Guide to Neue

Helvetica Neue is an essential arrow in the quiver of designers. But in Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard , Apple made it a mandatory system font and caused conflicts galore for many a designer.

Apple provides an incomplete set of Helvetica Neue in the Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard System:Library:Fonts folder. This includes the styles: Light; Medium; Regular; Ultra Light; Italic; Light Italic; Ultra Light Italic; Bold; Bold Italic; Condensed Black; and Condensed Bold. These fonts are used in some of Apple's key applications like iTunes and iCal. So you can't get rid of them. If you delete them, the OS actually puts another copy into the system to replace them (Much like ’s Office maintains its own font collection). So when a designer tries to open his/her own more complete set of Helvetica Neues the Mac OS or the designer’s font management utility throws up conflict warnings. In the Februaury 2/09 edition of Precursor Précis we noted that Adobe has a solution for this –albeit an expensive one. There is a new,OpenType version of Helvetica called Helvetica Std. By using the complete set of this new version you will have the complete range of Helvetica Neue weights with no conflict with the opertating system. However, the cost of Helvetica Std 1, 2, and 3 is $397 U.S. –and that does not include any of the Condensed or Extended varieties. But don't despair faithful Précis reader! There are two other ways to deal with this issue and they are both free. Adobe has provided one cure –at least for the Creative Suite of software– and it is simpicity itself. In Adobe CS 3 and CS4 each of the major design applications: InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop, has a Fonts folder in its appli- cation folder. Just drop your complete set of Helvetica Neue into this font folder and you will be able to use them without receiving any conflicts from the OS or your font management software. Quark users will have to use the other method as described in Extensis Best Practises for Managing Fonts in OS X. - Log-into your Mac OS X computer with an Administrator account. - Open . - Choose Font Book > Preferences - Disable the Alert me if system fonts change preference. - Copy the following folder to a safe, backup location on your hard drive: /> /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ATS.Framework/ Versions/A/Resources/ProtectedFonts /> - Note: Never delete your backup copy of the ProtectedFont folder, in case it they are required by a document or application you encounter in the future. - Open the original ProtectedFonts folder listed above and select only Helvetica.dfont and HelveticaNeue dfont and move them to the Trash. - Authenticate with your Administrator username and password. - Open the /System/Library/Fonts folder and move Helvetica.dfont and HelveticaNeue.dfont to the Trash. - In your font manager permanently activate your preferred versions Helvetica and Helvetica Neue. - Restart your computer. Woah! Looks like one more reason to switch to Creative Suite...

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