Address Book requires Helvetica.dfont -- other versions can cause problems (freezes)

MacFixIt reader Lee Heiman reports on an issue where Address Book requires the helvetica.dfont version of the Helvetica font.

The Helvetica font is relied upon by a number of Apple applications. However, Address Book appears to be the only application included with Mac OS X that relies on the .dfont version exclusively, and exhibits serious issues with other versions of the font (PostScript or OpenType) -- particularly an application freeze. Virtually all other applications work well with any flavor of the font.

A major obstacle is that you cannot simultaneously place PostScript/OpenType and TrueType (.dfont) fonts in the same directory without the latter overwriting the former -- a major issue for users who require a PostScript or OpenType version of the typeface.

Lee writes:

"If you are using either a PostScript or OpenType helvetica, address book hangs and then crashes when you click on the drop down menu to change a field title in the edit mode.

"Also, if you have a PostScript or OpenType helvetica higher in the font loading pecking order, Address book will still crash so it is more than just having helvetica.dfont available on your machine - it has to be the 'helvetica' of choice for Address Book. (i.e. dfont in /system/library/fonts will not work if you have a

"Also, when you do place the .dfont and the PostScript/OpenType fonts at the same level (i.e. /library/font, etc.) the helvetica.dfont replaces the ps/opentype helvetica for regular and bold with the .dfont TrueType font. This really a pain for production situations where we need to use ps or opentype fonts.

"Have no idea why Address Book requires the .dfont when other Apple programs don't and would love to have a work around/hack to fix Address Book."

For users who do not need a PostScript/OpenType version of the Helvetica font, the simple solution to eliminating the Address Book crashes is to remove either or both of these versions and revert to the original helvetica.dfont using Apple's Font Book (located in /Applications).

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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