Editor default font to Helvetica , not installed

[mayuresh]

I am using Acrobat DC Pro XI and when I go to edit the PDF text field, the default font is "Helvetica". This font is not installed on the current system, and Helvetica is not a font but a font family. I can either purchase a font named "Helvetica" , but everywhere I have looked i see fonts within the "Helvetica family" and NOT the "Helvetica" font ONLY. Another solution is to change the default font or default settings to Arial, but I have hundreds of these fields and hundreds of these templates to modify.

[Karl Heinz Kremer · Accepted solution]

There is no need to purchase the "Helvetica" font, nor is there a need to change every occurrence of "Helvetica" to "Arial". The "Base 14" fonts (Helvetica, Times Roman and Courier in four different weights plus Symbol and Zapf Dingbats) (or their Windows equivalents) are required to be available in every PDF processor. When you open a file that uses Helvetica on a Windows system that only has Arial installed, it will automatically substitute Arial for Helvetica. This means that even though you don't have "Helvetica" installed on your computer, your form that uses "Helvetica" as the font for form fields will work without any problems.

[mayuresh]

Thanks for replying. Issue we are facing is there is 3rd party tool that is creating Pdfs based on this master PDF template and it is looking for Helvetica font and does not understand to pick Arial instead. if there was a way to install just Helvetica font , we can venture that option. Else any other way ?

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

That is something you will have to discuss with the makers of this 3rd party tool. As far as purchasing "just" Helvetica, you may need to talk to one of the font vendors. I did a quick check on Helvetica® Roman Font - Licensing Options | Linotype.com​ to see if any of the fonts report just a "Helvetica" as their PostScript name, but that does not seem to be the case.

Does your 3rd party tool run on a Mac? Every Mac comes with Helvetica, so you would not have the Helvetica/Arial substitution problem. 

[mayuresh]

You are correct, 3rd party tool is on a PC and hence Helvetica is not available. Only if there was "Helvetica" available in PC, or some global setting to change the PDF Editor to point to Arial or some other available font.

[Test Screen Name]

The fonts needed, if anyone can find them, are

Helvetica font family, in type 1 format (not OTF or TTF) which contains four fonts called (exactly) Helvetica, Helvetica-Bold, Helvetica-Oblique and Helvetica-Oblique. So it is the name of the family, and of one of the fonts in it.

Adobe sold these for many years, and it's possible they may still have them for special order. They now only list OTF fonts on their site.

[mayuresh]

Thanks for your reply. I am trying to find this but not able to get to that specific type 1 format (not OTF , TTF). If there is any link or resource, can you PM me ?

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

You will have to get in touch with Adobe's sales department to find out if you can still buy that package - or try Monotype's customer support. Explain to them that you need the Helvetica Type 1 font (just as TSN explained).

Alternatively, you can also programatically change every occurrence of Helvetia in a text field to Arial using the following script (e.g. in an Action, so that you can process multiple files at the same time):

for (var i=0; i<this.numFields; i++) {
    var f = this.getField(this.getNthFieldName(i));
    if (f != null && f.type == "text") {
        if (f.textFont == "Helvetica") {
            f.textFont = "Arial";
        }
        else if (f.textFont == "Helvetica-Bold") {
            f.textFont = "Arial,Bold";
        }
    }
}

This will change Helvetica to Arial, and Helvetica Bold to Arial Bold, you can of course add more "else if" conditions to handle more font weights.

Keep in mind that your files will get larger when you do that: Helvetica does not have to be embedded, because it's assumed to be available in every PDF processor. When you specifically ask for Arial (even though Acrobat would actually use Arial to display all "Helvetica" text when opened on a Windows system), the font will be embedded, and your file will be bigger.

[Dov Isaacs]

Adobe no longer supplies licenses for these fonts except via printers that have Adobe PostScript 3. Such printers usually ship with “host software” with the Type 1 versions in both Windows and MacOS versions for all the printer-resident fonts. If you have a printer with Adobe PostScript 3 and you have the original CD/DVD (or otherwise available host software), the fonts might be available from there.

          - Dov

[kellyk48035365]

What if it is not automatically substituting Arial for Helvetica? When trying to open a specific pdf, I keep getting the meesage " Cannot find or create the font "Helvetica". Some characters may not display or print correctly."  And the file then comes up blank. I can go to Preflight and manually have Adobe substitute the font, but how do I get it to do it automatically? 

[Test Screen Name]

Type 1 is one of the three common font types. That's the description you need to find in a catalog instead of TrueType or OpenTpe. But you also need to check with the makers of your software that they accept this font and font type and will embed it. Don't assume, all software is different.

[mayuresh]

Thanks both for your suggestions. I am pursuing the route of contacting with the software maker. Will send an update in few days.

[kellyk48035365]

What if it is not automatically substituting Arial for Helvetica? When trying to open a specific pdf, I keep getting the meesage " Cannot find or create the font "Helvetica". Some characters may not display or print correctly."  And the file then comes up blank. I can go to Preflight and manually have Adobe substitute the font, but how do I get it to do it automatically?