on the drive, hidden or not. It's also really fast.

I upgraded a few days ago to Leopard, and found that my Helvetica Neue fonts were pixelated on my existing Quark documents. Because of that, the docs won't print or do anything, but when i changed the fonts to be one of the system's Helvetica Neue fonts, it prints fine.

If I use the Apple fonts instead of my older PostScript fonts, will the Apple fonts provide the variations that I had with my PostScript ones? What I mean is, if I was using e.g. Neue Bold Condensed before in my docs, does the system have a corresponding font for that? At the same time, I don't want to lose the use of all the Quark docs I've made over the years, or have to change my old docs to make them usable and printable.

Thanks for your help,
Bill

I upgraded a few days ago to Leopard, and found that my Helvetica Neue fonts were pixelated on my existing Quark documents. Because of that, the docs won't print or do anything, but when i changed the fonts to be one of the system's Helvetica Neue fonts, it prints fine.

That would be caused by a font conflict. Apple's Helvetica fonts are already active, which means you can't activate the ones you used originally with your Quark documents. Quark creates its own font cache files. The pixelation is probably coming from a mismatch between the version of Helvetica that's active (Apple's) and the original. If you're using Quark 6.x, shut it down. Go to the /Applications/QuarkXPress 6.0/jaws/ folder. Put everything in that folder the trash. Relaunch Quark. It will build new cache files for the fonts you have open.

If I use the Apple fonts instead of my older PostScript fonts, will the Apple fonts provide the variations that I had with my PostScript ones?

The Helvetica.dfont contains:

Helvetica
Helvetica-Bold
Helvetica-Oblique
Helvetica-BoldOblique

The HelveticaNeue.dfont contains:

Helvetica Neue
Helvetica Neue (bold)
Helvetica Neue (italic)
Helvetica Neue (bold,italic)
Helvetica Neue Bold Condensed
Helvetica Neue UltraLight
Helvetica Neue UltraLight (italic)
Helvetica Neue Light
Helvetica Neue Light (italic)
Helvetica Neue Black Condensed

So as you can see, you're covered for Neue Bold Condensed using the Apple font. Your biggest concern is type reflow. If the text in your standing documents is pretty light, you may not notice anything. But if you've got for example, a 200 page book, differences in leading, baseline shift, kerning and other type attributes may cause text to reflow badly. Like the last five pages of the book disappearing as their suddenly isn't room in your text boxes for the font. Or being five pages short, whichever way the reflow is causing text to move.

Thanks Kurt,

I trashed the things in the jaws folder, and relaunched Quark, but there was no change; the original fonts looked the same, and the doc wouldn't print. Should there have been an improvement? If I were to get updated versions of these fonts, would that eliminate the conflict, or is it going to happen regardless? The versions I have of Helvetica Neue are more varied than what the system has, e.g. Black Extended and Bold Extended, and yet all of my Helvetica Neue fonts are affected. Is there any way to remove just those dozen or so fonts from my user fonts so that the versions that aren't listed will work?

Thanks again for your help,
Bill

Hi William,

I trashed the things in the jaws folder, and relaunched Quark, but there was no change; the original fonts looked the same, and the doc wouldn't print. Should there have been an improvement?

I wasn't really expecting it to help much, but it also wouldn't hurt a thing to toss font cache files, so I suggested it anyway.

If I were to get updated versions of these fonts, would that eliminate the conflict, or is it going to happen regardless?

It would happen regardless since the Leopard supplied versions have the identical internal names as your older PostScript versions. Since the System fonts always get precedence, they will always prevent you from opening the versions you need.

Is there any way to remove just those dozen or so fonts from my user fonts so that the versions that aren't listed will work?

The dozen or so fonts are tucked into the two Helvetica .dfonts in the /System/Library/Fonts/ folder. The only way to correct the problem is to remove Apple's supplied fonts so you can activate your preferred versions. See section 4 of my article, Font Management in OS X to see how to do it.

The link, or one of the links above directs you to my personal web site. While the information is free, it does ask for a contribution. As such, I am required by Apple's rules for these discussions to include the following disclaimer.
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Helvetica Neue is a problem every upgrade. I use Font Agent Pro 4 to manage my fonts, there is an option in the preferences to manage fonts for Adobe and Quark only. I also deactivated Helvetica Neue outline. Everything is working fine now.

We're noticing the exact same issue. The Apple apps (especially iCal, etc.) don't look right with our managed PostScript Helvetica & Helvetica Neue.

It doesn't seem like there's a great solution yet, except for managing both fonts and switching back and forth.

- So how good is the 'switch to OpenType' solution for anyone who did this?
- Did you purchase enough faces to replace your PostScript version?
- Do your old documents recognize the OpenType version and not reflow?
- Is there a noticeable difference between the OpenType and either the PS or dfont versions (like the baseline shift noticed originally)?

THANKS. What a headache.