[Solved] Corrupted Bullets

James Glover · Post by **James Glover** » Wed Oct 19, 2016 10:25 pm

Something from 4.1.3 that's causing me no end of frustration right now are corrupted bullets (see example below).

They are carried over to exported pdfs which is not going to fly.

To get rid of them, I'm forced to reload the doc again and again like the Matrix. I cleared the cache, which combined with a doc reload works about 15-20% of the time.

Any suggestions besides rolling back to the sweet security of 4.1.2 where corrupted bullets are unheard of?

Publication date looming. Please send help.

James

James Glover · Post by **James Glover** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 4:01 am

Update:

I can only assume the number inside the bullet is the font size. I've tried deleting the bullets, re-inserting them, and selecting a smaller font size, which works. Until the next doc reload, when the corrupted bullets reappear.

I won't call this resolved, because it's not. My workaround is to replace the bullets with an image.

James

Post by **acknak** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 4:05 am

James Glover wrote:... Until the next doc reload, when the corrupted bullets reappear. ...

What document format are you saving to? Saving to any format other than OOo's native ODF format (.odt for text) carries some risk of losing formatting. If you're not saving as ODF, try that and see if you still have a problem.

Bill · Post by **Bill** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 11:27 am

The bullet is a character. What font are you using? I can't identify it from a picture. Can you upload a real sample document? That would let us examine the actual settings instead of guessing.

James Glover · Post by **James Glover** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 7:01 pm

@ acknak, it's saved as (default) ODF Text Document .odt

@ Bill, Libre Baskerville.

See test doc attached below.

James

Post by **RoryOF** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 7:16 pm

The Libre Baskerville font is not found in the file; Is it in fact installed on the computer? OpenOffice tells the file that is being requested, not the file that is being used.

James Glover · Post by **James Glover** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 7:41 pm

@ Rory, it's a font that I installed on my computer, and appears in the list of font names that are available to me.

The font is LibreBaskerville-Regular.ttf, is SIL Open Font License compliant, and was downloaded from http://www.fontspace.com/pablo-impallar ... askerville with no personal or commercial restrictions.

I'm not sure how to attach the font with the test .odt file. Nor am I sure if I have permission to redistribute it.

James

Bill · Post by **Bill** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 8:59 pm

I installed the Libre Baskerville font and opened, edited, closed and reopened the sample document several times with no corruption of the bullets. Did you actually experience this problem with the uploaded document?

Post by **RoryOF** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 9:04 pm

You may need to rebuild your font cache. Details are given in
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how- ... font-cache

James Glover · Post by **James Glover** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 9:14 pm

@ Bill, absolutely. It's still an issue on my end, and why I switched from bullets to images.

The bullets were rendering correctly when I made the test doc. It was after multiple save/opens of different docs that the error re-appeared. That's when I saved the test doc. Then, before uploading it, I rebooted and checked it again. Sure enough, they were there. That's when I uploaded the affected doc.

I didn't have the corrupted bullet problem with OpenOffice 4.1.2, it manifested after my upgrade to 4.1.3.

Not saying this is why you aren't recreating the error, but have you tried it on 4.1.3?

James

Bill · Post by **Bill** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 9:34 pm

Yes, I used AOO 4.1.3.

James Glover · Post by **James Glover** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 9:38 pm

@ Rory, done and done. I deleted the FNTCACHE.dat file, rebooted, and opened the test doc.

It didn't appear at first, but appeared in subsequent doc opens (the same doc).

To be clear, the fonts are rendering correctly, it's the solid small circular bullets that are not (see attached image).

The problem is intermittent and so far, impossible to consistently reproduce on my side, or at all on anyone else's computer.

James

Post by **RoryOF** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 10:00 pm

When the bullets (which come from a font) corrupt, do they show correctly on another reopening of that file after a reboot of the computer?

James Glover · Post by **James Glover** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 10:13 pm

@ Rory, no.

I rebooted the computer, then opened the test file and the corrupted bullets returned.

James

Bill · Post by **Bill** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 10:54 pm

OK, I've now seen this happen. The bullets use the OpenSymbol font. After the corrupted bullets appeared, OpenOffice was reporting that the OpenSymbol font was not installed and a substitute font was used. I restarted the computer and the bullets returned to normal and OfficeOffice reported that the OpenSymbol font was installed. At this point, I don't know why it happens since OpenOffice installs the OpenSymbol font and it does appear in Fonts in Windows 10.

James Glover · Post by **James Glover** » Sun Oct 23, 2016 4:19 am

@ Bill, thank you for validating this problem.

Thanks also to acknak and Rory for your help.

I briefly searched the AOO Bugzilla Error List, and skimmed the 4.1.3 Release Notes, but couldn't find anything recent that was relevant to this issue.

It's a niche, intermittent bug that should probably have more evaluation before it's reported. If that's what moderation and the community deems to be appropriate.

Thanks again.

James

Post by **John_Ha** » Wed Oct 26, 2016 1:50 pm

Upload a small example file so someone can look at it.

Writer does not recognise some of the bullet styles used in .doc files so this could be the cause of the problem. See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for why you should always work in and save files as .odt.

A simple solution is to remove all the bullets, and re-insert them. Highlight a set of bullets > click the Bullet icon - this removes the bullets. Click the bullet icon and re-insert the bullets using Writer bullets.

Post by **John_Ha** » Wed Dec 21, 2016 7:16 pm

I think the reason is that bullets show up as number "10" is because MS Word has many styles for bullets and not all of these styles come across into Writer when a .doc is opened. There is somewhere when you can see the name of the bullet style but I cannot remember where.

Bill suggests it is something to do with the OpenSymbol font.

Edit: I have now completely confused myself.

If I insert ➓ as an OpenSymbol character into a document and then change its font to Times New Roman, the symbol remains as ➓ . But if I go Insert > Special character ..., I cannot find the ➓ in the offered characters. When I run TestFonts it shows that I have no missing fonts in both cases.

When I download CORRUPTED BULLETS TEST DOC 2016_1A.odt, the bullets display OK for me even though I don't have Libre Baskerville font. I do have Baskerville and OpenSymbol font. Character U+2793 in OpenSymbol is ➓ so, unless that character is also available in other fonts (it is not available in Baskerville but it is available in Times Now Roman) it looks as though the bullets for the poster are being displayed in OpenSymbol font. But they display OK for me, so they are presumably not using OpenSymbol font. Does his system have a missing font which is substituted by one using the ➓ symbol?

content.xml in CORRUPTED BULLETS TEST DOC 2016_1A.odt has the following:

Code: Select all

<style:style style:name="P1" style:family="paragraph" style:parent-style-name="Standard">
			<style:text-properties style:font-name="Libre Baskerville"/>
		</style:style>
		<style:style style:name="P2" style:family="paragraph" style:parent-style-name="Standard">
			<style:text-properties style:font-name="Libre Baskerville"/>
		</style:style>
		<style:style style:name="P3" style:family="paragraph" style:parent-style-name="Standard" style:list-style-name="L1">
			<style:text-properties style:font-name="Libre Baskerville"/>
		</style:style>
		<text:list-style style:name="L1">
			<text:list-level-style-bullet text:level="1" text:style-name="Bullet_20_Symbols" text:bullet-char="•">
				<style:list-level-properties text:list-level-position-and-space-mode="label-alignment">
					<style:list-level-label-alignment text:label-followed-by="listtab" text:list-tab-stop-position="0.5in" fo:text-indent="-0.25in" fo:margin-left="0.5in"/>
				</style:list-level-properties>
			</text:list-level-style-bullet>
			<text:list-level-style-bullet text:level="2" text:style-name="Bullet_20_Symbols" text:bullet-char="◦">
				<style:list-level-properties text:list-level-position-and-space-mode="label-alignment">
					<style:list-level-label-alignment text:label-followed-by="listtab" text:list-tab-stop-position="0.75in" fo:text-indent="-0.25in" fo:margin-left="0.75in"/>
				</style:list-level-properties>
			</text:list-level-style-bullet>
			<text:list-level-style-bullet text:level="3" text:style-name="Bullet_20_Symbols" text:bullet-char="▪">
				<style:list-level-properties text:list-level-position-and-space-mode="label-alignment">
					<style:list-level-label-alignment text:label-followed-by="listtab" text:list-tab-stop-position="1in" fo:text-indent="-0.25in" fo:margin-left="1in"/>
				</style:list-level-properties>
			</text:list-level-style-bullet>
			<text:list-level-style-bullet text:level="4" text:style-name="Bullet_20_Symbols" text:bullet-char="•">
				<style:list-level-properties text:list-level-position-and-space-mode="label-alignment">
					<style:list-level-label-alignment text:label-followed-by="listtab" text:list-tab-stop-position="1.25in" fo:text-indent="-0.25in" fo:margin-left="1.25in"/>
				</style:list-level-properties>
			</text:list-level-style-bullet>
			<text:list-level-style-bullet text:level="5" text:style-name="Bullet_20_Symbols" text:bullet-char="◦">
				<style:list-level-properties text:list-level-position-and-space-mode="label-alignment">
					<style:list-level-label-alignment text:label-followed-by="listtab" text:list-tab-stop-position="1.5in" fo:text-indent="-0.25in" fo:margin-left="1.5in"/>
				</style:list-level-properties>
			</text:list-level-style-bullet>
			<text:list-level-style-bullet text:level="6" text:style-name="Bullet_20_Symbols" text:bullet-char="▪">
				<style:list-level-properties text:list-level-position-and-space-mode="label-alignment">
					<style:list-level-label-alignment text:label-followed-by="listtab" text:list-tab-stop-position="1.75in" fo:text-indent="-0.25in" fo:margin-left="1.75in"/>
				</style:list-level-properties>
			</text:list-level-style-bullet>
			<text:list-level-style-bullet text:level="7" text:style-name="Bullet_20_Symbols" text:bullet-char="•">
				<style:list-level-properties text:list-level-position-and-space-mode="label-alignment">
					<style:list-level-label-alignment text:label-followed-by="listtab" text:list-tab-stop-position="2in" fo:text-indent="-0.25in" fo:margin-left="2in"/>
				</style:list-level-properties>
			</text:list-level-style-bullet>
			<text:list-level-style-bullet text:level="8" text:style-name="Bullet_20_Symbols" text:bullet-char="◦">
				<style:list-level-properties text:list-level-position-and-space-mode="label-alignment">
					<style:list-level-label-alignment text:label-followed-by="listtab" text:list-tab-stop-position="2.25in" fo:text-indent="-0.25in" fo:margin-left="2.25in"/>
				</style:list-level-properties>
			</text:list-level-style-bullet>
			<text:list-level-style-bullet text:level="9" text:style-name="Bullet_20_Symbols" text:bullet-char="▪">
				<style:list-level-properties text:list-level-position-and-space-mode="label-alignment">
					<style:list-level-label-alignment text:label-followed-by="listtab" text:list-tab-stop-position="2.5in" fo:text-indent="-0.25in" fo:margin-left="2.5in"/>
				</style:list-level-properties>
			</text:list-level-style-bullet>
			<text:list-level-style-bullet text:level="10" text:style-name="Bullet_20_Symbols" text:bullet-char="•">
				<style:list-level-properties text:list-level-position-and-space-mode="label-alignment">
					<style:list-level-label-alignment text:label-followed-by="listtab" text:list-tab-stop-position="2.75in" fo:text-indent="-0.25in" fo:margin-left="2.75in"/>
				</style:list-level-properties>
			</text:list-level-style-bullet>
		</text:list-style>

styles.xml has

Code: Select all

		<style:style style:name="Bullet_20_Symbols" style:display-name="Bullet Symbols" style:family="text">
			<style:text-properties style:font-name="OpenSymbol" style:font-name-asian="OpenSymbol" style:font-name-complex="OpenSymbol"/>
		</style:style>

Post by **John_Ha** » Thu Dec 22, 2016 4:11 pm

Your problem does appear to be a font substitution problem.

There is a very similar problem caused by Character Styles and/or List Styles - see Oddities Involving Bullets/Outlines & Font Styles/Highlights.

krgoodwin · Post by **krgoodwin** » Wed Jan 10, 2018 12:32 am

Has any progress been made in fixing this in the last year? I am experiencing the same issue with a fresh install of Open Office.

I needed to print a document earlier today and had to go through the whole document and change all the bullets to large circles to get rid of the (10).

I experienced this again a couple minutes ago. While I was creating an account I was reading some other threads and trying the solutions presented there which did not seem to do anything. However now the bullets have reverted back to circles, so I must have done something.

The first document's font was Calibri and the second document's font was Times New Roman. Font for the bullets in both cases appears to be OpenSymbol.

Clearly this is still a bug. But there does seem to be a way to fix it. Does anyone know exactly what I did / will need to do again in the future? I use bullets quite a bit in my writing and this is very frustrating.

Post by **John_Ha** » Wed Jan 10, 2018 1:20 am

No progress will have been made.

Do you have a reproduce-able method to cause the problem to happen? If so, that gets much more attention from Development as they have something to work on.

If you do, can you list it in mind-numbing detail like

1. File > New > Text document
2. Type three lines of text (actually paragraphs) using Times New Roman font
3. Highlight the three lines > Click Bullets icon ..., (or Highlight the three lines > Format > Bullets and Numbering > Bullets Tab ..., and choose top left in Selection)
4. File > Save As ..., and choose .odt? .doc?

Can you then upload a simple example document with the problem, and an image of what you see, so we can compare what happens when we also do it.

Bill · Post by **Bill** » Wed Jan 10, 2018 4:52 am

This problem occurs when the OpenSymbol font can't be found by AOO. Open the Fonts folder and look for the OpenSymbol font. If it's there, then try restarting the computer. If it's missing, then reinstall/repair OpenOffice to restore the OpenSymbol font.

Bill · Post by **Bill** » Wed Jan 10, 2018 5:39 am

John_Ha wrote:When I download CORRUPTED BULLETS TEST DOC 2016_1A.odt, the bullets display OK for me even though I don't have Libre Baskerville font. I do have Baskerville and OpenSymbol font. Character U+2793 in OpenSymbol is ➓ so, unless that character is also available in other fonts (it is not available in Baskerville but it is available in Times Now Roman) it looks as though the bullets for the poster are being displayed in OpenSymbol font. But they display OK for me, so they are presumably not using OpenSymbol font. Does his system have a missing font which is substituted by one using the ➓ symbol?

I believe the missing font is the OpenSymbol font. When I deleted the OpenSymbol font, the small dot bullet was replaced with the negative circled ten bullet. I believe that it's actually U+277F in Segoe UI which is similar to U+2793 in OpenSymbol.

https://codepoints.net/dingbats

phshannon · Post by **phshannon** » Fri Apr 01, 2022 9:54 pm

Is there any progress on this? It's still happening with 4.1.11.

Post by **Hagar Delest** » Sat Apr 02, 2022 9:46 am

Make sure the OpenSymbol font is installed.
No issue with LibreOffice 7.2.6.2 (but OpenSymbol is installed).

Post by **John_Ha** » Sat Apr 02, 2022 2:46 pm

Hagar Delest wrote:Make sure the OpenSymbol font is installed.

I am sure that is the correct solution. AOO (and I presume LO) includes the OpenSymbol font in the download. If the font is missing you get the strange bullets.

Showing that a problem has been solved helps others searching so, if your problem is now solved, please view your first post in this thread and click the Edit button (top right in the post) and add [Solved] in front of the subject.

Post by **Hagar Delest** » Sat Apr 02, 2022 4:27 pm

But it is strange that it still occurs with 4.1.11...

Note: this topic is 6 years old. Kind of necroposting but still linked to the initial issue.

phshannon · Post by **phshannon** » Sat Apr 02, 2022 10:00 pm

OpenSymbol wasn't installed with 4.1.11. Now I have installed it & all seems ok. Thank you Hagar & John.

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