A Couple of Adobe and Font questions...
 

I will start out apologizing in advance for the long message, but I'm seeking help anywhere I can.

I am unable to get auto-activation to work w/ CS3 when I tried out FontBook, is there any special trick to it?

There are a couple of Fonts like Helvetica Neue and GillSans that apple has now included their own versions of with Leopard...I have postscript versions of these fonts that include more styles of them than apple has in their built in versions, though I can not seem to disable the built in ones because they are "system fonts", thus encountering conflicts. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could try to get around this and use my postscript fonts instead?

I have been unable to use Adobe PDF 8.0 as a printer in Leopard. The printer queue icon shows up when I try to print the document to PDF, but it never creates the PDF. If you open the queue, it says it's trying the normal first step of "Opening Distiller" for about 10-15 seconds, and then it just flips over to "Printer Paused" and that's it. I have had to use the old workaround method of saving as a .ps file and then dropping the file into Distiller to create the PDF, not a huge deal, but a pain none the less...any suggestions here?


Thanks!

I've never heard any reports of Font Book ever supporting auto-activation. Designers I know all use third party font utilities that DO support auto-activation because of the limitations of Font Book. Unless this is a new feature in Leopard of which I just haven't heard (this is possible), I'd say that Font Book isn't auto-activating fonts because it wasn't designed to auto-activate fonts.

And I would recommend a third-party solution.

Adobe says that Adobe Acrobat 8 will be updated in January to a version that works with Leopard.

Trevor

Leopard's supports font auto-activation:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html#fonts

Thanks chabig, that's good to know.

Sorry, agentphish, I obviously don't know how to get auto activation working in Font Book, since I didn't even know it had that feature :-)

Trevor

Use Linotype FontExplorerX. It's free, has font activation, and is much better for font management. (Though I've not assessed the new version of FontBook.)
You should be able to disable the system TrueType versions of Helvetica and Gill Sans in FontBook. What happens when you try?
What conflicts do you encounter?

The Adobe PDF printer queue has always been a bit flaky.

Trevor-

I am glad Chabig cleared that up for you! It was actually one of the things that got me real excited about Leopard when I read that in the new features list, was that FontBook would finally potentially kill the need for a 3rd party font app... alas, it appears that it does not. Actually i should have mentioned I am using Font Explorer X as I couldn't get auto activation to work with FontBook, even though this a new thing apple supposedly added to FontBook now to make it better.

I am actually unable to disable any system fonts with FontExplorerX, though I am very new to using it (been a suitcase user for a long time, and i do love FontExplorerX much better)... if you have any suggestions on how I can deactivate the TT System fonts in FontExplorerX (particularly the 2 mentioned) that would be great.

Thanks guys!

Use FontBook to disable the fonts.

Benwiggy I will try that. Thank you.

You cannot disable System font with any font utility, including FontBook. System fonts are those fonts located in the System's Library and are required. Only Public Fonts in /Library/Fonts and Private Fonts in ~/Library/Fonts can be disabled. Mac OS X 10.4 and previous also handled fonts in the OS 9 "System Folder." Third party utilities usually allow addition font locations, but none of them mess with the System's fonts.

Las Vegas-

I was kinda thinkin the same thing. I remember Suitcase could override them, which is I guess what I'm looking for in my particular case as I have Postscript versions of both Helvetica Neue and Gillsans that have many more weights of those fonts than apple's included TT versions. I think that I may have fixed the gillsans problem as it is not a font located in the System/Fonts folder, rather it's in the user's fonts.

What do you suggest?

You can see my problem with Helvetica Neue in FontExplorerX here...The system TT one is locked and can not be deactivated because it is in the System/Fonts folder. I would much prefer to use the PS one.
http://www.xaqdesign.com/helv.png

Wow. Just tried disabling a System font, and it doesn't let you. I'm sure it used to.:rolleyes:

Anyway, in which case, if you want the T1 version, then remove the TT version from the System/Library/Fonts folder using the Finder and put the T1 fonts there.
No doubt people may advise against this, but if you have replaced the font with another of the same name, there should be minimal problems.
I'm at work now, but I'm sure I've disable or replaced these very fonts in favour of Type1 versions on my home machine. I'll check when I get home.
Our work computers don't have Helvetica Neue or Gill Sans on them at all, as they've minimised the fonts on the machines. (We have Suitcase server.)

yeah i'm just afraid to try it. In the past i have accidentally moved/deleted system fonts and it has caused finder to crash or the system to not boot appropriately. Anyways I guess i'll give it a shot...I can always restore them by using target disk mode if the system wont boot.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Helvetica NEUE should be alright. I suspect it's not used by the System. As I say, it's not on our machines at work at all.
Yer actual Helvetica, or Geneva, Keyboard, Monaco, etc. - that's a different story.

No Dice. My helvetica Neue fonts folder that i have (part of adobe font collection that we have here at work) contains a bunch of helvetica neue fonts, all the different weights and such. I tried to copy the plain Helvetica Neue over to the system folder but I couldn't delete or rename the other one first. I even tried to change the permissions on the file and no dice.

You'll need to change the ownership/permissions of the font file first, either using Get Info or in the Terminal.

Benwiggy...

as I stated, I tried to change the permissions. I know how to do that w/ get info. Still wouldn't let me mess w/ it.

Right. I'm back home. My Helvetica Neue.dfont is in /Library/Fonts, so I can Disable it in FontBook or FontExplorer no problem.

Have you clicked on the padlock in Get Info and tried changed the Owner?
What happens?

You can move the font using Terminal, but you must restart as soon as possible afterward. Enter the following in Terminal:After restart, the font will still be present, but moved to a location you can turn off.

The idea of moving anything in /System/Library/Fonts scares me, and I can't recommend it. But, on the other hand, I don't really have any better solution.

Trevor

I agree w/ Trevor on this one...

My concern is when I put my HelveticaNeue font that i'd prefer to use into the system/fonts folder to replace the one that i remove, things will go batty because one is TT and one is PostScript.

So I'm still really not sure what to do. Benwiggy, are you using Leopard? Because the default location for that font is in the System/Library/Fonts not where you stated you have it.

Would it be an acceptable workaround to rename your Helvetica Neue Postscript font? For example, to Helvetica Neue PS?

Trevor

As long as the font is still available, Mac OS X will automatically enable it if it really needs it. That's why I recommended that you move it to a location where it would still be available if needed. By using Super User to move it, it shouldn't effect permissions at all. Also do not replace it! Use your Postscript font from the /Library/Fonts as well.

Yes, sorry, I'm still on Tiger for the moment.
Interesting that HN is now in the System fonts folder in Leopard.
The T1 version of Helvetica Neue is a graphic design standard, with millions of documents depending on HN 47 Light Condensed Italic, 55 Regular, etc. etc.
If the System substitutes the TT version, which might have slightly different metrics, this could cause a lot of problems if you can't disable it or get the system to favour the T1 fonts.

Moving it to a different font folder where it can be auto-activated if needs be is of course excellent advice.

I've been reading a lot of questions about Leopard, Helvetica Neue, and also Linotype Font Explorer. I haven't seen any good answers. A quick google search turned up this article tha basically says, give up and buy Helvetica Neue LT instead.

http://www.creativetechs.com/iq/prep...a_is_dead.html

And I have yet to see any official word that Linotype Font Explorer is OK for Leopard.