DejaVu fonts not displaying correctly

[groupw]

I am using OpenOffice .org 2.4. On linux, Fedora Core 5, text using the DejaVu Serif font does not have serifs when displayed but prints fine. The fonts DejaVu Sans Condensed and DejaVu Serif Condensed are not condensed when displayed or printed.

OpenOffice.org 2.4 on Windows XP does not have these problems at all.

I am trying to find a font family that will display and print the same on all platforms.

What could be the problem?

[AndrewZ]

Consider the Liberation fonts from Red Hat. IIRC, these fonts are shipped with OOo starting with OOo 2.4.

Related article: Metric Equivalent Fonts and Font Substitution.

[groupw]

Thanks for the suggestion. The Liberation Serif font also does not have serifs when displayed.

[acknak]

I don't remember how exactly Fedora Core 5 handled fonts, but I'm fairly sure that was before fontconfig came along, which is the current system-level font configuration facility which is used by current Linux distributions and OOo. I also don't know what current versions of OOo (that expect to have fontconfig) will do in it's absence, but I can easily imagine that things may not work well.

If at all possible, upgrade your system to something newer. FC5 is not getting any updates, including security updates, so it really is not a good idea to be running it, at least not if it's connected to the Internet.

If you can't upgrade your system, then you may want to install the fonts you need through "spadmin". Spadmin is a utility that is included with OOo, which you can use to install and configure fonts for OOo to use. You will need to first figure out where the OOo program binary was installed; spadmin will be in the same location, you can just run it from the command line.

You should also check if there are any font substitutions in effect (Tools > Options > OO.org > Fonts), because OOo 2.4 ships with the Liberation fonts, and they should be available to you even if the system font configuration is not working.

$ cd /opt/openoffice.org.latest && find -iname '*.ttf'
...
./share/fonts/truetype/DejaVuCondensedSansBoldOblique.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/DejaVuCondensedSansBold.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/DejaVuCondensedSansOblique.ttf
...
./share/fonts/truetype/DejaVuSerif.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/LiberationMono-BoldItalic.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/LiberationMono-Bold.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/LiberationMono-Italic.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/LiberationMono-Regular.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/LiberationSans-BoldItalic.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/LiberationSans-Bold.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/LiberationSans-Italic.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/LiberationSans-Regular.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/LiberationSerif-BoldItalic.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/LiberationSerif-Bold.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/LiberationSerif-Italic.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/LiberationSerif-Regular.ttf
./share/fonts/truetype/opens___.ttf

[groupw]

Fedora Core 5 has fontconfig 2.3.94 installed. The DejaVu and Liberation fonts are in the directory /opt/openoffice.org2.4/share/fonts/truetype directory.

On Fedora Core 7 the DejaVu Serif font has serifs, but the condensed fonts are not condensed.

Is there a list of libraries, with version numbers, that OpenOffice needs in order to work correctly?

[groupw]

When I use a newer version of freetype, the serifs display on the DejaVu Serif font. I now notice that DejaVu Condensed and Light do not show up in the font list. I will open a new topic on this.