Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 23402
OpenOffice should indicate when it is using font/glyph substitution/fallback
Last modified: 2009-04-25 21:38:36 UTC
this is more a usability problem then a code defect: Right now, if the user selects a font which does not have the appropiate glyphs for the language typed (for example, selecting bitstream vera and then typing in Hebrew), OO slintly uses font substitution without notifing the user. This is one (if not the) most common causes for users in Israel to complain about "strange" behavier with Hebrew in OO, is that they are using a font with no Hebrew glyphs without relising it (OO automaticly kicks in with font substitution, without any indication). In most cases, changing the font to a true Hebrew font fixes the problems they see. If OO would have indicated to the user somehow that the font they selected is not the one used in practice, and that there is font substitution going on, many user problems would be prevented.
Font fallback without a notification is not a defect, but it sure should be addressed as UI feature that should at least appear once, with a checkbox for silancing it in the future. Should change from defect to feature... sforbes, it's your choice. I voted for this one. wliad.
>but it sure should be addressed as UI feature that should at least appear once, >with a checkbox for silancing it in the future I am not sure I understand you. I was not talking about a warning or pop-up, just some visual clue that the font chosen is not the one used (perhaps an icon next to the font name in the toolbar, or something along those lines). That way, we won't need to offer a "checkbox for silancing it in the future" >Should change from defect to feature As as see many questions on the message boards that would have been prevented had the user known that the font cohsen is not the font used (for example, PDF comming out with uqestion marks due to attempting to use a non-Hebrew font for Hebrw text), I see this bug as a usability defect.
DL->FT: Could you please handle this?
adding dina as cc
FT: Targeted to OfficeLater and set to FEATURE.
FT: I'm leaving so I will re-assign this issue to requirement default user
This is very important for professional use. If we receive letter text or form text from a client in MS-Word format, which is very common, it is necessary to know whether the fonts displayed on screen and sent to printer are the same fonts the client expects (or fonts sufficiently similar that substitution is acceptable, eg. Swiss instead of Helvetica). Currently in OpenOffice the only way to do this is to run a cursor through the entire document sent, looking at the names of fonts in the font window, and checking if each font name that appears there is the name of a font actually installed on the computer being used. In MS Word, one can go into Tools/Options, click on the Compatiblity tab, and then on the "Font Substitution ..." button which either brings up a message that all fonts in current document have been found and no substitution has been made, or brings up a window indicating which fonts are not found and what substitution has been made, allowing the user to edit this table (and to actually replace the font with a substitute font within the document if desired.) In Quark Express, if one or more fonts are not found, a similar Window allowing the user to control substitution appears as the document loads, allowing the user to specify which fonts are to be substituted at that time. This I think the preferable way of dealing with the issue, as the user is immediately given the information about missing fonts without having to take the initiative of searching into the bowels of a menu, but can if desired simply click to bypass the screen and let the application then substitute as it wishes. My suggestion would be to bring up such a window of font substitutions in OpenOffice when a document loads and also allow access again to this window through Tools/Options in emulation of MS-Word. If we carelessly miss the fact that font substitution has occurred, production work and production time may be wasted, both on our end and on the client's end, when the client quite rightly complains that the fonts appearing in the signoff samples of the finished product are not correct. Currently under OpenOffice though Tools/Options/Tools/Fonts the user can set up a permanent font substitution table. Probably an option should appear here asking whether the user wishes not to be warned of any substitutions indicated by this table.
*** Issue 67384 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
For the next Hebrew version of OOo, I've addressed sforbes' problem in a different way - by letting the user know in the font drop-down list box which fonts support Hebrew. Those fonts which have Hebrew glyphs have a sample of the first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet appended to the font name. If the font name doesn't have the Hebrew sample, the user knows that it doesn't support Hebrew. This does not fulfill the requirement described here, but it goes a long way toward solving the problem, and it's pretty easy to implement.
see issue 45128 also
Any news about this ?
cc
setting target and cc:ing ja
reassigned
Resetting target because no developer is actively working on this. On the other hand I close this issue as duplicate to issue 45128. Mentioned issue contains a dependency to another issue that contains a solution how to address this feature. ja->coni: What makes you think that this feature is to be implemented for 3.1 ? *** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 45128 ***
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Me as user I need to know, when a font-substitution is done and I want to know also, which font is used instead of the font selected by the user (which is not ab´vailable on the system or which doesn't contain glyphs used in the document). For now it is impossible to recognise this, which is a bug for me.