[upstream] [hardy] openoffice uses proprietary (non-free) fonts by default

Bug #160988 reported by Przemek K.
12
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
OpenOffice
Fix Released
Unknown
openoffice.org (Baltix)
New
Undecided
Unassigned
openoffice.org (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Low
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: openoffice.org

OpenOffice Writer uses Times and Helvetica for new files by default. Calc, Impress and Draw use Arial. Math uses Times New Roman, Courier New and Arial. These fonts are not installed in Ubuntu by default - they are installed by msttcorefonts. We should substitute them with free fonts - ie. DejaVu Sans and DejaVu Serif.

Chris Cheney (ccheney)
Changed in openoffice.org:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
milestone: none → hardy-alpha-1
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Przemek K. (azrael) wrote :

There is a bug filed in OOo bugtracker: http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=10866
but they argue that Times is de facto academic and corporate standard :/

Przemek K. (azrael)
description: updated
description: updated
Przemek K. (azrael)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
exactt (giesbert) wrote : Re: openoffice uses proprietary (non-free) fonts by default

i have a question here: if a document is set to use e.g. times and times is not installed. is openoffice trying to find a substitute or is the font system responsible?

in any way the user has to be informed that a font is not installed.
just by randomly finding this bug report i realized why some of my documents were looking different. which i had thought was related to the new version of OOo.

if its an OOo issue i will post it upstream.

thx

Chris Cheney (ccheney)
Changed in openoffice.org:
milestone: hardy-alpha-1 → none
status: Confirmed → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Przemek K. (azrael) wrote :

Any chances to fix this for Hardy?

Changed in openoffice:
status: Unknown → Confirmed
Chris Cheney (ccheney)
Changed in openoffice.org:
status: In Progress → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Chris Cheney (ccheney) wrote :

Upstream appears to default to DejaVu Serif now, regardless of the upstream bug report status...

Changed in openoffice.org:
importance: Wishlist → Low
status: Confirmed → In Progress
Revision history for this message
tweedledee (terrywatt-deactivatedaccount) wrote : Re: [Ubuntu] [hardy] openoffice uses proprietary (non-free) fonts by default

I've actually found that my system, both Gutsy and Hardy alpha 6, use a combination of Nimbus_Sans and Albany (which is not even available for Ubuntu except as a purchase direct from the company) as de facto defaults. The use of Albany for the font in graphs persists even after changing all default fonts to something reasonable. This is a major pain, as do not have the font and have to reconfigure every single plot (which is partly OOo's fault for not offering the ability to change more of the chart defaults). This is in parallel with the original poster's observations.

Chris Cheney (ccheney)
Changed in openoffice.org:
importance: Low → High
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :
Download full text (3.7 KiB)

This bug was fixed in the package openoffice.org - 1:2.4.0-3ubuntu1

---------------
openoffice.org (1:2.4.0-3ubuntu1) hardy; urgency=low

  [ Chris Cheney ]
  * Resynchronise with Debian (r1044). Remaining changes:
    - debian/broffice.org.postrm.in:
      . Change diversions to ubuntu bitmap filenames.
    - debian/broffice.org.preinst.in:
      . Change diversions to ubuntu bitmap filenames.
    - debian/control.in:
      . Change maintainer line.
      . Use imagemagick instead of graphicsmagick.
      . Change bzr repo location.
      . Add package openoffice.org-style-human.
      . Add replaces openoffice.org-gtk (<< 2.0.3-1) for openoffice.org-gnome
        dapper upgrade.
    - debian/control.l10n.in:
      . Add file for Ubuntu.
    - debian/control.lang.in:
      . Add L10N_COMMON to Depends.
    - debian/control.mozilla.in:
      . Add Xb-Npp-xxx tags according to "firefox distro add-on suport" spec.
    - debian/control.ubuntu-feisty.in:
      . Add file for Ubuntu.
    - debian/deppackage.postinst.in:
      . Add file for Ubuntu.
    - debian/module-po.map:
      . Add file for Ubuntu.
    - debian/ooo-build-ubuntu.diff:
      . Various Ubuntu specific changes to ooo-build.
    - debian/openoffice.org-base.mime:
      . Update and sort mime-types.
    - debian/openoffice.org-calc.mime:
      . Update and sort mime-types.
    - debian/openoffice.org-draw.mime:
      . Update and sort mime-types.
    - debian/openoffice.org-filter-binfilter.mime:
      . Update and sort mime-types.
    - debian/openoffice.org-impress.mime:
      . Update and sort mime-types.
    - debian/openoffice.org-math.mime:
      . Update and sort mime-types.
    - debian/openoffice.org-writer.mime:
      . Update and sort mime-types.
    - debian/rules:
      . Add BUILD_SPARC option.
      . Add USE_COMMON_DOCDIR option.
      . Add USE_LZMA_COMPRESS option.
      . Add support to build on lpia.
      . Add support to build l10n as a separate source.
      . Add support to chmod +x programs in debian dir.
      . Add support to uuencode binary files in ubuntu dir.
      . Add support for Ubuntu specific bitmaps.
      . Add support for openoffice.org-style-human package.
      . Add support for launchpad translations.
      . Update location of aotcompile.py file.
      . Use imagemagick instead of graphicsmagick.
      . Use openjdk-6-jre instead of icedtea-java7-jre. Closes LP: #203636
      . Various Ubuntu specific changes.
    - debian/scripts/convert2po:
      . Add file for Ubuntu.
    - debian/scripts/fix_image_rgb:
      . Use imagemagick instead of graphicsmagick.
    - debian/scripts/gsifilter.py:
      . Add file for Ubuntu.
    - debian/scripts/splitgsi:
      . Add file for Ubuntu.
    - debian/template.desktop.in:
      . Add NoDisplay=true.
  * Resynchronise with ooo-build (r12081).
    - Closes LP: #54776, #62256, #105906, #113358, #131272, #137469, #138252
      Closes LP: #148552, #154940, #160988, #175983, #194759, #197451, #197622
  * ubuntu/*:
    - Update splash screen for OOo 2.4. Closes LP: #199193
    - Various Ubuntu specific changes.

  [ Matthias Klose ]
  * ubuntu/lpi2gsi: Add templates and conversion scripts to generate
    ...

Read more...

Changed in openoffice.org:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
tweedledee (terrywatt-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

While some of the default fonts now default to non-proprietary ones, that's not true of all of them for 2.4 in Hardy. I still get Albany as the default font for all plots, regardless of any configuration options.

Revision history for this message
tweedledee (terrywatt-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Based on upstream bug reports, it appears the remaining font issues have been fixed for OO 3.0 (e.g., http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=85934).

Revision history for this message
Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan) wrote :

10866 is not really the bug that we deal with here, and it is virtually closed. 85934 is what we need and it has been fixed upstream.

Changed in openoffice.org:
status: Fix Released → Fix Committed
Changed in openoffice:
status: Unknown → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Redrazor39 (redrazor39) wrote :

There are much better free fonts on dafont.com

Perspective sans

Times Sans Serif

Typo 3

and the Liberation Series

Are very good free fonts that should be used by default instead.

Revision history for this message
Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan) wrote :

These fonts are nice but they're not all created by professionals; this means they can be prone to problems and should be tested very carefully first, and they may not all be easy to read for long texts. And although they're free of charge, the license of some is not clear. About the Liberation Fonts, which are of high quality, the GPL-exception license is said to be invalid by the FSF and Debian (and us?) and for now are considered as non-free - hope this will be solved.

This idea should be reported to upstream or discussed only for Ubuntu on ubuntu-devel-discuss if you want something to happen, here we won't change anything.

Revision history for this message
Mantas Kriaučiūnas (mantas) wrote : [Bug 160988] fonts for OpenOffice should have characters for European and other languages

On Wed, May 07, 2008 at 12:40:11AM -0000, Redrazor39 wrote:
> There are much better free fonts on dafont.com
> Perspective sans
> Times Sans Serif
> Typo 3
> and the Liberation Series
>
> Are very good free fonts that should be used by default instead.

Has these fonts European and other countries letters ?
AFAIK Liberation fonts supports only ASCII and ISO-8859-1 characters,
but these characters are used by less than 20% of people in the world,
lots of European people (like Polish, Greek, Russians, Lithuanians, etc)
needs more letters...

--
Labanaktis/Good luck,
Mantas Kriaučiūnas Jabber ID: <email address hidden> GPG ID: 43535BD5
Public organization "Open Source for Lithuania" - www.akl.lt

Chris Cheney (ccheney)
Changed in openoffice.org:
importance: High → Low
status: Fix Committed → Confirmed
Chris Cheney (ccheney)
Changed in openoffice.org:
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Chris Cheney (ccheney)
Changed in openoffice.org:
status: Triaged → Fix Released
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