Joined: Jun 19, 2003 Posts: 61 Location: Las Vegas
Posted: Fri May 14, 2004 6:12 am Post subject: Font display
Hi all,
I'm not sure if this is related to antialiasing, but I'm having trouble seeing if text is bold or italics on the screen display. Everything prints out just fine, but I find it hard to edit documents not knowing.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 9:34 pm Post subject:
Hmm...can you check and see if there are truetype files for the bold versions and the like (e.g. arialbold.ttf)? There may be some type of problem with either getting the association correct or converting the fonts that is causing the additional versions to become lost. I don't believe offhand that the truetype font rendering in OOo can 'mimic' italics, bold, etc. with truetype fonts unless it has the full font set.
I'm also finding that the fonts displayed when I type with Writer don't look very much like the fonts that get displayed in the drop down. The spacing between the characters is a bit weird too.
Also not all the fonts that are available to other applications seem to be available to Writer.
Hmm...can you check and see if there are truetype files for the bold versions and the like (e.g. arialbold.ttf)? There may be some type of problem with either getting the association correct [...]
Just noticed this thread...I'm sure your conjecture is the case. Here's my list of OOo-installer-created Times fonts in <OOo>/share/fonts/truetype
They show up as four separate fonts in the font list (as does every other converted font with multiple weights).
When selecting TimesRoman and making it italic, OOo shows no italics and does not, in fact, make it italic, as printing/PDFing will show. One must select the TimesItalic font to get italics.
The Times (with printer icon) font (does it "exist" as a font file on disk anywhere?) behaves as one would expect; selecting the italics button makes the text italicized.
Times New Roman (via FontOOo) behaves as Times (printer) does; it, however, does consist of four font files on disk
timesbi.ttf
timesbd.ttf
times.ttf
timesi.ttf
even though it only shows up as Times New Roman in the menu.
Is fondu stripping some code that makes OOo know to "merge" the four files into one font with multiple weights?
[Edit: just to make sure it wasn't the X11-bitmap fonts issue, I tried with EuphemiaCAS [by virtue of it having the four weights and also Roman chars] and it behaves the same as Times; you have to select the "italic font" to get italics.]
I'm also finding that the fonts displayed when I type with Writer don't look very much like the fonts that get displayed in the drop down. The spacing between the characters is a bit weird too.
What version of OOo are you using, and which fonts? There are known issues with fonts that have X11 bitmap versions (like Times) where the screen fonts will not look as they should because the X11 bitmaps override the TrueType versions. (This post from Ed alludes to it, but I think I've seen a more extensive explanation; I just can't find it.)
Other than that, I notice only minor differences between the way fonts appear in the menu and in the document (a bit heavier or thinner, etc.) in the OOo112 GM candidate 2 that we're current testing.
Anonymous wrote:
Also not all the fonts that are available to other applications seem to be available to Writer.
As for this latter part, assuming that by "other applications" you meant other Mac apps rather than other OOo apps, the issue is that not all fonts get properly converted at install. There are a couple of reasons for this:
1. Sometimes the automatic conversion fails for some reason; you can try to manually convert the font with fondu or to have Start OpenOffice.org convert the font by dropping the .dfont or old-style TrueType font suitcase onto Start OpenOffice.org. It's possible the conversion will still fail and that font simply cannot be converted for use with OOo.
2. Certain versions of the OOo installer excluded some of the Mac OS X directories where fonts are installed; the /System/Library/Fonts and /Library/Fonts always seem to be included, but if you have any fonts in /Network/Fonts (?) or the Classic System Folder, they would not have been converted. Depending on the installer version, ~/Library/Fonts may or may not have been converted, and sometimes existing .TTF files (if you had some Windows fonts) in ~/Library/Fonts were not moved. A manual conversion of missing fonts from those locales with fondu or an automated one via Start OpenOffice.org will add these fonts.
3. I'm pretty sure Mac PostScript fonts are not supported, so if you have any of these, they'll be missing from OOo. I'm not aware of a work-around.
If you want to avoid all of these exasperating font issues and don't need any of the 1.1.x-specific features, you should check out NeoOffice/J (on the left under other websites, and with its own sections here on this forum), which uses Java to achieve far greater (and simpler) integration with the OS...or wait until the Aqua version of OOo arrives following the 2.0 release
Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 6:22 pm Post subject: More info...
sardisson wrote:
The Times (with printer icon) font (does it "exist" as a font file on disk anywhere?) behaves as one would expect; selecting the italics button makes the text italicized.
Times New Roman (via FontOOo) behaves as Times (printer) does; it, however, does consist of four font files on disk
timesbi.ttf
timesbd.ttf
times.ttf
timesi.ttf
even though it only shows up as Times New Roman in the menu.
Just to let you know, I've noticed the problem with TimesRoman etc. too, though I find that the Times (printer) font does not work. I do not, however, have Times New Roman installed (I guess I haven't booted up anything Microsoft yet), which suggests to me that the Times (printer) font appears to display correctly because the X font driver is using Times New Roman to represent Times (printer). Do you follow?
In other words, the Times (printer) font cannot be displayed as it is a PS font and Truetype systems - unlike the display-postscript system known as Quartz which we have come to know and love - cannot display PS fonts. So the font driver substitutes another font in its place. In your case that font is the Times New Roman family, which the font driver groups together, while in my case it uses Times Roman, which is somehow 'unbundled'.
Don't know whether anyone cares. I'm just trying to shed some light. I'm off to use NeoOffice.
Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2004 10:48 pm Post subject: Re: More info...
Benwiles wrote:
I find that the Times (printer) font does not work. I do not, however, have Times New Roman installed (I guess I haven't booted up anything Microsoft yet), which suggests to me that the Times (printer) font appears to display correctly because the X font driver is using Times New Roman to represent Times (printer). Do you follow?
Yes, I follow. I removed the TimesNR (times.ttf and co, installed by OOo's FontOOo autopilot, not something MS, btw) and the bold/italics vanished on screen.
In PDFs and when printed, however (with TimesNR [times.ttf and co] still removed), both Times (printer) and TimesNR both appeared italicized!?
I chose another printer font, New Century Schoolbook ("NCS") without any TTF equivalents. On screen it appeared more or less the same as Times (printer)/TimesNR. With the MS times.ttf and co installed, NCS was able to display bold and italics. With times.ttf and co removed, bold and italics disappeared on screen; they remained in PDF and when printed, however. Acrobat reveals that the PDF only contained two fonts, Times and Times New Roman, and NCS continued to look identical to Times/TimesNR. In the printout, however, NCS appeared distinctly different from Times/TimesNR, indicating that OOo or printer font substitution or something has made the correct font appear.
Benwiles wrote:
In other words, the Times (printer) font cannot be displayed as it is a PS font and Truetype systems - unlike the display-postscript system known as Quartz which we have come to know and love - cannot display PS fonts.
I'm not sure that's true, as I've had limited success in getting PostScript fonts to display--but real ones, not the "phantom" ones that appear in the OOo font menu with little printer icons. See this post if you're interested.
Benwiles wrote:
So the font driver substitutes another font in its place. In your case that font is the Times New Roman family, which the font driver groups together, while in my case it uses Times Roman, which is somehow 'unbundled'.
Indeed; it seems by default/first choice to map these phantom PS fonts to the Windows Core Fonts (all the more reason for FontOOo to have been added!).
The question now is essentially back to the first one--why are the Mac/converted fonts "unbundled"? Does OOo know how to magically bundle a whole bunch of Windows TTFs (i.e., some preprogrammed chart/listing), or is there something in the Windows TTF "format" that tells software to "bundle" fonts into a family and which is missing from the fondu'd Mac fonts.
My guess is that it's the latter, but finding a sufficiently obscure Windows TTF with the four variations should be the proper test....
Benwiles wrote:
Don't know whether anyone cares. I'm just trying to shed some light. I'm off to use NeoOffice.
I'm not sure anyone cares, either, but the more info definitely shed more light on the problem and removed the phantom PS fonts as a red herring in the search for the answer. Even if we find it, I'm not sure it'll get fixed (if it's an OOo problem) in X11, since the problem should be eliminated in an Aqua version (or Neo/J, which is great to have!--although it has a few font issues of its own, as noted in my PS testing topic above....)
Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2004 2:33 am Post subject: Possible "eureka" on "bundling" fonts!
sardisson wrote:
The question now is essentially back to the first one--why are the Mac/converted fonts "unbundled"? Does OOo know how to magically bundle a whole bunch of Windows TTFs (i.e., some preprogrammed chart/listing), or is there something in the Windows TTF "format" that tells software to "bundle" fonts into a family and which is missing from the fondu'd Mac fonts.
My guess is that it's the latter, but finding a sufficiently obscure Windows TTF with the four variations should be the proper test....
OK, thanks to a random note in Marc Liyanage's tutorial on the extended PDF, I think I've figured out why font faces/weights are not "bundled" in OOo/Mac, but I need a bit of help from the gurus
Open spadmin (Start OOo's File>Configure Printers menu), choose fonts. Scroll down to one of the Bitstream Vera faces. Notice the "human readable" font name syntax:
Bitstream Vera Sans, Regular
Bitstream Vera Sans, Bold
and so forth.
Find a fondu'd Mac font, say Times:
TimesRoman
TimesItalic, Italic
TimesBold
TimesBoldItalic, Italic
A ha! These don't look at all like the "unified family" above. I don't know if OOo is just extrapolating these names based on the font name, or if fondu is giving them these names "internally" when converting (my guess is again the latter).
Again based on the aside in Marc's tutorial, I decide I'm going to rename these fonts (via the Rename button) to make them conform to the syntax. Unfortunately, I get an error message: The font human-readable (actual-filename.ttf) cannot be renamed due to missing write permission.
Missing write permission on what exactly?! I've tried altering the permissions on the individual font files, and on <OOo>/share/fonts/truetype in general, so that I am the owner and I have read/write access, and even so that the group and other have read and write access, to no avail. Any idea on what needs its permissions altered, and what those permissions might be, to allow me to rename a font and test this latest theory?
Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 12:19 pm Post subject: An end to this quixotic quest....
Well, I'm calling an end to this seemingly quixotic quest for font families.
First, I bypassed the "missing write permission" problem temporarily by testing on fonts I manually fondu'd and put in my ~/Library/Preferences/<OOo>/user/fonts folder.
I had, however, only limited and sporadic success in the "renaming" process. Certain parts of the font names (the final Italic in Times, Italic and TimesBoldItalic, Italic) are hard-coded/added automatically. In one name-iteration, I was able to merge Times Roman and Times Italic...except the font became italicized at all times! In a second name scheme, I succeeded only in having four Times something fonts named "Times something, Bold", and so forth.
I also tried with AlBayan (only regular and bold, and at the top of the font list!) and ended up only with "AlBayan, Regular" and "AlBayan, Bold".
The renaming trick worked reliably only for solving my (PostScript) "Ornaments showing up in Adobe Caslon" problem, where I was able to rename Adobe Caslon Smallcaps and Ornaments to display as separate fonts and stop them from appearing randomly in regular Adobe Caslon text, so all was not lost.
My guess is that the names used by OOo to "merge" the fonts into families are hard-coded in the fonts in TTFs and either stored by Apple in a format that is incompatible with OOo's logic or converted "improperly" by fondu to an incompatible name format.
(Oddly enough, the American Typewriter.dfont, which exists in Regular, Bold, Light, Condensed, Condensed Bold, and Condensed Light, does gets merged...into one entry, meaning none of the light or condensed variations can be accessed...!)
Any further exploration requires someone with more knowledge of TTF formats (and perhaps tools to peek at/change this "internal name") and/or more knowledge of the OOo "font-family-merging code" than I have (very limited in the former, none in the latter).
I'd file a bug, except this problem should go away in the Aqua version--it's already mostly gone in NeoJ--and, (and please don't take this with any offense or malice, because none is intended), the hard-working developers seem largely to be working towards making OOo/X11 a product that works on the "basic" level and leaving Mac-specific "polishes" for the Aqua version--when, presumably, they'd be easier, or in some cases even possible, to add
Smokey
signing off as quixotic font-family-merging guy
Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2004 1:53 pm Post subject: spadmin font renaming
Spadmin font renaming is indeed eerie! The rename dialog accepts a comma and a font feature, like when it thinks that there is a unique font named FooBoldItalic, you can rename it to Foo, Bold, Italic, and then the font will show up in the list as Foo, Bold, Italic, Bold, Italic... well, here's the actual sequence:
Unique font OptimaBoldItalic (OptimaBoldItalic.ttf)
Renamed to Optima, Bold, Italic
Now in the list as: Optima, Bold, Italic, Bold, Italic (OptimaBoldItalic.ttf)
Rename that to just plain Optima
Now in the list as: Optima, Bold, Italic (OptimaBoldItalic.ttf)
Clearly, spadmin is parsing the name to extract font-feature keywords, but sometimes it doesn't recognize them, and when it does recognize them, it leaves them in the name anyway.
Using the following procedure I managed to get spadmin to fix almost all of the font-matching problems (and I had many).
Make sure the original file(s) exist, e.g. in /Library/Fonts.
sudo /Applications/OpenOffice1.1.2/spadmin (this is how to
avoid write permission issues)
Tell spadmin to Remove all files related to one unmatched font. Exit spadmin.
cd /Applications/OpenOffice1.1.2/share/fonts/truetype
sudo fondu /Library/Fonts/<the source of the font>
sudo makefontscale; sudo makefontdir (probably not needed)
sudo /Applications/OpenOffice1.1.2/spadmin
Spadmin should now know about the font files altho it may not have the properties correct. Use the above procedure to fix things, e.g. if it has
Avant Garde BT, Regular (AvantGardeBTDemi.ttf)
rename it to "Avant Garde BT, Bold" -- now spadmin agrees, it is "Avant Garde BT, Bold, Bold (AvantGardeBTDemi.ttf)". Rename it again to take out the literal ", Bold". Etc. for the rest of the files of this font.
Do not try to combine renaming to set properties, with renaming to change the name. That is, get all four styles of "Avant Garde BT" showing their correct properties. THEN you can select all four of the files and in one operation, rename all four to plain "Avant Garde".
This was a tedious and frustrating process, partly because of the unpredictability, and partly because of the awful human factors of the spadmin font dialog:
(1) the window is too small
(2) the window cannot be enlarged
(3) the rename dialog box is painted directly over the font-list obscuring the entry you are trying to name, so you have to move it aside to check the original filename (was this demioblique or just oblique?).
(4) every time you make any change whatever, the list snaps back to the first entry and you must tediously scroll down to see if your change worked
(5) the changed item(s) are no longer selected, so you can't tell for sure which ones you changed.
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and don't need any of the 1.1.x-specific features, you should check out NeoOffice/J (on the left under other websites, and with its own sections here on this forum), which uses Java to achieve far greater (and simpler) integration with the OS...or wait until the Aqua version of OOo arrives following the 2.0 release 
Ben