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NeoOffice :: View topic - Fonts & NeoOffice
Fonts & NeoOffice
 
   NeoOffice Forum Index -> Ranting
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drsassafras
Blue Pill


Joined: Jul 19, 2008
Posts: 4

PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2009 9:19 pm    Post subject: Fonts & NeoOffice

While, NewOffice is my favorite Word & Spreadsheet App. I have spent a long time waiting for3.0. I just downloaded it and was disappointed.

Here is why. Fonts are in my humble opinion one of the most essential revolutions in word processing since some of the first world processing applications, (when there was only mono-space fonts)

Now, NeoOffice does not give any easy way of knowing what a font looks like when choosing one..... I thought that seeing what the font looked like was a part of the OpenOffice 3.0 code base. That is why I am so disappointed. I still have no easy way to select a font.

I have been using ether font-drop down (with the font applied to the font name) or when the font name is hovered over in the drop down, it changes any selected text ever since I have been on a computer. I use to use Corel Word Perfect. Corel knew the importance of fonts. That was hmmmm..... over 8 years ago. Earlier still on that mac I had before windows 3 was thought of. (at least I think it did, I know it combined the bold and italic fonts so the same font does not appear several times...... as it does in NeoOffice)

So, I really hate saying anything that might be hurtful, especially to open-source, more specially to my favorite Word Processor, but as far as I am concerned, NeoOffice is over 8 years behind the game in this most basic & essential of features.

Aside from the whole font deal I love NeoOffice. But really, I am looking at if OpenOffice Mac is stable enough for me to migrate over, because they have implemented this quite well. I was trying to hold off until Neo3 but am not sure if this this is even planned for development. I certainly don't see it posted all over the website, and would kinda expect to see it there as its such a big thing.

A Sad NeoOffice Supporter
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sardisson
Town Crier
Town Crier


Joined: Feb 01, 2004
Posts: 4588

PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2009 10:03 pm    Post subject:

I'm not sure what you're not finding, because I think Neo can do what you want it to do Confused

NeoOffice doesn't have Apple's standard Font panel, for sure, but the Font tab of the Format: Character window mimics this in a way.

In addition, you can enable the "font name is displayed in the font face" behavior for the toolbar's font combobox, which will mimic the Font menus of classic Mac apps. The behavior is not enabled by default since it forces every font on your Mac to be loaded into memory by the OS when NeoOffice starts, but you can enable it in Preferences: NeoOffice: View: by checking "Show preview of fonts".

If you've tried both of these and neither does what you want, then I'm very confused about what you are looking for. (And if it's not in NeoOffice, it's almost certainly not going to be in OOo Aqua, either.)

Smokey

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"[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 6:57 am    Post subject:

sardisson wrote:
In addition, you can enable the "font name is displayed in the font face" behavior for the toolbar's font combobox, which will mimic the Font menus of classic Mac apps. The behavior is not enabled by default since it forces every font on your Mac to be loaded into memory by the OS when NeoOffice starts, but you can enable it in Preferences: NeoOffice: View: by checking "Show preview of fonts".


To be more specific, in both NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org, you enable font previews by selecting the Tools :: Options menu, clicking on the NeoOffice :: View item, check the Show Preview of Fonts checkbox, and press the OK button.

Many NeoOffice users have old machines with limited memory and loading all of the fonts in Font Book (which is what previewing does) can use up a significant amount of system memory. So, for the last several years, NeoOffice has followed Apple's lead and disabled font preview by default.

Patrick
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drsassafras
Blue Pill


Joined: Jul 19, 2008
Posts: 4

PostPosted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 9:16 am    Post subject: Default on

Might there be a way to enable it if the computer is using a Intel chip? That should be enough juice to load the fonts.

Thanks for the tip though. It makes me much happier!

Brendan
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 9:26 am    Post subject: Re: Default on

drsassafras wrote:
Might there be a way to enable it if the computer is using a Intel chip? That should be enough juice to load the fonts.


Sorry, but I do not think this is a good idea. While you may have a well-powered Mac, there are a lot of Intel Macs that have minimal memory. In fact, one of our test machines is a Intel Mac with the stock 512 MB. If I open OpenOffice.org 3.0 and click on the font list, that machine starts swapping badly and I usually have to reboot.

One of the advantages of Mac OS X is the large number of fonts that are bundled. However, this can also be a disadvantage for Apple's lower priced models as all those high quality fonts really are quite massive in memory footprint. Sad

Patrick
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drsassafras
Blue Pill


Joined: Jul 19, 2008
Posts: 4

PostPosted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 9:33 am    Post subject:

Wow. thanks for the lesson in mac.

I have always known the value of losts of ram. When I got my machine, I put another 2 gigs in it.

Perhaps the issue could be helped by a large degree by taking out the duplicate fonts with Bold Italic Condensed, etc. This way only 1/3 of the fonts would have to be loaded.

If one wanted to see a list of all the 'styles' associated with all the fonts, there could be a [b,i] placed at the end of the font, but only in the regular font face.

Brendan
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 9:51 am    Post subject:

drsassafras wrote:
Perhaps the issue could be helped by a large degree by taking out the duplicate fonts with Bold Italic Condensed, etc. This way only 1/3 of the fonts would have to be loaded.


Most Mac OS X fonts don't work that way. Loading one variant like "Regular" loads all variants. This is why have followed Apple's default Font dialog behavior: to not display any font previews and to only display them if you change the applicable setting.

Patrick
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