[Solved] Dropbox: Can't change SimSun font

[Derekiwi]

Hi.
I have a short document, three pages with some tables and some text, all Times New Roman size 12. I keep my work on Dropbox because change between laptop, tower-case, and iPad frequently. Anyway, I needed to work on the document at another site on their computer, all seemed ok when I finished and saved on Dropbox.

However, when I got back and went to do further work on the document on Dropbox, all text I had added was in SIMSUN font. I know it was TNR when I completed the work. And I cannot revert those portions to TNR, they stay in SIMSUN.

I have copy/[asted all text in the document and changed to Default character format, to other fonts and sizes, other styles, those SIMSUN portions will not change font. It is the same whether I do this at word, paragraph, or complete document level. I have even copied sample texts into Windows 7 Notepad to get a text only editor to strip any formatting, then pasted into a new fresh AOO document - still no change. Out of desperation I even pasted it into an Arduino editor and into a new document, still nothing.

I do have a backup, and a this stage I think i will just retype the text into that, but this has me freaked, and I would like to get to the bottom of it. Attached is an excerpt from the file.

[floris v]

The part in SIMSUN has language attribute Chinese, with associated basic font. The strange font got embedded in the content.xml, because the style tags are the same for all paragraphs in your document. I don't have solution, but better be careful where you edit your documents.

[MrProgrammer]

I needed to work on the document at another site on their computer, all seemed ok when I finished and saved on Dropbox. However, when I got back and went to do further work on the document on Dropbox, all text I had added was in SIMSUN font.

The following paragraph is not written using normal Unicode characters for English.
Ｈａｖｅ　ｓｔｕｄｅｎｔｓ　ｆｏｃｕｓ　ｆｏｒ　ａ　ｓｉｌｅｎｔ　ｍｏｍｅｎｔ　…

When I type "Have", the H is U+0048, Latin Capital Letter H, from the Basic Latin block. The characters in your paragraph are from the Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms block. The initial H is U+FF28, Fullwidth Latin Capital Letter H. I'd think it would be difficult to enter these characters using a keyboard. Perhaps the text is from a website and was transferred to the Writer document using copy/paste.

I have copy/pasted all text in the document and changed to Default character format, to other fonts and sizes, other styles,

The problem is not the font, it's the characters. You can change the font to whatever you want; that doesn't change the characters; they are still Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms characters. You can retype the paragraph, of course.

I do have a backup, and a this stage I think i will just retype the text into that, but this has me freaked, and I would like to get to the bottom of it.

It's really impossible for someone, after the fact, without access to the computer, to determine how:
• the other computer's installation of Writer or Dropbox or Windows and/or
• unspecified operations in Writer
put the document in this state. Accept that the document has been damaged and you must restore it from a backup.

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit ☐ button and add [Solved] to the start of the Subject field. Select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

[RoryOF]

In your sample file I found that the text MrProgrammer quoted was set in style "Table Heading". If in /Format /Styles and Formatting you right click on this style name and select Modify, on the Font tab you can change "Asian text font" from Simsun to Times new Roman, click OK, and all should be well.

[cwolan]

Try the Change Case command: select the text and choose Format ⟶ Change Case ⟶ Half-Width
⠀

recWin7.gif (124.82 KiB) Viewed 1828 times

[Derekiwi]

Try the Change Case command: select the text and choose Format ⟶ Change Case ⟶ Half-Width
⠀
recWin7.gif

That looks like it does the trick, but i d not have that option in my menu. is that an added function from a plugin?

[cwolan]

You have to enable support for Asian languages in Tools ⟶ Options ⟶ Language Settings ⟶ Languages
Find "Enhanced language support" and tick the box "Show UI elements for East Asian writings"

[Derekiwi]

@cwolan Perfect. We live and learn. Thankyou very much.