That's it — Windows comes with a crappy bitmap Helvetica, and most Linux distributions are even worse because X includes an abysmally bad tiny raster one. Macs

That's it — Windows comes with a crappy bitmap Helvetica, and most Linux distributions are even worse because X includes an abysmally bad tiny raster one. Macs ship with a good one, and Adobe Creative Suite installers usually bundle one which is how lots of designers never notice the problem on Windows. Basically, you should never specify 'Helvetica' anywhere in a font declaration. Specify 'Helvetica Neue', the pretty close 'Microsoft Sans Serif', or gasp Arial — it's not actually worse in any way, despite all the wankery.