Ubuntu 18.04 embedded fonts Liberation have corrupted metrics

[Victor]

[Impact]

fonts-liberation and fonts-liberation2 in bionic have skewed font metrics. This is causing visible formatting issues in any program rendering text using those fonts, most notably libreoffice (recent versions fail to build because some unit tests that check the rendered layout fail).
This was fixed in debian and synced in cosmic (https://salsa.debian.org/fonts-team/fonts-liberation/blob/master/debian/patches/unset_OS2_UseTypoMetrics.patch).

Backporting to bionic is a prerequisite to backporting a recent version of libreoffice (6.0.6, bug #1785679).

[Test Case]

See original description (at the bottom of the description) for example text documents and their expected layout when opened in libreoffice.

A good test case is whether libreoffice 6.0.6 builds successfully (all unit tests pass - some unit tests exercise text layout and they fail with the broken version of fonts-liberation2).

[Regression Potential]

Rendering of text across a variety of programs (especially word processors and web browsers) should be checked to ensure that this doesn't introduce regressions.

[Other Info]

This is backported straight from Debian, no Ubuntu-specific modifications.

[Original description]

Ubuntu/Xubuntu 18.04 package includes fonts "Liberation Sans" (etc "Liberation") with sligtly shrinked font metrics. This issue leads to all office documents typed in Liberation Sans fonts have corrupted formatting in Ubuntu 18.04 (but these documents correctly opened in other OS's, for example Ubuntu 17.10). Documents with corrupted formatting can not print properly: all paragraphs are shifted up, embedded tables in text - splitted on page breaks. Document circulation in system based on Ubuntu 18.04 operating systems temporarily paralized, because Liberation fonts are basic fonts for open-source document circulation.

In attachment I have type a example office document with 2 pages and enumerated strings. On normal ordinary conditions this document have 54 strings on first page and 54 string on second page. But if this document open in Ubuntu 18.04, it's found than 5 strings from second page moves to first page. Compare font versions embedded with Ubuntu packages we can see that versions are different (sudo apr search fonts-liberation* command):

Ubuntu 17.10 - 1:1.07.4-2, 2.00.1-3
Ubuntu 18.04 - 1:1.07.4-5, 2.00.1-5

I have create a bug 117411 "Font metrics slightly changed after update OS to Ubuntu 18.04", see https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=117411, but I think that this bug concerns a Ubuntu/Xubuntu 18.04 package.

[Victor (lantcoder)]

Screenshot in Xubuntu 17.10 operatind system, all ok

[Victor (lantcoder)]

Screenshot in Ubuntu 18.04 of the same document opened with the same versions on libreoffice.
5 lines move up to first page

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[dino99 (9d9)]

Possibly fixed https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=898116#10
Please sync asap

[dino99 (9d9)]

also concerned https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=898115#12

[Scott Cowles Jacobs (scott092707)]

I am using LibreOffice-Writer 1:6.0.3-0ubuntu1 on Lubuntu Next 18.04, and found when opening a previously-created document, that the pages did not line up.
Searching for LO-W bugs that referenced line-spacing, eventually led me to the original reporter's bug, and then to the debian bug report that you list in comment #5:
(https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=898116)
where they reported that the bug had been:
"Fixed in version fonts-liberation/1:1.07.4-6"
The version I had was 1:1.07.4-5, just as the original reporter.

So, I snagged the "cosmic" package* (not yet available for "bionic")
and tried it, and it definitely solves my problem.

*see: https://packages.ubuntu.com/cosmic/all/fonts-liberation/download
and (probably) follow the advice at the top: add the deb line to your
repository list (selecting an appropriate URI mirror site for your area).

I suppose that it will be available for bionic, soon, but needed it sooner...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Horst Schirmeier (horst)]

Confirming for Liberation Mono. This just seriously bit me when exchanging LO Impress files with a colleague. (Took me a while to figure out). Temporarily fixed this by installing LO 6.0.4 from libreoffice.org in /opt, which happens to ship its own version of the Liberation fonts.

[Horst Schirmeier (horst)]

Confirming comment #7's solution: The cosmic version of fonts-liberation (1:1.07.4-7 instead of bionic's 1:1.07.4-5) fixes the issue for me.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Fixed in fonts-liberation (1:1.07.4-7) and fonts-liberation2 (2.00.1-7) in cosmic, needs SRUing to bionic.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

Hello Victor, or anyone else affected,

Accepted fonts-liberation into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fonts-liberation/1:1.07.4-7ubuntu0.18.04.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

Hello Victor, or anyone else affected,

Accepted fonts-liberation2 into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fonts-liberation2/2.00.1-7ubuntu0.18.04.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[Jan-Marek Glogowski (jmglogow)]

Just a FYI: I opened https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=907487

That won't result in a different binary package, but from my interpretation it's a bug in the patch.

[ash (sersorrel)]

The -proposed packages fix text selection for Liberation fonts in Chrome for me.

[Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz)]

@sil2100 , @osomon : Backported packages should not have a higher version than their original source.

2.00.1-7ubuntu0.18.04.1 > 2.00.1-7

This breaks the upgrade path.

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

That is true, obvious mistake from my side by not noticing the missing ~ sign on both packages. I will try to resolve this soon.

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

@ricotz Thank you for noticing!

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

I prepared the packages so the mistake is mine, apologies for that, and thanks for fixing it Łukasz.

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

Hello Victor, or anyone else affected,

Accepted fonts-liberation into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fonts-liberation/1:1.07.4-7~18.04.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

Hello Victor, or anyone else affected,

Accepted fonts-liberation2 into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fonts-liberation2/2.00.1-7~18.04.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Successfully tested fonts-liberation 1:1.07.4-7~18.04.1 and fonts-liberation2 2.00.1-7~18.04.1 against libreoffice 1:6.0.6-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 (in bionic-proposed).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package fonts-liberation - 1:1.07.4-7~18.04.1

---------------
fonts-liberation (1:1.07.4-7~18.04.1) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Backport to bionic to fix skewed font metrics (LP: #1769654)

 -- Olivier Tilloy <email address hidden> Wed, 08 Aug 2018 17:08:50 +0200

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for fonts-liberation has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package fonts-liberation2 - 2.00.1-7~18.04.1

---------------
fonts-liberation2 (2.00.1-7~18.04.1) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Backport to bionic to fix skewed font metrics (LP: #1769654)

 -- Olivier Tilloy <email address hidden> Wed, 08 Aug 2018 17:14:31 +0200

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Fixed in fonts-liberation and fonts-liberation2, no work needed in libreoffice.