Neue Helvetica Pro Complete Family Rar
Nelson Suggs
TYPOGRAPHIC HELP! Any thoughts? Neue Helvetica is a resident font on Apple. As such it cannot be disabled, deactivated, hidden, deleted, removed. The system and Font Book do not have the complete family. This means you have to have another version /source. Herein is the confusion. Both will display in font lists within software. This means you could inadvertently end up with a mix of sources. Apple displays as light, bold, etc The other source displays as the numerical system 45, 65, etc. Adobe InDesign seems to display using the numerical system and therefore which one are you actually using? Affinity Publisher mixes everything up with two lists of Neue Helvetica in the list. If you have both open then Font Book will alert you to the issue that you have 'multiple' copies open. Multiple suggests lots and not two sources. Confused? I'm not sure there is any way around this. Am I wrong?
One potential method to fix this would be using a font editor and rename the family of the non-Apple Helvetica Neue to something else. It is of course a large family so maybe quite a nuisance, and would or course require a specific tool.
It looks from your screenshot that your Apple and Adobe versions are in the same list but fortunately sorted out. Mine are a little bit mixed up between the two sets. I don't know what the original source is. I used to work at a University where the Adobe license and typefaces were taken care of. I've left now and the laptop was taken back and the account closed. Hence the move to Affinity. The source of the other typeface might be someone who I worked with who artwork a publication and then packaged the job so I could check it. That person unfortunately died. So am figuring things out. I can't deactivate the Apple resident fonts so they have to appear. Both my sources appear in Publisher so maybe I just need to take more care selecting and then check fonts when packaging for output. Whilst the Publisher displays the fonts. Font Book alerts that there are multiple copies. Maybe this doesn't mean much. Screen shots attached. Of course I could delete my other source and buy a new set from Font Shop (165). I think the same thing will happen in that the Apple Version will display alongside the bought version.
Yes, the both Helvetica Neue versions on your computer seem to have same or close to same family names (perhaps a space character is not enough to separate the names, unless the app can make a difference when enumerating the fonts).
Font editors typically use the FamilyName as a base, and then other parameters to build several other names to create a unique set of font names to avoid name conflicts. Since e.g. PostScript name seems to be built based on Family name (spaces removed and style name appended by other parameters), it may be that at least certain fonts that have close to identical family names, end up having fully identical secondary names (like PostScript name).
If an app enumerates fonts based e.g. on PostScript body (the first part of the name), name conflicts would happen and all kinds of issues related to this problem. I do not think that it is possible to resolve the issue unless the family name of one of the conflicting font is changed and sub names thereafter rebuilt. As mentioned, the problem is often app-specific, depending on whether an app uses multiple name fields to deduce how individual fonts should be grouped and identified.
If name editing is not an option, you could try if just removing the exactly conflicting fonts from the non-Apple family would make it possible to use all sub styles of these fonts, even if from mixed families. The Font Book is probably good enough tool to do this task, as it allows just deactivating conflicting fonts without needing to uninstall them.
It looks from your screenshot that your Apple and Adobe versions are in the same list but fortunately sorted out. Mine are a little bit mixed up between the two sets. I don't know what the original source is.
The macOS Helvetica Neue is also broken. It may work in Apple applications and most of Adopey apps, but it will never work properly in Word, LibreOffice, and apps like Affinity. Apple did this on purpose to prevent others from using their fonts.
Helvetica Neue LT Std (which is easy to find as it is in the old Adobe Font Folio 11) has a different family name so there will be no name conflicts like you have now. Same with Helvetica Neue LT Pro.
BUT, both of those font families are configured with multiple R/I/B/BI style groups (2), and Affinity apps do not handle multiple R/I/B/BI style groups well. The fonts may or may not work properly. They may appear to work and then you may have the wrong font(s) get embedded in a PDF.
Thanks kenmcd and lacerto for your responses. Appreciated. I'm not sure what R/I/B/BI is but I assume it is the way fonts are named. There is the Apple resident Neue Helvetica and the other one I have. The other one is from a legitimate source. It was from a designer I knew who was in a commercial studio and we would have used it on a print job when we were both working at a university. We are both Apple Mac users. A former colleague has also confirmed that system fonts clashing with external fonts is a common problem. Helvetica Now is a reasonable suggestion but is quite expensive now that i am retired. This version of NH -helvetica-pro-basic-family-package-379965 is priced at 164 and is quite reasonable. My alternatives are buy this fresh. Push on with what I have on my system. Dig out my old computer and see what version I had back then which again I think will be legitimate.
You can PM me to tell some details of this other font. Depending on a bit on details, it might be an easy task to prepare you a version that works fine on you current system, without causing conflicts with the internal macOS version. R/I/B/BI refers to Windows kind of four-style menu names which need to be consistently created to make super families like Helvetica Neue work. I think that Affinity apps and apps generally on macOS basically ignore this system and have other means that help grouping fonts. But name conflicts occur all the same, but for other reasons than confusion of four-style menu names. As I have the macOS versions installed, I could have a peek on your font and see what it takes to make a fix.
If I try to install this font using Font Book, it warns about a duplicate being in process of installation. As you can see both fonts use identical family name and style group with identical sub style. Many apps only read this information and accordingly would get confused font menus when enumerating available fonts. Adobe apps might have been able to handle these conflicts without problems because they read those additional names to identify and group the fonts correctly. But as this is a Type 1 font, modern Adobe apps no longer support it, and Affinity apps are helpless in differentiating these fonts.
The easiest method would be simply disabling the conflicting styles of the non-Apple version using FontBook. It would be possible to convert the Type1 versions and use non-conflicting names, but this would be a pretty big job (and besides, I assume that against the original license).
As Type 1 fonts are deprecated and more and more apps (and e.g mobile OSs) stop supporting them, it might be a good idea to get a new version of Helvetica Neue. Unless you want to have exactly the same design, I would recommend getting Helvetica Now from Monotype, as it is a superb font with lots of fine features. The MyFonts version is from Linotype and is basically an up-to-date OpenType version of the old Type1 font, but the package you referred only contains 16 styles while the original FontFolio 8 or 9 version contains 51 styles so there is a good chance that you will not get full support for opening all your old documents with the replaced versions, despite of identical design. In any case you would need to map the "missing" fonts of the old documents with old versions of Helvetica Neue to the new fonts with slightly different names.
EDIT: The Apple built-in OpenType TrueType flavor contains 14 styles. It you do not need all styles of your current non-Apple version of Helvetica Neue, just using the Apple versions (instead of purchasing a new Linotype package only containing 2 styles more) would probably be the most practical solution.
Thanks for adding a lot of information to this thread. Affinity say they will continue to support Type 1 fonts for the foreseeable future. But yes time moves on. I'm a bit of a typographic minimalist so Light 45, Roman 55, Heavy 85 along with their italics will see me through. I tested Adobe and Google fonts along side Neue Helvetica and NH still stood up really well. Helvetica Now looks good but its family packages are more than I need and there is an attendant cost. Another thing I thought to try is to set up a small sample and package it for output and printing and then send it to the chosen printer to ascertain if there are actual issues. I'll keep the idea of a purchase in the books. I'll take a look at the font I have and PM you anything I can find out. Thanks!
Font naming conflicts are a big nuisance and unfortunately not anything that was properly resolved with OpenType. It would be useful to have a kind of an (optional) XML mapping etc. that would let the user to resolve family name conflicts so that a specific set of file names could be remapped in one go to a distinct family name, without needing to touch the actual font files. Decades ago something like this could be done on Windows using AFM (plain text file) and PFB and letting Adobe Type Manager (possibly even OS installator, do not remember anymore) create PFM files (Windows menu font and metrics files) that would be used to install fonts.
Font manufacturers and distributors do occasionally rename font families so e.g. Linotype Helvetica Neue (old name), which in Adobe FontFolio 11 existed as Helvetica Neue LT, is now renamed in modern Linotype package as Neue Helvetica, thus differentiating e.g. from the Apple package (which conflicts at least with the legacy Type 1 family name). Similarly e.g. Hero New exists in Adobe Fonts as New Hero.
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