Using Helvetica Normal appears to instead use Helvetica Bold for display on Mac OS X

[James Snyder]

Revision: Inkscape 0.46, built Mar 30 2008
Operating System: 10.5.7 (Intel)
Apple X11: XQuartz 2.3.3.2 (xorg-server 1.4.2-apple42)

While attempting to add Helvetica Normal/Regular text, displayed text (in Inkscape) is Helvetica Bold. .svg files carry the correct Helvetica definition and render properly when loaded with browsers such as Firefox or Safari. When other Mac OS X applications (such as Pages) are used to select fonts, Helvetica Normal displays properly. In addition, the "Text and Font" dialog shows only the "Normal" "Italic" and "Bold Italic" variants of Helvetica where other native Cocoa applications show "Normal," "Italic," "Bold," and "Bold Italic."

I realize this could be an upstream GTK+ or XQuartz related bug, but I don't have any other applications to test with at the moment.

Attached picture shows the font dialog on the left from Inkscape and a Pages font dialog & document on the right.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

It's an upstream pango related issue AFAIK. See also bug #167353 and probably others in the bug database.

[Wesley Montoza (wmontoza)]

On font catalog on mac ox system, move font of english folder to user folder, and restart inkscape.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

No longer an issue in Inkscape 0.48.2 with Helvetica.dfont provided by Apple on OS X Lion 10.7.2:
   Version 7.0d20e1
   Location /System/Library/Fonts/Helvetica.dfont
   Unique name Helvetica; 7.0d20e1; 2011-04-05

Inkscape 0.48.2 handles the dfont without issues: normal, bold, italic font styles work correctly, as well as light (available via 'Text and Fonts…' dialog) - see attached screenshot.
Needs re-activation of the system fonts when bundling, patch to follow.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Reproducible with the same version of Inkscape (0.48.2) on Mac OS X 10.5.8 (i386) - see attached screenshot.
-> the only difference is the font provided by Apple:

Helvetica.dfont on Leopard:
   Version 6.0d7e1
   Location /System/Library/Fonts/Helvetica.dfont
   Unique name Helvetica; 6.0d7e1; 2007-09-27

Proposing to close as 'Invalid' for Inkscape: the only difference is the version of the Helvetica font provided by Apple.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Closing - not an Inkscape or OS X packaging issue (see earlier comment).

Reactivation of system fonts via fontconfig config files in OS X packages (/System/Library/Fonts) is tracked in bug #408653.