How can I use Helvetica Neue Condensed Bold in CSS?

Question

I want to use Helvetica Neue Condensed Bold on my webpage but it doesn\'t seem to be working. I have tried this: http://jsfiddle.net/ndFTL/ but it does not work, it simply s

Answer 1

In case anyone is still looking for Helvetica Neue Condensed Bold, you essentially have two options.

1. fonts.com: License the real font as a webfont from fonts.com. Free (with a badge), $10/month for 250k pageviews and $100/month for 2.5M pageviews. You can download the font to your desktop with the most expensive plan (but if you're on a Mac you already have it).
2. myfonts.com / fontspring.com: Buy a pretty close alternative like Nimbus Sans Novus D from MyFont ($160 for unlimited pageviews), or Franklin Gothic FS Demi Condensed, from fontspring.com (about $21.95, flat one time fee with unlimited pageviews). In both cases you also get to download the font for your desktop so you can use it in Photoshop for comps.

A very cheap compromise is to buy Franklin from fontspring and then use "HelveticaNeue-CondensedBold" as the preferred font in your CSS.

h2 {"HelveticaNeue-CondensedBold", "FranklinGothicFSDemiCondensed", Arial, sans-serif;}

Then if a Mac user loads your site they see Helvetica Neue, but if they're on another platform they see Franklin.

UPDATE: I discovered a much closer match to Helvetica Neue Condensed Bold is Nimbus Sans Novus D Condensed bold. In fact, it is also derived from Helvetica. You can get it at MyFonts.com for $20 (desktop) and $20 (web, 10k pageviews). Web with unlimited pageviews is $160. I have used this font throughout (i.e. NOT exploiting the Mac's built in "NimbusSansNovusDBoldCondensed" at all) because it leads to a design that is more uniform across browsers. Built in HN and Nimbus Sans are very similar in all respects but point size. Nimbus needs a few extra points to get an identical size match.