Helvetica.dfont AND Type 1 together -- no conflict?

Hi BD,

Yes, it's been a while, but I'm still here!

Many thanks for the thought and the link. Now I know what the 'CE' is, so that's helpful. I've done some more testing and found the following:

*With both Helvetica.dfont and my Type 1 version installed:*
EVERYTHING works as it should, no problems and no garbled fonts in any app. There are no obvious conflicts, but I do agree with your thought about the potential likelihood of changes in spacing etc. within a document if changing back and forth between the different Helveticas; however, as I never use good old Helvetica for pro design (Helvetica Neue, yes), that would never be a worry.

*With just Helvetica.dfont installed:*
Again, everything works, with one significant exception: in QuarkXPress, if a single character of Helvetica (based on the .dfont) exists anywhere on page in a document, it's presence causes all fonts in imported EPS files to disappear when printing/exporting the Quark document to PDF. As the default font for Quark's 'Normal' template is Helvetica, one has to be extra careful to avoid the accidental inclusion of a Helvetica instance inside a document. (I generally make a lot of notes on the pasteboard, which default to Helvetica, so searching for a Helvetica instance on page can be wearisome if this problem occurs!).

*With just the PostScript Type 1 Helvetica installed:*
All third-party apps work fine (and the Quark problem mentioned above goes away), BUT some parts of Apple applications such as Mail don't display properly. Oddly, I can't get Tiger to render Helvetica Bold properly if only the Type 1 version is installed--the result looks half way between Roman and Bold, and clearly isn't correct (again that's just an observation, as I wouldn't need it anyway for pro work).

Conclusions
Apple apps don't seem to manage well with Helvetica Type 1 PostScript; and third-party apps (QuarkXPress at least) don't like Apple's Helvetica.dfont at all.

When both versions are installed, Apple's apps work fine, and therefore must be using Helvetica.dfont; whilst third-party apps (Quark in particular) appear to be using the Type 1 PostScript version.

So I guess the only way to resolve the Quark issue described above AND provide full support for Apple's apps is to have both the Helvetica.dfont AND the Type 1 version installed at the same time.

I just can't understand how some apps choose to use the Type 1 version whilst Apple's apps are clearly using the .dfont version. (I'm not complaining though, if that's what is happening!)

Do you think it likely that the latter is down to the order of hierarchy with regard to how the system gives priority to fonts in each of its various locations?

Jona

Sorry BD, I may have mislead you slightly along the way.

Helvetica.dfont appears to include two font families, i.e. 'Helvetica' and 'Helvetica CE'.

It's just the 'Helvetica' bit that I'm interested in (i.e. not the 'Helvetica CE' bit which does appear as a separate entry in the font menus but which I never use).

I printed test samples of Helvetica (not CE) with:
(a) just the Helvetica.dfont installed; and
(b) just the Helvetica Type 1 version installed...

The outputs appear identical except for a slight shift in the baseline.

Now, if I have both the Helvetica.dfont and the PostScript Type 1 versions installed at the same time, my question is: which version(s) will be used, by which apps, and why? I had assumed that the OS would probably give priority to just one version for all apps at all times, but this doesn't seem to be so:

1. When both versions are installed, choosing the 'Helvetica' entry in the font menus of third-party apps clearly accesses the Type 1 version.

2. On the other hand, Apple's applications (e.g. Mail) are clearly accessing the .dfont version to display correctly.

The mystery for me is why different apps choose to access different versions of fonts with the same name when multiple versions are installed. Having always used a font manager in the past, I've never really thought about this question before. Now I can't sleep!

That would make sense.

I thought I might have overlooked something very simple in this, but I'm thinking now that there might not be a simple answer to my question after all.

Nothing in the OS is screaming at me to say I can't run these two versions of Helvetica in this way, and doing so seems to have fixed the issues I had without causing any other problems.

So I guess I'll consider that to be the answer I'm looking for!

Thanks again for the thoughts, BD.

Regards
Jona