[Solved] Strange "squares" in the Text

[Frisbee]

Hello!

I've got a problem with OOo Writer 3.2.1 running on Windows XP. When I import Word-docs with textfields (the docs are used as form), OOo shows the textfields as little sqares. It seems as if the document has a wrong character set. Even if I save the document as odt, the problem stays. But the strangest thing is the fact, that this wrong display appears just on this specific machine!

I have reinstalled all language-packages of Windows XP, I have reinstalled OOo, but nothing changed. Do you have an idea?

Thanks a lot!
René

[RoryOF]

This is most probably a font problem, in that the required font is not available. Was the ,doc file generated on the same machine, or on a different one?

[Frisbee]

It was a different machine. Can you give me a hint how to find the required font?

[Bill]

Select (highlight) one of the squares, select Format > Character, then click the Font tab on the Character dialog. The required font should be highlighted in the Font box. If I recall correctly, there should be a note below the language box if a substitute font is being used.

[RoryOF]

If you position your cursor in one of the faulty sections, as far as I remember, OpenOffice will display towards left of toolbar the font expected. Was the originating machine Windows 7/Vista, and the viewing machine Ubuntu 9.04? In that case, it is probably substituting for Calibri. Often Substituting Times New Roman will work OK. Highlight the text in a field and try various fonts from the drop down list at top left of your screen; when you fiond the correct one you can use font substitution tables in OOo, under Tools / Options / OpenOffice.org / Fonts

[acknak]

As far as I understand it, the open squares do not primarily indicate a missing font. They indicate a character that can't be displayed--for some reason. It could be a missing font, or it could be some other problem. The empty square is Writer's way of saying "I don't have any way to display this character".

For most current systems, the common fonts will include almost any character likely to occur in any Western language--even the technical symbols are well-covered, it more likely means that the document contains a character in a non-Unicode encoding. MS Word documents are notorious for using non-standard characters in the range 0x82-95 ("smart" quotes, anyone?). If the problem is the character itself, then I don't think installing a different font is likely to help. The only fix in that case is to replace the offending character with a different one.

The good thing about that is that once you fix the document to use standard characters, both OOo and MS Word should be happy with it.

In general, ...

If the document contains a character in a font that is not available, OOo will render the character using a different font. This is automatic but can be adjusted by the font substitution table.

If the document-requested font is available, but the document contains a character not included in that font, OOo will render the character in a different font that does provide the character. This is automatic and is (AFAIK) not affected by the font substitution table.

If the document calls for a character that is not provided by any font, OOo will render the character as an empty box.

Edit: PS:

Unfortunately, I don't think there is any way to find out what the characters are that are causing the problem in your document--Writer has no way (that I know of) for the user to find out what character codes are used in a document. You can only view the document in MS Word and see what character is supposed to be displayed.
If you want to attach a sample document here, I expect we can make some suggestions for fixing it.

[RGB]

Looking on an old .doc handled by a student, I found one of those offending rectangles. I pasted it on the search box of KCharSelect(1) and the program gave me the unicode code, so it is possible to obtain more info using an external program.
As Acknak pointed out, the symbol (from "Lucida Bright Math Symbol") is a non standard character coming from the font's "private area" so it is highly probably no other font have it (at least, that's the case on my system).

(1) I dont know of similar programs for other OSs or desktops, mainly because I don't know other OSs or desktops different from Linux and kde, but surely they exists.

[Frisbee]

Thank you, I solved the problem by installing missing fonts.