I am having trouble getting access to fonts on hard drive. In particular Helvetica Neue Black. It seems that since HelveNeu.dfont is a system font Font Book does not give me the option to activate HelveticaNeuBlack.

Question

We recently started using Font Book instead of Suitcase Fusion for our font management program.  We are unable to activate our postscript type 1 font (Helvetica Neue Black)  It seems since hel neu is a system dfont that Font Book thinks we already have it activated but HelvNeueBlack is not part of dfont.  So even though I have it in my fonts folder the font is grayed out and am unable to activate.  I might add that HelveBlack is also a problem.  I've read the article by Kurt Lang on Font Management.  I followed his directions on how to remove dfonts from system but caused more problems than it solved.  I would appreciate a certified way to handle these particular fonts.  Do I need to purchase the Open Type fonts to solve problem.

Answer 1

What I did to fix was remove Helv Fractions that cleared up the problem.
It's been quite a while since I've seen that one come up. When you mentioned that some of the type looked like jumbled fractions, that should have jogged my memory. Yes, Helvetica Fractions is long known to be a bad font. Delete it from the hard drive and never reinstall it.
The HelvNeuBlack and HelvBlack fonts you sent are indeed creating conflicts. Here are screen shots of their internal names. HelvBlack first, and HelvNeuBlack second.
In Helvetica Black, the menu name is just Helvetica, which leaves nowhere for the regular Helvetica font to display in your font lists. It also then creates a cross reference between the two fonts. It is also reporting two other different names to the OS for the same font. Helvetica Black, and Helvetica-Black. You can technically get away with doing that, but it's bad practice.
Helvetica Neue Black is the same type of bad naming. The menu name is just Helvetica Neue, which leaves nowhere for the real Helvetica Neue to go in your menu lists. Then they rather oddly threw in Helvetica 95 Black for the full name, as opposed to HelveticaNeue-Black for the other two spots.
Just some really sloppy work here by someone for what I would guess were Type 1 PostScript fonts converted to Mac legacy TrueType. If you don't have the software to fix the names, the only good suggestion is to throw these fonts out and purchase new ones from a vendor who builds fonts correctly. And while they're kind of pricey, that means either Adobe or Linotype.