Text Format Not Consistant Between OSes

[Brak]

Ok, there is another thing I just noticed.

When I take a file that I created in Windows, and ten open it in MacOS the text formatting is off.
Some fonts this doesn't happen, some fonts are slightly different, and some fonts are majorly different.

In Impress the differences are more noticeable than in Writer.

Is this a known issue, or have I discovered another bug?


Thanks in advance.

[robleyd]

One possibility is that the same fonts are not available on all machines and font substitution is performed. In Writer you can use the Testfonts extension to see what fonts are available.

[Brak]

No, the fonts exist on both machines.

In fact one of them is the Hebrew font (which I mentioned on my other thread) which is the exact same file on both machines.

I even went as far as to copy one of the main fonts (Times New Roman) from my Windows machine to my Mac - and that didn't make any difference.

[Brak]

Here is the Impress test file along with screen shots from both machines:

font test.odp

The Impress file.

(15.36 KiB) Downloaded 20 times

On Windows (how it should look):

Screenshot from Win

On Mac (how it shouldn't look):

Screenshot from Mac

[Brak]

Here's the Hebrew font:

Taf_heb1.zip

Hebrew font

(29.7 KiB) Downloaded 18 times

[Brak]

So as you can see, the spacing between the lines in the Times New Roman is slightly noticeable (if you look at the bottom line with the t's you can see that the Mac version is slightly higher.

But with the Hebrew font the spacing between the line is drastically noticeable.

To get them to look the same, I have to change the paragraph line spacing to 119% proportional on the Mac.

[Zizi64]

It is not (not only) OS depended property.

Here are two pictures from my Win7 prof op. sys. (from same PC, after installation of your attached font)

LibreOffice 4.4.7:

LibreOffice 6.1.2 portable (winPenpack):

[RoryOF]

My standard advice to Users is that final formatting should always be carried out only on one machine, be it for a task in Writer or in Impress. If the formatting of the output is mission critical, a PDF file may be best, with fonts embedded. That should be tested on differing platforms to ensure identical output, if different platforms will be used.

[Brak]

It is not (not only) OS depended property.

Here are two pictures from my Win7 prof op. sys. (from same PC, after installation of your attached font)

LibreOffice 4.4.7:

LO447_hebrew.png

LibreOffice 6.1.2 portable (winPenpack):

LO612_hebrew.png

Wow! That is very interesting!

First, let me thank you for testing out the different versions to see if it ever did work correctly!

So maybe I should run LibreOffice 4.4.7 on my Mac then?

[Brak]

My standard advice to Users is that final formatting should always be carried out only on one machine, be it for a task in Writer or in Impress. If the formatting of the output is mission critical, a PDF file may be best, with fonts embedded. That should be tested on differing platforms to ensure identical output, if different platforms will be used.

I can understand the wisdom in that - but two caveats:
1: The spacing that is shown in my Win example, and the older LibreOffice example is how the font is supposed to look. If you look in the example, in the "correct" versions there is a small gap between the bottom of the letter in line 9 and the top of the letter in line 10 - which is how it should look. But if you look at the "incorrect versions" those parts of those letters are overlapping each other - which is NOT how it should look.

2: Saving it as a PDF doesn't keep the bullet point transitions - it just saves the "final" screen of the side as the page of the pdf - which is vital.
DO you know of a way to get it to save it so that each "phase" of the slide is saved as an separate page of the pdf?

[Brak]

It is not (not only) OS depended property.

Here are two pictures from my Win7 prof op. sys. (from same PC, after installation of your attached font)

LibreOffice 4.4.7:

The attachment LO447_hebrew.png is no longer available

LibreOffice 6.1.2 portable (winPenpack):

The attachment LO612_hebrew.png is no longer available

I have another question. When I installed LibreOffice 6.0.7 and opened my files in it, I noticed that all my bullets disappeared.

Test-Yellow.odp

This is the test file to show the bullet issue.

(13.53 KiB) Downloaded 20 times

Also, the gradient bug I found in OpenOffice I see exists in LibreOffice as well - but it acts slightly different, maybe due to the bullets being gone.

Test.odp

This is the test file to show the gradient issue.

(14.15 KiB) Downloaded 21 times

For more info on this issue, you can read my thread talking about it here:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=96100

[Brak]

It is not (not only) OS depended property.

Here are two pictures from my Win7 prof op. sys. (from same PC, after installation of your attached font)

LibreOffice 4.4.7:

LO447_hebrew.png

LibreOffice 6.1.2 portable (winPenpack):

LO612_hebrew.png

I just installed 4.4.7.2
And sadly its still looks like what it does on the OpenOffice mac.

But its still interesting that some change happened in the 6.1.2 portable that makes it act incorrectly on the Win machine like it does on the Mac.

[RoryOF]

My focus on Forum is getting a User to finish their project, whatever the workarounds needed. The identification of points such as variable output across platforms, or the incorrect handling of particular fonts is useful for developers, although I remark that developers often only solve problems that impinge directly on their OO needs - they are, after all, volunteers, carrying out such work in their own time, as do the admins, mods and volunteers on the Forum.

If I needed to display bullet point transitions in a PDF (I don't - I live a very simple and happy life!) I would make a series of slides, each one a copy of the previous, with the extra bullet point added. I would start by making the final slide, with all bullet points, copy it to match the number of bullet points, then delete the points one by one, working back from the final slide so that I had a sequence of slides
BP0, BP1, BP2, BP3 etc

I suspect that, because of the variability of font generators, developers will work only with the "standard" Windows fonts, migrated to other platforms as appropriate.

[Zizi64]

So maybe I should run LibreOffice 4.4.7 on my Mac then?

Try it.

Here are the installers of the older versions of the LO:
https://downloadarchive.documentfoundat ... ffice/old/

I am not sure, which one of the appearings is the right appearing.
And maybe your font file is an old, obsolete version...

[Brak]

My focus on Forum is getting a User to finish their project, whatever the workarounds needed. The identification of points such as variable output across platforms, or the incorrect handling of particular fonts is useful for developers, although I remark that developers often only solve problems that impinge directly on their OO needs - they are, after all, volunteers, carrying out such work in their own time, as do the admins, mods and volunteers on the Forum.

If I needed to display bullet point transitions in a PDF (I don't - I live a very simple and happy life!) I would make a series of slides, each one a copy of the previous, with the extra bullet point added. I would start by making the final slide, with all bullet points, copy it to match the number of bullet points, then delete the points one by one, working back from the final slide so that I had a sequence of slides
BP0, BP1, BP2, BP3 etc

I suspect that, because of the variability of font generators, developers will work only with the "standard" Windows fonts, migrated to other platforms as appropriate.

One of the issues with that suggestion, is that if you modify one slide, it can equate to modifying a dozen of them - which leaves open the possibility of making a mistake and either missing one of the slides, or introducing typos.

I'm surprised that there isn't the function for when OpenOffice does the export to pdf that we would have the option for it to save each permutation of the slide as a separate page. I have even tried googling about being able to do so a month ago when I was first encountering these difficulties - and it seems this is a function that many many people want.

[Brak]

So maybe I should run LibreOffice 4.4.7 on my Mac then?

Try it.

Here are the installers of the older versions of the LO:
https://downloadarchive.documentfoundat ... ffice/old/

I am not sure, which one of the appearings is the right appearing.
And maybe your font file is an old, obsolete version...

The issue isn't with the font, as it works well in all the Win OSes I have used it in.
Also the font works correctly in Apple's TextEdit.app that comes with the Mac. (I don't have any other word processors on my Mac to try out).

If you have a suggestion of a Mac word processor(s) to try, let me know and I can try it in them to see their behavior.

[RoryOF]

One of the issues with that suggestion, is that if you modify one slide, it can equate to modifying a dozen of them - which leaves open the possibility of making a mistake and either missing one of the slides, or introducing typos.

One modifies only the final slide, deletes the related slides preceding it and copies the final slide the correct number of times, deleting the inserted texts on a one by one basis.

[Brak]

Good point, but I'm sure you can understand the tediousness of doing so when you have a dozen slides with a dozen bullet points - 12 slides become 144!
Just makes the management too cumbersome.

[Brak]

So maybe I should run LibreOffice 4.4.7 on my Mac then?

Try it.

Here are the installers of the older versions of the LO:
https://downloadarchive.documentfoundat ... ffice/old/

I am not sure, which one of the appearings is the right appearing.
And maybe your font file is an old, obsolete version...

I discovered something interesting. I installed LibreOffice 4.2.0.1
In the open-file screen, the thumbnail for the file looks correct! But when I open it, it is not... it looks the same.

Open-File screen

[Zizi64]

The issue isn't with the font, as it works well in [u]all the Win OSes I have used[/u] it in.

What version of the Windows was the oldest one where you used that font ??

[Brak]

The issue isn't with the font, as it works well in [u]all the Win OSes I have used[/u] it in.

What version of the Windows was the oldest one where you used that font ??

Oldest... odd question - can I ask why you are asking that?

The oldest OS that I used it in would be Win98. I have been using it, and its various forms for 20+ years or so.
I don't know the oldest I used the current version with - probably Win2K (which I was still using just 5 years ago or so).

[Brak]

Weird I just tried 4.0.0.1, and the font doesn't work at all - it looks just like regular letters - just like it did in OpenOffice 3.0.0.0

Interesting rabbit hole here.

[Zizi64]

can I ask why you are asking that?

We had similar problems with the obsolete version of the Times New Roman font used in our old Word documents, inherited from the Win 3.1 or Win98 era. The name of the incompatible font was 'Times New Roman CE'.
The newer wersions of the office suites can substitute them (if it is not present in the system), but the appearing will be different. The problem had gone, when we recreated our documents with the modern versions of the TNR like free, open source fonts, like the fonts of the DejaVu font family (and others)...

I see, your problem is not same as mine, but you could try an another (newer) version of the hebrew font...

[Brak]

can I ask why you are asking that?

We had similar problems with the obsolete version of the Times New Roman font used in our old Word documents, inherited from the Win 3.1 or Win98 era. The name of the incompatible font was 'Times New Roman CE'.
The newer wersions of the office suites can substitute them (if it is not present in the system), but the appearing will be different. The problem had gone, when we recreated our documents with the modern versions of the TNR like free, open source fonts, like the fonts of the DejaVu font family (and others)...

I see, your problem is not same as mine, but you could try an another (newer) version of the hebrew font...

Very interesting.

The version of the font I am using is the most recent version.

[Brak]

can I ask why you are asking that?

We had similar problems with the obsolete version of the Times New Roman font used in our old Word documents, inherited from the Win 3.1 or Win98 era. The name of the incompatible font was 'Times New Roman CE'.
The newer wersions of the office suites can substitute them (if it is not present in the system), but the appearing will be different. The problem had gone, when we recreated our documents with the modern versions of the TNR like free, open source fonts, like the fonts of the DejaVu font family (and others)...

I see, your problem is not same as mine, but you could try an another (newer) version of the hebrew font...

Would you terribly mind trying the test-yellow.odp file and see if you experience the same "missing bullet-points" issue that I am?

[Zizi64]

From the 'content.xml' file of the test-yellow.odp document. (All of ODF documents are .zip archive with directories and files inside.):

Code: Select all   Expand viewCollapse view

<text:list-level-style-bullet text:level="1" text:bullet-char="●">
<style:text-properties fo:font-family="StarSymbol" style:use-window-font-color="true" fo:font-size="45%"/>

I have not font named "StarSymbol" or similar font, therefore the bullets are not appeared for me.

[John_Ha]

... when you have a dozen slides with a dozen bullet points - 12 slides become 144!

I really wouldn't worry about it.

No-one in the audience is going to notice anything during a presentation which has 12 lines per slide because they won't be able to read the lines.

And even if they can read the lines with binoculars they will be so bored that they all will have fallen asleep long before you get anywhere near your 144th bullet.

[Brak]

From the 'content.xml' file of the test-yellow.odp document. (All of ODF documents are .zip archive with directories and files inside.):

Code: Select all   Expand viewCollapse view

<text:list-level-style-bullet text:level="1" text:bullet-char="●">
<style:text-properties fo:font-family="StarSymbol" style:use-window-font-color="true" fo:font-size="45%"/>

I have not font named "StarSymbol" or similar font, therefore the bullets are not appeared for me.

I don't have that font either - but yet it works in openoffice on my windows machine.

I pinned down where in the development when font goes from looking like english to like hebrew:
4.0.6.2 Font dont's display at all (looks like regular english font)
4.1.0.1 Font line spacing to too small

I haven't been able to find a version that it works like in your example. Do you have a Mac you could test it on?

[Brak]

... when you have a dozen slides with a dozen bullet points - 12 slides become 144!

I really wouldn't worry about it.

No-one in the audience is going to notice anything during a presentation which has 12 lines per slide because they won't be able to read the lines.

And even if they can read the lines with binoculars they will be so bored that they all will have fallen asleep long before you get anywhere near your 144th bullet.

Ummm.... I'm not sure what you are talking about - as the test file I uploaded currently has 9 bullets. I just added more to get to almost 11 (the bottom 10% of the 11th line is below screen. At this font size (which are the standard sizes for them) they can be VERY easily seen. So yeah, 10.9 doesn't equal 12... but my point still stands. So to be more accurate 12 slides becomes 120. Same difference.

[John_Ha]

I have not font named "StarSymbol" or similar font, therefore the bullets are not appeared for me.

Zizi64
In AOO for Windows bullets are displayed using the Open Symbol font and AOO includes an Open Symbol font which is installed during the installation. I wonder if AOO for Mac uses StarSymbol instead of OpenSymbol for bullets? It would be easy to check - just look in the installation cab file. See viewtopic.php?f=7&t=91785#p435904