[Ubuntu] [hardy] font hinting does not work with libfreetype6 v. 2.2.1

[Gert Kulyk]

Binary package hint: openoffice.org

NOTE: Make sure this works in Kubuntu as well before closing.

Fonts are looking terrible in Openoffice.org after upgrade to Edgy. Searching debian bugs, I found this report (same title as this report).

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=378619

In the report is a patch attached, here is the link:

http://www.openoffice.org/nonav/issues/showattachment.cgi/36573/vcl-freetype-2.2.x.diff

[John Dong (jdong)]

Confirmed here; fonts do look absolutely terrible in Edgy's OOo.

[John Dong (jdong)]

Here's a screenshot of what Openoffice looks like on my Edgy box. Note the blurriness of menu items.

[John Dong (jdong)]

Just for comparison, here's what gedit looks like

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

Bug still there in 2.0.4~rc2. I'm no longer sure, if the above patch would fix the issue, since at least parts of it (I haven'n compared it line by line) are included in the version upstream.

A temporary workaround would be, to copy the libfreetype from the dapper-package as libfreetype.so.6 into the /usr/lib/openoffice/program -directory. This causes openoffice to render display-fonts as you were used to in Dapper.

There are patches in Fedora-cvs which are trying to include full fontconfig-support (the lack for it is another annoying issue) for ooo, maybe at least parts of them would be helpfull for this issue, too. I would try it on my own, but there is no reasonable way for doing so, since the compile-time for building this monster on my Celeron 500 with 256 MB ram would be eternal.

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

After some investigation and reading Comments on Debian-Bug-Report http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=385798 it seems like openoffice simply is always using freetype-autohinter instead of respecting fontconfig-settings.

Turning on autohinter in ~/.fonts.conf causes, that GNOME-Apps and OOo are looking the same when using new freetype (but worse as if bytecode-interpreter is enabled).

So it seems like old freetype-lib in combination with openoffice uses bytecode-interpreter, new freetype not (why, I don't know).

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

I found these patches in Fedora-CVS, which are dealing with two upstream-issues which are related to this bug (I've chosen Fedora ones, because the patches attached to the issues may be out of date):

Patch to honor cairo-font-settings: (issue 59127 upstream)
http://cvs.fedora.redhat.com/viewcvs/devel/openoffice.org/openoffice.org-2.0.2.ooo59127.vcl.honourcairofont.patch?rev=1.1&view=auto
Patch to honor fontconfig-hinting (issue 64508 upstream)
http://cvs.fedora.redhat.com/viewcvs/devel/openoffice.org/openoffice.org-2.0.2.ooo64508.vcl.honourfontconfighinting.patch?rev=1.13&view=auto

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

Please check the test build announced on ubuntu-devel and ubuntu-users.

[John Dong (jdong)]

Looks good for me :)

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

Unfortunately not for me (although it seems to look better) - screenshot attached. Here you can see the most obious thing, that menu fonts still does not fit in gnome-environment.

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

Additionally, the workaround using libfreetype from dapper now does not work as expected. Fonts are still better with it, but are a bit bolder than in other apps (I guess medium instead of strong hinting, which is default on my machine). In the changelog is no specific hint what exactly was changed. Did you apply the patch, Bernd Schubert proposed in debian-bug-report?

[Xavier (chantry-xavier)]

I just find out something that doesn't make any sense from an user POV.
I created a .fonts.conf file which enables subpixel rendering, and now openoffice menu looks much better to me.
But it gives the same result as using "Best Contrast" in gnome, which is Grayscale antialiasing with full hinting. There is no subpixel rendering. If I try to only enable antialiasing and full hinting in fonts.conf, it doesn't work. Subpixel needs to be enabled (rgba sets to rgb), and it's enough.
So to sum up, for openoffice to look better, you need to enable an option that isn't used by openoffice.

So there are several issues:
- openoffice behaves weirdly to fontconfig settings (other apps work fine with just the Xft resources, and the fonts rendering match the settings)
- no subpixel rendering? (didn't manage to enable it)
- still no native hinting? (I believe it's still using autohinting, but I'm less positive on this one)

[Xavier (chantry-xavier)]

just to be safe, since I just got caught myself, the .fonts.conf file is a xml file, so its contents won't be displayed directly in firefox. just save the file, or view the source.

[Jacob Winski (winski)]

Confirmed bug. Please see the horrible font problem in the preference/options window attachment provided. Some letters are not even shown, others have strange bendings (r looks line n with shadow).

[Jacob Winski (winski)]

gedit with the same text without font problem for comparison.

[Xavier (chantry-xavier)]

That's a totally different bug.
This one may be closer :
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/62537

[Jacob Winski (winski)]

Thank you Xavier.

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

I'm suffering from this issue too...

Firefox/Epiphany might also be affected:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/66079

[rubinstein (rubinstein)]

I want to ask if this bug will be fixed before Edgy will be released.

It is a clear regression from Dapper Drake if OpenOffice.org is shipped with fuzzy fonts in the menu and inside as the default configuration.

[Lee.Tambiah (flossgeek)]

- Using verdana fonts from msttcorefonts
- Font Rendering is set to Monochrome
- Smoothing set to none
- Hinting set to Full
- OpenOffice Tools>Options>View I tick the "Use system font for user interface" and uncheck "Screen font antialiasing".

Please note the above settings I have always used in previous versions of Ubuntu and all fonts in all packages displayed fine. It is only openoffice that is affected.

The attached screenshot shows openoffice.org writer and gedit using the same font being Verdana, notice the difference.

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

Yep, still looks like crap...

[hanswurst (chipmunky)]

I also upgraded my kubuntu box from dapper to edgy a few days ago. I am using true type fonts for QT, GTK1, GTK2 apps - all worked fine with dapper. Though, after the upgrade, all fonts in openoffice (menu+text) look terrible.

see attached screenshot showing the openoffice fonts compared to whats available to KDE's Kcontrol....

I would be very unhappy if this bug would not be fixed...

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

> see attached screenshot showing the openoffice fonts compared to whats available to KDE's Kcontrol....

I don't see a difference in these; is anti-aliasing turned off by default for KDE?

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

comment 9:

>Unfortunately not for me (although it seems to look better) - screenshot attached. Here you can see the most obious thing, that menu fonts still does not fit in gnome-environment.

does this change for you when using subpixel-rendering (in the advanced gnome font settings)

[Xavier (chantry-xavier)]

>I don't see a difference in these; is anti-aliasing turned off by default for KDE?

No it isn't, but does it matter?
And you really don't see the difference? It's the difference between ugly and beautiful fonts.
Though, you're right, this screenshot is different than the others. First, there is no antialiasing in openoffice and kde. Second hinting seems enabled for openoffice fonts.
The problem here is it isn't the same hinting. Openoffice fonts use autohinting, but every other apps use native hinting.
Anyway, openoffice should use all fontconfig settings (in /etc/fonts/ , ~/.fonts.conf and Xft resources) and use them, instead of ignoring them all.

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

comment 23:

>does this change for you when using subpixel-rendering (in the
>advanced gnome font settings)

No, it does not. You still did not tell if you applied Bernd Schuberts patch, or not. If so, please revert it, it is worse for me than it was.

[rubinstein (rubinstein)]

I tried the edgy eft daily live cd from today 20061024 on my desktop (Athlon 64, nvidia) and on my Dell Intel laptop (ATI graphics) and on both the problem persists.

Screenshot attached: 300% zoom, first menu is OpenOffice.org, second menu is gedit.

[rubinstein (rubinstein)]

When I use subpixel smoothing and full hinting, the menu fonts get better, but text inside renders very strange.

In the screenshot, you see that the word "text" in OOo renders very bad - parts of the letter "t" are not shown and "e" and "x" are positioned too far away. (I changed the fonts in gedit to use the Bitstream Vera Serif one.)

[Xavier (chantry-xavier)]

2006/10/24, Oskar Rubinstein <email address hidden>:
> When I use subpixel smoothing and full hinting, the menu fonts get
> better, but text inside renders very strange.
>
> In the screenshot, you see that the word "text" in OOo renders very bad
> - parts of the letter "t" are not shown and "e" and "x" are positioned
> too far away. (I changed the fonts in gedit to use the Bitstream Vera
> Serif one.)
>
> ** Attachment added: "Screenshot 2"
> http://librarian.launchpad.net/4934068/screenshot2.png
>
> --
> [Edgy] font hinting does not work with libfreetype6 v. 2.2.1
> https://launchpad.net/bugs/54776
>

[Xavier (chantry-xavier)]

That's probably the difference of autohinting vs native hinting. Could you try "sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config", use autohinting, and compare again.

[rubinstein (rubinstein)]

> That's probably the difference of autohinting
> vs native hinting. Could you try
> "sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config",
> use autohinting, and compare again.
Unfortunately it makes no difference.

[hanswurst (chipmunky)]

here are two more screenshots...

I use ms truetype fonts. the quality apparently gets worse when I use autohinting. so, why should I use autohinting instead of native?

the quality of OO is bad in both cases...

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

hanswurst schrieb:
> here are two more screenshots...
>
> I use ms truetype fonts. the quality apparently gets worse when I use
> autohinting. so, why should I use autohinting instead of native?
>
> the quality of OO is bad in both cases...

the two screenshots are not OOo, but KDE. Jonathan, I do have absolutely
better font quality on my recent Kubuntu installations (and on the live
DVD); hanswurst, please get a screenshot from the current live CD / DVD.

[Xavier (chantry-xavier)]

On debian, the workaround of enabling subpixel rendering in ~/.fonts.conf didn't work, maybe because it doesn't apply the patches from fedora cvs pasted above. (It's maybe better that way, because it didn't make any sense).
As Bernd Schubert said in the bug report, light hinting (=slow=medium) is hardcoded in openoffice.
Hardcoding normal hinting (=full) works fine.

I installed his packages from there:
http://www.pci.uni-heidelberg.de/tc/usr/bernd/downloads/openoffice/
I'm nearly sure he just applied his patch from there:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi/normal_hinting.patch?bug=385798;msg=69;att=1
Though, a confirmation is required.
Anyway, his packages result in nice fonts for me, both with or without antialiasing.

That said, having font settings hardcoded isn't acceptable, because users have very different font preferences.

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

AFAIK, the fedora-patches (which should provide fontconfig-support) aren't applied in ubuntu. Simply hardcoding other settings wouldn't fix the issue. Only full fontconfig-support would be a solution for every setup possible.

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

Gert Kulyk schrieb:
> AFAIK, the fedora-patches (which should provide fontconfig-support)
> aren't applied in ubuntu.

Gert, please don't speculate; the patches are applied.

  apt-get source openoffice.org
  dpkg-source -x openoffice.org_*dsc
  cd openoffice.org-2.0.4
  apt-get install build-dep openoffice.org
  debian/rules build

you can stop building when all the tarballs are unpacked and the patches
are applied.

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

Xavier schrieb:
> As Bernd Schubert said in the bug report, light hinting (=slow=medium) is hardcoded in openoffice.
> Hardcoding normal hinting (=full) works fine.
>
> I installed his packages from there:
> http://www.pci.uni-heidelberg.de/tc/usr/bernd/downloads/openoffice/

I don't see the .diff.gz/.dsc on this site, do you know where these are
available?

> I'm nearly sure he just applied his patch from there:
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi/normal_hinting.patch?bug=385798;msg=69;att=1
> Though, a confirmation is required.

AFAICS the patch doesn't apply anymore; a similiar patch has been applied.

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

Matthias Klose schrieb:
>> AFAIK, the fedora-patches (which should provide
>> fontconfig-support) aren't applied in ubuntu.

> Gert, please don't speculate; the patches are applied.

I did not mean the fontconfig-stuff that is fixing issue 54603 (these patches are applied, I know), I meant the fontconfig-hinting stuff that is fixing issue 64508 (at least the changelogs and the apply files I've seen do not indicate, that fixes for this issue are applied). But I may be wrong . At the moment I'm downloading the latest sources, so I'll have a look on them.

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

To Matthias:

The latest source does indeed apply the patches - sorry for the traffic.

[Xavier (chantry-xavier)]

I was also surprised when I learned these patches were applied.
They apparently don't work as expected.

[hanswurst (chipmunky)]

Matthias: yes, you are right - my recent screenshots show KDE's kcontrol. Though, I wanted to show that the Xavier's suggestio "... try "sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config", use autohinting, and compare again..." causes the fonts to get unacceptable for KDE. I forgot to mention - switching from native to autohinting and turning on subpixel rendering (via dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config) did not make a difference for OO either...

Why should I try the live cd? I made an upgrade from dapper to edgy and I strive to solve to problem of the distro installed.

Thanks so far, Joerg

[hanswurst (chipmunky)]

I wonder if it might be a configuration problem. Other (gtk1/2) apps such as firefox, audacity, xmms, Blender look fine. After trying out a lot of edgy apps, only ardour and OO show crappy fonts. Btw, I am using clearlooks...

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

To be honest, because this is so very broken, I honestly think this _should_ delay Edgy's release.

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

I think I found a workaround (thus not a solution) for GNOME/OOO:

System -> Preferences -> Font -> Subpixel Smoothing (LCDs)

or

... -> Font -> Details

Smoothing: Subpixel (LCDs)
Hinting: Full
Subpixel Order: RGB

(I'm using 98dpi at the moment).

[hanswurst (chipmunky)]

Pascal: your workaround does not solve the font problem on my machine.

I wonder why I see a bunch of error messages when I start oowriter:

(process:23067): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: gtype.c:2240: initialization assertion failed, use IA__g_type_init() prior to this function
(process:23067): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_screen_get_font_options: assertion `GDK_IS_SCREEN (screen)' failed
(process:23067): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: gtype.c:2240: initialization assertion failed, use IA__g_type_init() prior to this function
(process:23067): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_screen_get_font_options: assertion `GDK_IS_SCREEN (screen)' failed
(process:23067): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: gtype.c:2240: initialization assertion failed, use IA__g_type_init() prior to this function
(process:23067): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_screen_get_font_options: assertion `GDK_IS_SCREEN (screen)' failed
(process:23067): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: gtype.c:2240: initialization assertion failed, use IA__g_type_init() prior to this function
(process:23067): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_screen_get_font_options: assertion `GDK_IS_SCREEN (screen)' failed

[rubinstein (rubinstein)]

Pascal wrote:
> I think I found a workaround (thus not a solution) for GNOME/OOO:
I also thought that exactly this font configuration solved the problem, but if you load a text inside OOo, you'll notice that the font spacing will get worse and letters will begin to look deformed.

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

please check the packages at

  deb http://people.ubuntu.com/~doko/ooo-2.0.4-2ubuntu0.2 ./

if those don't show any change, please check

  deb http://people.ubuntu.com/~doko/ooo-2.0.4-2ubuntu0.3 ./

[rubinstein (rubinstein)]

ooo-2.0.4-2ubuntu0.3 has the same blurry fonts, ooo-2.0.4-2ubuntu0.2 I have to test yet.

Matthias, may I also note that the screenshot at http://people.ubuntu.com/~doko/oobullets.png shows also autohinted blurrier fonts; maybe we have different understandings of nice looking fonts. I only have LCD monitors, so maybe if you're on CRT you can't see the difference that easy...

[rubinstein (rubinstein)]

And with ooo-2.0.4-2ubuntu0.2 the fonts still have the same appearance.

[Xavier (chantry-xavier)]

I saw this patch: ooo-build/patches/test/vcl-font-hinting.diff
If I understand correctly, it isn't applied when it's in the test directory.
Anyway, I googled for it and found this:
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnome.ximian.openoffice/1264

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

ooo-2.0.4-2ubuntu0.3 seems to be better, but still far from being perfect. 0.2 not yet tested.

[Bernd Schubert (aakef)]

>> I'm nearly sure he just applied his patch from there:
>> >>http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi/normal_hinting.patch?bug=385798;msg=69;att=1
>> Though, a confirmation is required.

Yes, I applied my own patch ;)

>AFAICS the patch doesn't apply anymore; a similiar patch has been applied.

First, why did nobody try to contact me directly? I mean I'm mainly a debian user (Depper is on my laptop, though) and don't regularily check ubuntu bug reports.

I didn't upload any .diff.gz/.dsc because the packages were maily for my own testing purpose (I build the packages in the institute (build time is incredible, even on dual opteron system) and downloading them myself at home).

Creating my own patch is a bit difficult with Openoffice.org source packages - everything is first in .bz2.uu files and I havn't figured out yet how to extract it without starting the build process. I asked René for help, but he seems too busy to answer those questions. So I didn't have the time and ambition to do it with the very recent Sid packages.

Cheers,
Bernd

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

After playing around with some more settings, I tried to compile a new libfreetype using cvs version. After compilation I found out, that at least the issues concerning spacing and breakage of some characters with lcd-sub-pixel rendering enabled vanished.

OOo still uses only autohinter, but autohinter seems to be broken for setups using lcd-sub-pixel rendering with ubuntu libfreetype. The cvs-version of libfreetype obviously fixes this.

The fonts in ooo are still a bit blurry with new libfreetype, but they are rendered correctly using Edgy ooo(not new packages from people.ubuntu.com, these I have still to test with new freetype).

That indicates that libfreetype in ubuntu is buggy, apart from troubles with ooo. Can anyone confirm this? If so, we need to fix libfreetype first before the ooo-thing may be fixed.

[Xavier (chantry-xavier)]

but is it actually using subpixel rendering now, and not just basic
grayscale antialiasing like with ubuntu libfreetype? Do you have a
screenshot?

[Josh (jdoneway)]

Just another screenshot showing rendering - Abiword vs. Word vs. OO.o. IMO, this is a rather serious issue/regression. Good luck.

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

To Xavier:

The new libfreetype does not enhance font rendering in a whole (the fonts still are blurry), but fixes some issues related to broken charakters when using subpixel rendering and autohinter (this does not only affect OOo). That means e.g. that 'ö' has now two dots, the 'A' or 'x' is not bolder than the rest etc.. Since openoffice is always using autohinter, it is for now unusable having subpixel-rendering enabled.

There is, like now, a difference using the grayscale and the subpixel setting.

What I meant in my comment: OOo needs to respect "native" and "autohinter" setting (bug #34544), if this is not trivial, libfreetype has to be fixed for getting a better autohinter using subpixel-rendering (what it should anyway). If neither of the issues is fixed, any change Matthias applies to the sources can't be rated good or bad, because other issues are causing that the rendering at a whole is not ideal.

[Fabio Marzocca (thesaltydog)]

I realized this bug only after upgrading...:-(

On my OOo I don't have too much problems but one is enough. All my books are written with Times New Roman, and the new OOo's font is lightly different, so that all the book are now very badly formatted... It is a matter of few millimeters, but in a long document they are enough to let pages jump badly.

[hanswurst (chipmunky)]

Matthias: neither the 2.0.4-2ubuntu0.2 nor the 2.0.4-2ubuntu0.3 debs fix my font issues... is anybody working on a solution?

[hanswurst (chipmunky)]

Alright, I have found a nice workaround...

1. recursively copy Dapper's /usr/lib/share/openoffice to /usr/local/openoffice.dapper
2. copy Dapper's libfreetype.so.6.3.8 to /usr/local/lib/libfreetype.so.6.3.8
3. export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/local/lib/libfreetype.so.6.3.8
4. start OO: /usr/local/openoffice.dapper/program/soffice

be happy and enjoy the fonts ...

one thing though, I've quickly tested OOwriter - I am not sure if copying /usr/lib/share/openoffice is enough for all OO apps to work ...

cheers, joerg

[Michael Milligan (milli)]

Well, same problem here. Fonts are fine in all other apps except OO. They looked really terrible in OO after first upgrading from dapper to edgy.

After reading all the comments here, I grabbed libfreetype6 from dapper (2.1.10-1ubuntu2.2), unpacked it (dpkg -x ...), copied libfreetype6.so.6.3.8 to /usr/lib, manually fixed the libfreetype6* symlinks, and that still didn't get it quite back to how it looked in Dapper, but a lot better. All other apps seem to be fine with this too (firefox, gaim, sticky notes, panels, etc..)

So, this is mainly something to do with how OO is rendering fonts in 2.0.4.

[golfbuf (golfbuf)]

debbug 385798 indicates a fix for debian etch. Is anyone planning to patch this into edgy, or do we have to wait for 7.04 for a fix?

regards,

[rubinstein (rubinstein)]

Tested the OOo on the Feisty Fawn Herd 1 Live CD - still the same fuzzy fonts.

[Stefan Glasenhardt (glasen)]

Hi there,

The whole problem with the font-rendering in OO.o2 only seems to be related to the new version of Freetype2. I'm using StarOffice8 PP4 under Edgy and it shows exactly the same problems as the Ubuntu version of OO.o2. Even the new version (2.1) of OO.o2 shows the same problem.

The PRELOAD-fix with the Dapper-Freetype-Lib solved the problem for me, for both programs and the fonts are looking as they should do.

The only problem i have is, that both programs completely ignore all font-settings made in the GNOME font-settings dialog. But this is fine to me, because i get no longer eye cancer, when i'm writing a letter in StarOffice8.

[disabled.user (disabled.user-deactivatedaccount)]

Since none of the proposed workarounds here seem to work for me, I went a somewhat different path. This is for Kubuntu Edgy x86-64 (amd64) and involves some serious package-juggling, but is otherwise quite simple.

First, let's get rid of Ubuntu's OOo with the apt-frontend of your choice (I am an aptitude-user). This will also break the corresponding "language-support-XX"-metapackages, so remove them as well but keep an eye on any other localization-packages that you want to keep.

Next, install ia32-libs. The minimally required packages seem to be "ia32-libs" and
"ia32-libs-openoffice.org", but I also took all the other ia32-packages except "ia32-java-gcj-compat" and "ia32-libs-gtk". This will also net you a 32 Bit Sun Java JRE, which may be useful for OOo (I didn't check it out).

Next, pick up the actual vanilla-debs, for example the German OOo from here:
http://de.openoffice.org/downloads/quick.html?version=2.1.0

Untar the file to a convenient location, and install the debs via "dpkg --force-architecture -i openoffice*deb".

That's it for now, OOo should integrate in K-Menu and work fine from here. No fiddling with any libfreetypes or LD_Preloads necessary. The vanilla-OOo starts up much faster than Ubuntu's version, and fonts look nice, but the UI looks very much Win98-like.

The final glue for a nice KDE-integration is, funny enough, "ia32-libs-gtk", like it has been for Breezy and Dapper (both shipped the 32 Bit version of OOo with amd64). After installation of "ia32-libs-gtk", OOo will respect the settings of KDE's "GTK styles and fonts". In OOo, check Extras -> Options -> View, check "use system fonts for user interface" (hope that's it, I translated back from German...), and set the font-anti-aliasing-option to your liking.

If you ever wondered why OOo in Ubuntu starts up more slowly than for example OOo in Arch Linux, it's the gtk/kde-theming. After installation of "ia32-libs-gtk", it took a bit longer to launch OOo than before, but the desktop-inegration is much better.

[disabled.user (disabled.user-deactivatedaccount)]

Btw, I forgot to mention, vanilla OOo installs to /opt/.

On 32 Bit systems (i386, x86, ...), installation should be the same like presented above, but without the need for the ia32-libs, and I can't tell you how OOo's UI will look like.

Attached is a screenshot from my OOo installed like described in my previous comment, with anti-aliasing turned completely off. Fonts might look not excactly as good as in Dapper, but much better than in Edgy's OOo.

[disabled.user (disabled.user-deactivatedaccount)]

Can't really tell why this has been marked as fixed for Debian. Today I did a netinstall of Etch/amd64 and applied the same visual settings to Debian's OOo like before (vanilla OOo-32 on Ubuntu Edgy-64), resulting in the attached screenshot.

Just plain damn ugly font rendering.

Should definetly be a blocking error for Etch's relase.

[Stefan Glasenhardt (glasen)]

The bug is only fixed for openoffice.org 2.1, which is in experimental. I hope that somebody will backport the fix for openoffice.org 2.0.4 or edgy.

openoffice.org (2.1-1) experimental; urgency=low

  * OpenOffice.org 2.1 final
  * ooo-build:
    - update
      + add patch from Fedora to honour fontconfig font hinting
        (closes: #385798)
      + src/:
        - update GSIs from ftp.linux.cz

 [...]

 -- Rene Engelhard <email address hidden> Thu, 14 Dec 2006 09:28:43 +0100

[scananza (scananza)]

for what I've seen this bug is definitely worse for people who don't use antialiasing (like me), it seems that antialiasing smooth it someway out...

[Michael Milligan (milli)]

The fontconfig patch from Fedora still doesn't fix the problem. I tried that. It seems that somehow, even with the bytecode interpreter turned on in libfreetype6 (as it is in Debian/Ubuntu), OO doesn't use it. I had looked at this in some depth but the water went over my head and I gave up the hunt, just wasn't proving worth the time. So...

I punted and just force-downgraded all the OO packages to 2.0.2-2ubuntu12 (from Dapper) and also pulled libfreetype6_2.1.10-1ubuntu2.2_i386.deb from pool, used ar and tar to extract the contents of ./usr/lib, and moved the library and link to /usr/lib/openoffice/program (mv ./usr/lib/*). This effectively gets my OO from Dapper with the freetype2 library from Dapper (2.1.10).

The fonts are now rendered EXACTLY the same as in gedit, nautilus, mozilla, etc. They just look perfectly beautiful again.

This problem sure behaves like an interaction problem between the new 2.2.1 freetype2 library and how OO uses it. Seems like the bytecode interpreter is /never/ used, and I just couldn't spend the time to figure it out.

PS: I do not use anti-aliasing, I really hate the way that makes clean fonts (like Arial) look fuzzy.

[Michael Milligan (milli)]

Oh, and I tried taking the latest 2.0.4-0ubuntu4, noticed it has a patch that's a subset of the Fedora hinting patch... Didn't fix the problem for me. Perhaps because I have anti-aliasing turned off.

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

The issue with the bytecode-interpreter is a bit more complex, at least as far I can see. I could get it turned on only with a "broken" libfreetype I compiled from source, turning FT_LOAD_FORCE_AUTOHINT-Macro off (this means: breaking it).

This macro is used in upstream and patched sources, preventing native hinting even if available in system libfreetype - why this macro is used and how to replace it in a safe way, I don't know. Libfreetype prior to 2.2 ignored it in some cases (e.g. upstream build of ooo, not the ubuntu one with patches), which was a bug. New libfreetype therefore really forces autohinting - which is broken in 2.2.1 for setups with rgb-subpixel-rendering and in general does not look that good as native hinting. Fedora is using only autohinter, so they did not care about bytecode-interpreter and their patches are providing recognition of fontconfig-settings, except the one concerning the interpreter used by default in ubuntu libfreetype.

[markusl (markus-mnslaker)]

OpenOffice.org 2.1 has now been formally released. I upgraded this morning, and now my fonts look beautiful -- see the screenshot. If you want to do the same, please read to the end of this message before starting work, or you'll lose the icons in your K menu (if you use KDE) and, I imagine, the equivalent menu in Gnome.

1) In Synaptic, I purged every package that had 'openoffice.org' in its name, including those with 'openoffice.org2'.

2) I went to the openoffice.org Web site and downloaded the Linux installer. I downloaded the long installation guide for 2.0 (which is a PDF) and found the section on Ubuntu. I checked that my version of alien was newer than 8.50. (A fully updated Edgy has v8.64.). I followed the rest of the instructions. One wrinkle: there are no *menu*.deb packages to delete. (The installation guide hasn't yet been updated for 2.1.)

3) At this point, OpenOffice.org was installed, but there were no menu entries for it and no programs in the path. One little catch is that the programs installed by the vanilla installer are called 'swriter' (etc.) rather than 'oowriter' (etc.). This made them a little harder to find. I brought the programs into my path like this:

msl@edward:~$ cd /usr/bin
msl@edward:/usr/bin$ A=/opt/openoffice.org2.1/program
msl@edward:/usr/bin$ sudo ln -s $A/sbase oobase
Password:
msl@edward:/usr/bin$ sudo ln -s $A/scalc oocalc
msl@edward:/usr/bin$ sudo ln -s $A/sdraw oodraw
msl@edward:/usr/bin$ sudo ln -s $A/simpress ooimpress
msl@edward:/usr/bin$ sudo ln -s $A/smath oomath
msl@edward:/usr/bin$ sudo ln -s $A/soffice
msl@edward:/usr/bin$ sudo ln -s $A/swriter oowriter
msl@edward:/usr/bin$

4) I tried to use kmenuedit to add entries for the various programs to my K menu. I found that, in uninstalling all the Kubuntu openoffice.org packages, I'd deleted the icons I needed. I fixed that by copying

/usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/ooo*.png
/usr/share/icons/mono/scalable/apps/ooo*.svgz
/usr/share/icons/mono/scalable/apps/staroffice.svgz

from another Edgy machine. Then I restarted kmenuedit, and it found the icons. If you have only one machine, of course, you can copy the necessary files to a safe place before starting work.

5) My file associations were also gone: if I clicked on a .ods file in Konqueror, for example, I'd be asked which program I wanted to open. Konqueror makes it easy to set up file associations on the fly: just select the right program, click 'remember', and you're done.

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

I've tried to build the debian experimental version in my Ubuntu edgy and I got it...
Results, and (maybe) packages here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=327863

Btw as you can see on the shot (http://www.flickr.com/photos/trevi55/337992843/) there is no real subpixel rendering :(

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

I've tried to enable also the ooo59127.vcl.honourcairofont.diff patch (included in the debian tree and easy to find in google), but nothing changes again... No real subpixel rendering :/

[Michael Milligan (milli)]

This is fixed for me in Feisty... OO 2.1. But, I'm only using (full) hinting... no "smoothing" / anti-aliasing in the Feisty version. Sure looks like it's using the full byte code interpreter in libfreetype properly again.

[scananza (scananza)]

if so a backport do Edgy would be really appreciated ;^)

[RichardNeill (ubuntu-richardneill)]

I already made a request for a backport to Edgy, but unfortunately, it's been refused:
https://launchpad.net/bugs/78981

*Please* can we have a bugfix for this - it really doesn't give a very good impression of Ubuntu if such things aren't fixed. Speaking personally, I installed Edgy for 3 different friends; they are all about to go back to WinXP because of this issue: the single major tool that they use on a computer is profoundly unpleasant to work with.

[JonM (jon-mechling)]

Yes the backport was rejected. I found OOo 2.1 in the .deb format here:

ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/misc/openoffice/localized/finnish/stable/2.1.0/latest/OOo_2.1.0_LinuxIntel_install_en-US_deb.tar.gz

This installed perfectly in my Edgy, giving me the fix to the fonts issue
(turn off antialiasing inside OOo), as well as OOo's Quickstarter
application (running up by the clock) which speeds the launch of the OOo
apps.

I am using this till Feisty is out and stable.

----Original Message Follows----
From: RichardNeill <email address hidden>
Reply-To: Bug 54776 <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: [Bug 54776] Re: [Edgy] font hinting does not work with
libfreetype6v. 2.2.1
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 02:15:36 -0000

I already made a request for a backport to Edgy, but unfortunately, it's
been refused:
https://launchpad.net/bugs/78981

*Please* can we have a bugfix for this - it really doesn't give a very
good impression of Ubuntu if such things aren't fixed. Speaking
personally, I installed Edgy for 3 different friends; they are all about
to go back to WinXP because of this issue: the single major tool that
they use on a computer is profoundly unpleasant to work with.

--
[Edgy] font hinting does not work with libfreetype6 v. 2.2.1
https://launchpad.net/bugs/54776

[Emmanuel Touzery (emmanuel-touzery)]

well, i was hoping that this problem of bad font rendering inside OOo would be fixed with feisty (which has OOo2.1), i've just upgraded and... it's much much worse than in edgy! i attach a screenshot. Look at the "r" in the screenshot. all of them have some sort of gray vertical bar on the right. I've actually first read "Autoconnect" instead of "Autocorrect"... it really looks bad. i tried renaming my ~/.openoffice and ~/.openoffice.org2 and it didn't help. i have set up GNOME to use best contrast/greyscale smoothing/full hinting/RGB pixel order.

this is openoffice 2.1-4ubuntu1 from the feisty repos.

[Emmanuel Touzery (emmanuel-touzery)]

removing need info, all questions asked have been answered as far as i can see.

[Emmanuel Touzery (emmanuel-touzery)]

OK, for feisty the problem is fixed for me.
I went from my horrible fonts from two comments ago to beautiful fonts using that trick:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=2262565&postcount=4

I really wish that trick of changing font substitution was on by default in openoffice in feisty.
I'm not the only one for whom it helped, see:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=2262688&postcount=5
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=2263792&postcount=6

[Daniel Elstner (daniel-elstner)]

Fonts in OpenOffice look fine again in Feisty; at least for me.

[VF (vfiend)]

OOo seems to use greyscale and not subpixel hinting like everything else in latest feisty, I suppose that's because of this bug.

[Slight Slightly (slight--deactivatedaccount)]

Confirm this is still present in Feisty (herd5 + all updates to 19 Mar) for me. Looks really really ugly, see attached screenshot comparing Firefox 'File' menu with that of OO.o Writer.

Full subpixel hinting.

[Slight Slightly (slight--deactivatedaccount)]

Oops, here's the attachment.

[disabled.user (disabled.user-deactivatedaccount)]

Font rendering seems okay to me with OpenOffice 2.2.0. The UI is clean and sharp again. See Screenshot.

[disabled.user (disabled.user-deactivatedaccount)]

Ooops, sorry, wrong screenshot attached...

[Slight Slightly (slight--deactivatedaccount)]

The fonts in that screenshot aren't anti-aliased at all.

[disabled.user (disabled.user-deactivatedaccount)]

No, they aren't. That's because I really can't stand anti-aliased fonts, those blurry looks give me a headache after a while. I prefer clear, sharp fonts and turn on anti-aliasing only for larger fonts, if at all.

OOo in Edgy makes disabling AA a no-go, because the fonts become almost unreadable; for me, the rendering in Feisty's OOo 2.2.0 is fine.

[disabled.user (disabled.user-deactivatedaccount)]

Here's a screenshot from a machine running current Edgy, anti-aliasing turned off. Notice the ugly small fonts and the UI?

[zerny (zerny)]

I can confirm that the problem still exists on Feisty.

Substituting ``DejaVu Sans Condensed'' with ``Sans'' as proposed in thread: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=2262565&postcount=6 does the trick. Not a long term solution but the fonts look nice again.

[James (chiisu81)]

Problem still exists in final Fesity release. Also seems to affect AbiWord and many other apps, so OOo may not be alone...

[Slight Slightly (slight--deactivatedaccount)]

Do you have, or have you had, KDE installed? It messes with Gnome's font settings in ~/.fonts (iirc). If you have that file could you try removing it and restarting Gnome? The problem is gone on my Feisty install, including with Abiword.

However, although its a separate issue, I really think this problem with KDE messing up Gnome's fonts needs fixing.

[VF (vfiend)]

Er, no, the Deja Vu Sans Condensed issue was fixed, but it still always uses grayscale hinting

[Slight Slightly (slight--deactivatedaccount)]

It's using sub-pixel for me. Image attached.

[James (chiisu81)]

Tolan:

No KDE apps installed, it is a plain vanilla Ubuntu install.

[VF (vfiend)]

Erm, Tolan? That looks like a screenshot of Abiword, this bug's about OpenOffice.org

[Slight Slightly (slight--deactivatedaccount)]

VF, please see jclemon's earlier comment about Abiword.

Jclemon, ok, just a suggestion, as removing the file KDE had created fixed this for most things, then an update to OO.o fixed it for that for me, so I thought you could have received the fix but still been suffering from the ~/.fonts issue.

[VF (vfiend)]

Fair enough, but that's a different bug so it probably shouldn't be discussed here

[James (chiisu81)]

This issue no longer seems to affect Abiword or OpenOffice, I don't know if any fixes were released since my last comment were regards to this. I see a fix has been implemented in Debian at least.

[VF (vfiend)]

OO.org still uses grayscale hinting, not subpixel when selected on Gutsy

[Mehul J. Rajput (mehulrajput)]

the bug is still there in gutsy. I am pasting my screen shot for firefox and open office. Open office does not honour the subpixel smoothing. I have mine set to slight and it works perfectly for all apps only open office does not use it.

Also, this bug is in there for almost a year now. Not sure what fixes are being done on this bug. Though there is some improvement it is not fully fixed.

The difference is clearly visible in the menu text. Please zoom to image to 100% then it would be easy for you.

[Raul Acuña (reacuna)]

Yes, I can confirm this on released Gutsy. And that the workaround posted by zermy (in reference to a forum post) no longer works. The attached screenshot uses Liberation fonts.

[hasi (whynot-nurfuerspam)]

This is pretty annoying here (Kubuntu Gutsy/ OOo 2.3, too!)
I found another thread covering this topic:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/baltix/+source/openoffice.org/+bug/138493
I am back to wine/MS Office until it's fixed. I just realized it bothers me quite a bit!
--hasi.

[Piotr Gawrysiak (pgawrysiak)]

Hasi, but does it mean that you have been able to get subpixel renedering in MS Office on Wine? If so - I would be interested in details...

[hasi (whynot-nurfuerspam)]

Sorry for the confusion, guys. I have been quite heavily using OOo and MS Word 2003 in parallel for a few weeks now (for several reasons). I could have sworn that the fonts look nicer in Word. When I was trying to prove it doing some snapshots, I found they practically look the same (see screenshot)!
Now I am puzzled why that is. I actually am shocked facing the possibility that I may be positively biased for MS product...
One difference may be that on my current settings, I have the minimal size for the AA in OOo to "1", whereas the AA seems to be switched off in my wine/MS Word settings for the smaller fonts. That may have caused my impression. Similarly, in my snapshot, the menus in Word are not AA'ed at all, whereas OOo does its not-so-perfect AA. I actually prefer no AA at all in that case!
--hasi.

[Piotr Gawrysiak (pgawrysiak)]

Still present in Hardy Alpha 2 :( See screenshot - global subpixel is on (as seen in e.g. Gnome top panel menu), in OOo only grayscale hinting is used (and - but this is another issue - default document font looks terrble) :(

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

Seems like Caolan McNamara is working on the subpixel-rendering issue, making use of cairo for text-rendering.
Have a look at http://blogs.linux.ie/caolan/2008/01/24/144/ and
http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=85470

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

Here a screenshot how it will look like, when above mentioned patch will be integrated upstream. Upstream-packaged version (en-US-packages only, but a current upstream-langpack-snapshot should work when copied to the right place) can be found here: http://ooo.services.openoffice.org/pub/OpenOffice.org/cws/upload/cairotext01/

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

For comparsion, a shot of the gutsy-package, displaying the same content.

[Piotr Gawrysiak (pgawrysiak)]

Gert - any hints on how to get it running in Gutsy? For "the rest of us" :-)

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

First, you'll need to download all rpm-files from the given location (the desktop-integration-packages are not necessecary for testing as well as the testtool package). Next you'll need to open a terminal and cd to the directory the downloaded files are and issue the following command:

"for PKG in *.rpm ; do rpm2cpio ${PKG} | cpio -i -d ; done"

This will unpack the rpm-files. You can start the app by issuing the following command:
PATH_TO_DOWNLOADED_FILES/opt/openoffice.org2.4/program/soffice (-writer, -calc, -impress etc.). It will use your ~/.openoffice.org2 config-directory, so please back it up or use a clean account for testing.

Please do not try to make a system-wide-install and do not use them for production - e.g. word-import sometimes is unreliable in this build (but this seems not to be related to the cairotext-patch).

The main reason for this post was to mention the upstream-efforts in coping with this annoying issue, unfortunately it seems like it will not be included in upstream-2.4-release.

So I hope the members of the openoffice.org-scribblers-team will include the above mentioned patch for hardy. (It seems like fedora-cvs has an updated one for the 2.4-line to be included in fedora 9).

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Here's the URL for Fedora's cairotext patch:

  http://cvs.fedora.redhat.com/viewcvs/rpms/openoffice.org/devel/workspace.cairotext01.patch

[The Punisher (melprinsi)]

We need this patch applied to Hardy 8.04 before official release.
Too many years are passed with those crappy fonts on OO.

[Nicholas Gee (nicholas-gee)]

I agree, this is ridiculous. This is the sort of thing that doesn't affect functionality but is profoundly upsetting for people.
It's been over a year now and this is quite an indictment of Ubuntu's bug-squashing abilities...

[Mehul J. Rajput (mehulrajput)]

I am using Hardy and seems this has been fixed. I see that fonts are consistent with firefox or any gtk app and open office.

[VF (vfiend)]

This is not fixed in Hardy yet, as indicated. Enable Subpixel Smoothing in Appearence prefs-> fonts and then compare openoffice's menu bar to firefox or any other gtk apps and the difference is immediately apparent.

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

Yep this isn't fixed in Hardy, yet. However, I believe that this will be fixed in the next upload, I have a patch that I still need to try out that should fix the problem. Of course if it 'improves' it to Firefox's level of support then I will likely get a lot of bugs about it crashing. As soon as I changed the font setting in Gnome it caused Firefox to crash on my machine.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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
    ...

[Munchkinguy (10068660)]

Intrepid has a similar problem on my computer. Can anyone verify?

[Munchkinguy (10068660)]

Here's a comparison screenshot of Openoffice (top) and Gedit (bottom) in Intrepid.

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

@Munchkinguy:
This time it is cairo, not freetype. Somewhere on launchpad is a report against OOo in intrepid. Until it is fixed (people are working on it), you can take from the hardy-packages the libraries libcairo.so.2 and libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 and put them to the /usr/lib/openoffice/program folder to get the hardy-behaviour back.