Some fonts do not display in Impress

[RevRichard]

I am making an Impress presentation for a Church group and I would like to include some Greek and Hebrew text. I have the fonts on my computer and they display properly in Normal, Outline, and Slide Sorter mode, but when I run the show the Greek and Hebrew text disappears, though the English fonts display correctly.

I am running OpenOffice 2.4 in Windows XP on a Gateway laptop with 2GB of RAM.

Thanks.

[acknak]

Hmm, I think you may need more RAM.

Sorry, sorry, just kidding. April fools and all that.

Are the Greek/Hebrew letters using any special effects: animations, colors, anything like that?

Are you working with light text on a dark background?

Try making a plain document: File > New > Presentation > Create, then add some plain text in normal, Greek & Hebrew, then see if that works.

If it still doesn't work, maybe you could post that file here and we can give it a look; maybe include one of your regular slides too.

[RevRichard]

I am using white text on a blue background, no special effects, but black text on a white background has the same effect. I should also mention that I am saving as PowerPoint rather than Impress.

I am posting the slide in question.

Thanks for your help.

[acknak]

Have a look at this file.

I should just keep out of this, as I know nearly nothing of Hebrew, and I definitely don't have your answer.

Whenever I've wanted to include a bit of Hebrew in OOo, I just copy/paste from an online text, such as this: http://bhco.hebrewtanakh.com/genesis/1.htm and it "just works" (most of the time). Both the web page and OOo are using Unicode text, and there's no need to have a special Hebrew font, just a Unicode font that includes the Hebrew characters.

However, when I do that, then save the Impress presentation as .ppt, PowerPoint displays the Hebrew fragment reversed. I have no idea if this is OOo's fault for exporting it wrong, or PPT's fault for displaying it wrong.

On the second slide, I cheated by taking a screenshot of the correct display, and substituting that for the Hebrew text.

I have no idea why your slide doesn't work. I don't have the "Bwhebl" font, so it displays as gibberish with the standard fonts. However, that ought to work in both Impress and PowerPoint, as long as they both have access to that specific font.

Ok, I just went and downloaded the font from BibleWorks.com, and it does work fine here: your sample looks right, and when I load it into Impress and save a new copy as .ppt, it looks the same in PowerPoint.

I'm using OOo 2.4 and PPT 2003 on XP.

[Hagar Delest]

See that thread, perhaps the font fix application linked at its end will help: [Tutorial] Installing Fonts in Windows.

[RevRichard]

I tried the Bible text site and copied over the Hebrew text, which works beautifully. Unfortunately, the Greek text from the same site has the same problem: it shows up fine until I want to actually run the slide show.

I'm trying the font fixer utility and will let you know how it works.

[acknak]

If it were me, I would try to avoid switching software (Impress / Powerpoint) or even switching systems. I usually try to arrange things so that the show is run on the same computer it was created on (that pretty much means attaching the speaker's laptop to the projector). If that's not possible, then I always export a PDF backup of my talk, and I use that for running the show. The PDF cannot capture fancy slide transitions or animations--you get just a simple full-frame slide--but it's nearly bullet-proof (no surprises during the show) and almost everyone has a PDF reader/viewer.

Even switching a presentation made and shown in Powerpoint between two different systems can cause problems: different fonts, different screens, odd color effects, etc.

Last ditch backup: bring some paper printouts

[RevRichard]

Maybe I didn't make myself clear: I am using Impress to create the presentation and saving it as a PowerPoint file. I am showing it on the same machine on which it was created.

Is it possible that I am "losing" the font in the change from Impress to PowerPoint format?

[Hagar Delest]

I am using Impress to create the presentation and saving it as a PowerPoint file. I am showing it on the same machine on which it was created.

Then why saving as PPT file? Just use the native .odp.

[RevRichard]

I am using Impress to create the presentation and saving it as a PowerPoint file. I am showing it on the same machine on which it was created.

Then why saving as PPT file? Just use the native .odp.

I want the flexibility of sharing it with others. I will try saving as .odp and see if that makes a difference.

[Hagar Delest]

I want the flexibility of sharing it with others.

Then... convert them (to OOo), you know the job, don't you?

[RevRichard]

Two things that didn't work:

Running Font Repair.

Saving the file in .odp format.

[RevRichard]

Problem solved--sort of.

If I save it as a PDF if works fine, and since I need it in about an hour, that will have to do.

Thanks, everyone.

[Hagar Delest]

Well, another workaround: make a screenshot when you see the fonts correctly and replace the text by the picture (save the pic in .png). But that's really a dirty workaround.

I've searched the issue tracker but haven't found any issue related to Hebrew fonts that disappear in slide show mode.

[acknak]

It works just fine for me. Here's the .odp that I made the previous .ppt from.

[Hagar Delest]

Last try perhaps: rename your OOo user profile (\Documents and settings\<user>\Application data\OpenOffice.org2)?