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C
courtneyxx
Participant
November 15, 2013
Question

I can't find Helvetica Neue on Indesign CS6

  • November 15, 2013
  • 1 reply
  • 9985 views

I'm doing my university assignment on Helvetica Neue and I've got to design it in Indesign. I have CS6 but when I went to find it

in the fonts, it wasn't there.

I'm using windows 7 but at university they use MAC computers. Please tell me it doesn't depend on what computer platform you are using?

Thanks.

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Dov Isaacs
Dov Isaacs
Legend
November 15, 2013

Helvetica Neue is neither a standard Windows font nor is it bundled with any Adobe products.

There is a version of Helvetica Neue bundled with MacOS as .dfonts, a format that is not Windows-compatible. Even if the license allowed for it, you couldn't even copy those font files over to a Windows system for use.

There are various versions of Helvetica Neue available for licensing as OpenType fonts from Adobe and other font foundries (i.e., they are not “free”). Note that they are unlikely fully design and metric-compatible with the MacOS system .dfonts.

Note that when choosing fonts for projects, it is very prudent to not select fonts that are platform-dependent. We recommend platform-independent OpenType fonts.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
C
courtneyxxAuthor
Participant
November 15, 2013

Unfortunately, I never chose the font, my lecturer did.

So there is no other way of getting the font apart from buying a similar version?

Dov Isaacs
Dov Isaacs
Legend
November 15, 2013

Unfortunately, not! 

Your lecturer made a poor choice of fonts based on a poor assumption that all students use Macintosh-based computers, which is hardly the case in the real world.

A better, i.e., a more inclusive, choice would have been to select fonts that were bundled with InDesign or at least choose a font that was licensable and usable cross-platform.

I suggest you talk with this lecturer and discuss the problem and ask him or her what solution they would offer other than to buy a Macintosh!

(Note that over the past year, I served as an Industry Research Professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo running a project in which InDesign was used for production of some test files. I made sure that the fonts used were fully-cross platform compatible - OpenType - and licensed for use for all the students in the project!)

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
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