Scrambled Chinese character in 0.92

[Robert Funnell]

I have an SVG file that was created in Inkscape a few years ago that contains some English text and also one Chinese character in each of several fonts. When I open it in 0.92, most of it is OK but one particular Chinese character gets splattered all over the page. Attached is a screenshot showing what it looks like. The mess is unstable, sometimes changing when I move the mouse around. The font with the problem is DFKai-SB. I'm using Inkscape 0.92.0 r15299 under Windows 7.

[Robert Funnell (robert-funnell)]

Attached to this comment is the actual SVG file. It's not the original file from a few years ago because I removed some irrelevant stuff. I opened this file in Inkscape 0.48 under Linux in VirtualBox on my Windows machine and it looks OK except that the Chinese characters don't show up at all because I don't have the fonts installed under Linux. I don't have an older Inkscape under Windows now because I had to remove it to install 0.92.)

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Note: the font 'DFKai-SB' is no longer included with latest Windows 10 (see 'Products that supply this font' at https://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/font.aspx?FMID=1584 ).

I only have access to a Windows 10 computer, so I tested the reported issue with a rogue copy of version 5.00 of the font downloadable for free (as in beer) on the internets.

The issue reproduced with that font installed on OS X 10.7.5 with
- Inkscape 0.47 r22583 (official package, 2009)
and with all these local builds:
- Inkscape 0.48.5 r10040
- Inkscape 0.91 r13725
- Inkscape 0.92.0 r15299
- lp:inkscape/0.92.x r15309

Runtime (X11-based) dependencies used with all the tested builds except 0.47 (that build uses much older bundled dependencies from 2009):
- fontconfig 2.11.1
- freetype 2.6.3
- harfbuzz 1.2.5
- pango 1.38.1

Since the font seems to have been retired by Microsoft or replaced with other fonts - maybe a flaw in the font itself?

[su_v (suv-lp)]

<off-topic label="Likely unrelated info">
Freetype has a list of "tricky fonts" which also includes 'DFKai-SB':
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/freetype/freetype2.git/tree/src/truetype/ttobjs.c#n142
https://www.freetype.org/freetype2/docs/reference/ft2-base_interface.html#FT_FACE_FLAG_TRICKY
</off-topic>

[Robert Funnell (robert-funnell)]

That's interesting about the tricky fonts. I wonder if turning off hinting would affect this case. I noticed that MingLiU and PMingLiU are in the tricky list but they both look fine in my test file.
It's also interesting that you saw the problem with Inkscape
My DFKai-SB font is also version 5.00.

[Robert Funnell (robert-funnell)]

Oops. I pressed 'Post Comment' too soon.
I meant to say that it's also interesting that you saw the problem with Inkscape 0.47. The original file that I saw the problem in is dated 2012 Jan 15, and at that time the file looked fine, with whatever version of Inkscape I was using. Looking at my download directory, I think it was probably 0.48.0.

[Robert Funnell (robert-funnell)]

I just confirmed that, after copying some of the fonts from Windows into Linux under VirtualBox, I see the problem in Inkscape 0.48.3.1 r9886 under Linux.
By the way, I found instructions at https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-start/some-fonts-are-missing-after-upgrade/95839dfa-0df2-4bc0-875a-fd6b57e61fe4 for installing DFKai-SB and many other fonts that are 'optional features' in Windows 10.

[Nathan Lee (nathan.lee)]

Hi - thanks for reporting this bug. No new progress on this issue, but as part of the bug migration, I've closed this issue and we can continue tracking it in Inkscape's new
bug tracker on GitLab

Issue reported in https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/2907