Uppercase Sharp S (ß)

[dave_c_courtemanche]

I use Helvetica Neue LT Pro as my company font. Recently, I have documents requesting the uppercase sharp S character in German materials. This font glyph does not seem available in Helv Neue LT Pro. Any ideas how to add it to the font set, or whether the font will be updated with this additional glyph?

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

Since the “Pro” variants of Helvetica Neue are not Adobe fonts (The Helvetica Neue LT Std font family is part of the Adobe Font Folio product and was previously available separately from Adobe), you are best off going to the source of these fonts, Linotype, now part of the Monotype font empire and see if their current versions of Helvetica Neue (possibly renamed to Neue Helvetica) meets your needs.

          - Dov 

[Dov Isaacs]

I should also add that in terms of “adding” glyphs to an existing font, there a few considerations:

(1)     Simply adding a glyph to a font is a non-trivial task. The various font editing tools available are not only expensive, but they have an exceptionally steep learning curve. It is more than just shoving an additional outline into an existing font. There are issues of font metrics including kerning, OpenType features, etc. as well as hinting and encoding.

(2)     Once you have a personalized variant of a font, unless you totally rename it (not just the font file name, but all the internal names), you risk problems in terms of compatibility for other documents and workflows that depend on the original font.

(3)     Many font End User License Agreements (EULA) specifically prohibit any user changes to a font. Check the EULA for any font that you wish to modify in any way.

          - Dov