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How do I get Helvetica font in Photoshop?

Forum|Forum|10 years ago
November 16, 2015
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How do I get Helvetica font in Photoshop?

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Correct answer sarsaxen

Hi Steves,

Adobe does not bundle any version of Helvetica with any applications. Nor is it available via TypeKit.You can find the alternative for Helvitica from Adobe Typekit.

Photoshop uses the operating system fonts. Windows does not have Helvetica, Mac OSX does. Therefore it will show up in the Mac version of Photoshop.You might have used it as well.

You have to purchase it separately and install it yourself in Windows or get a Mac.

Refer How do I get "Helvetica" fonts for free when I use indesign by the creative cloud?

Regards

Sarika

designu46483552

Inspiring

What's the Alternative called then?

Test Screen Name

Legend

Arial is the most favoured alternative. Nine out of ten cats can’t tell the difference.

Community Expert

Community Expert

The last time we were asked about Helvetica, I did some investigating, and came away no better off than before I started. Wikipedia's Helvetica page on the font is remarkably light on graphic content.

Are the differences in these two lower case letter 'a' due to one being light and the other bold?

The same thing is true here. The ultra light through to regular have the tail, but it disappears from bold through to black.

This graphic puts forward Arial as an alternative. I would say Arial is my most used font.

Trevor.Dennis wrote
The last time we were asked about Helvetica, I did some investigating, and came away no better off than before I started. Wikipedia's Helvetica page on the font is remarkably light on graphic content.
I would say Arial is my most used font.

Trevor, compare the G and the R in your Helvetica and Arial examples. They look nothing alike!

and then look at the a and the r and the t in your next example. Not even close! The e is close, but the second is wider.

When I started in this business, fonts were hard-wired into the printer. My first PostScript printer also came with a card that went in the computer. There were 13 Adobe Postscript fonts, and if you wanted more they had to be purchased. But if you used one of the 13, you were paying for an exact match with what the print shop had. So 2K for the printer and another 2K for the Postscript boards.

Helvetica was one of the 13 Adobe PostScript fonts.

Arial did not come out until TrueType, many years later. It is a spin-off, a knock-off, an imitation of the very good PostScript Helvetica for people unwilling to pay for the original. The same goes for Times New Roman (TT), being an imitation of the PostScript font Times. That's why I refuse to use Arial and Times New Roman, and was glad when even Microsoft stopped using them and came up with Calibri and Cambria. I would not use those for professional printing, but I use them in Office documents, as I know most people will have them and it won't change on another computer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial

Helvetica and Helvetica Neue are not the same! This site shows the difference:

https://creativepro.com/typetalk-helvetica-vs-neue-helvetica/

Helvetica vs. Arial here:

https://creativepro.com/helvetica-vs-arial-difference/

Did you watch the awesome movie Helvetica?

https://www.amazon.com/Helvetica-David-Carson/dp/B079N3Y4C6

If not, then at least meet the cast!

Cheers,

Jane

This site about Adobe Postscript fonts may help to further your research:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript_fonts

About the time of CS3, Adobe finished converting their fonts to OpenType. OT was a joint venture with MS, but Adobe OT fonts have more features.

https://www.adobe.com/products/type/opentype.html

What else do you want to know about fonts?

Oh, one more, just as ppi and dpi get interchanged wrongly, people misuse the word font. A font is one typeface, one type style, and one type size, so 12 pt Helvetica Bold is not the same font as 10 pt Helvetica Bold. If the metal block goes in a different case, it is a different font.

Cheers, Trevor, and I hope these links help you with the info you are looking for. If not, I have more.

Your friend,

Jane

Community Expert

Community Expert

There are so many free font sites out there where you can download fonts for free.....mac or pc. If you are using a Mac it might be wise to use a font manager. Then you can turn your fonts on and off as needed.

Community Expert

Community Expert

Further to what you have already been told, you might like to check the Wikipedia entry for Helvetica

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica

It has pretty much become a font class nowadays, but there are sans serif fonts in Photoshop that will do the trick. I was excited when TypeKit was introduced, but later became disillusioned when I realised how many useful fonts were no longer available with CC. Bickham Script Pro, for instance, is a font used by one of my wine producing clients, so I was not impressed when that disappeared after CS6. Getting back to your question, Photoshop used to have a range of Swiss type faces that could have been used for the sort of banner headline applications Helvetica is associated with, but that has also gone. I went as far as emailing the TypeKit team about it a while back, and was fobbed off with a meaningless reply.

If you have a pre CC version of CS6 installed, then you will have the old fonts. In my case I had CS6 installed on my laptop, so was able to copy and transfer the font files to my desktop. It still annoyed me deeply that I had to go to that much trouble!

Community Expert

Community Expert

It needs to be installed on your system.

Community Manager

Correct answer

Community Manager

Hi Steves,

Adobe does not bundle any version of Helvetica with any applications. Nor is it available via TypeKit.You can find the alternative for Helvitica from Adobe Typekit.

Photoshop uses the operating system fonts. Windows does not have Helvetica, Mac OSX does. Therefore it will show up in the Mac version of Photoshop.You might have used it as well.

You have to purchase it separately and install it yourself in Windows or get a Mac.

Refer How do I get "Helvetica" fonts for free when I use indesign by the creative cloud?

Regards

Sarika

steves79572603Author

Participant

thank you