U+00bb not shown in FreeSerif

[Dominique Meeùs]

In LibreOffice Writer or Calc, in the chain « test » the last » is invisible if the font is FreeSerif. This seems peculiar to the combination FreeSerif-LibreOffice:
-- If I change font in LibreOffice, the » reappears (even others Free something).
-- If I write the same in FreeSerif in Bluefish, the » appears.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.10
Package: libreoffice 1:5.2.2-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.8.0-32.34-generic 4.8.11
Uname: Linux 4.8.0-32-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.3-0ubuntu8.2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME-Flashback:Unity
Date: Thu Dec 22 11:46:04 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-09-13 (100 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 16.04.1 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160719)
SourcePackage: libreoffice
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Dominique Meeùs (dominiquem)]

More information about this:
It does *not* happen with Ubuntu 16.04 (4.4.0-81-generic #104-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jun 14 08:17:06 UTC 2017 x86_64)
LibreOffice Version: 5.1.6.2, Build ID: 1:5.1.6~rc2-0ubuntu1~xenial2, Locale : fr-FR (fr_BE.UTF-8)
fonts-freefont.otf and ttf 20120203-4

In my Ubuntu 17.04 I have LibreOffice 1:5.3.1-0ubuntu2 and fonts-freefonts 20120503-6
In that situation, U+00BB is not displayed (is displayed as white space of the same width).
I installed Abiword to test this: the U+00BBs invisible in LibreOffice are displayed normally if the same file is opened in Abiword.
In LibreOffice, an invisible U+00BB becomes visible when set in bold.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

I can observe the issue on artful with libreoffice 5.3.3-0ubuntu1 and fonts-freefont-otf 20120503-6. Indeed toggling the style to bold makes the » appear/disappear.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

And I've changed my gnome-terminal preferences to use FreeSerif, and U+00BB is correctly displayed, so this appears to be a libreoffice bug indeed.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Dominique, a quick search in the upstream bug tracker didn't find any related issue. Would you mind filing one at https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/, and linking it here? Thanks!

[Adolfo Jayme Barrientos (fitojb)]

See also: https://savannah.gnu.org/support/?109295