bugFree UCS Outline Fonts - Bugs: bug #39484, Standard ligatures don't work in...

 
 

bug #39484: Standard ligatures don't work in LibreOffice 4.0

Submitter:  Rosella Capriotti <rosy58>
Submitted:  Sun 14 Jul 2013 06:49:31 PM UTC
   
 
Category:  overall font problem Severity:  3 - Normal
Item Group:  application-specific Status:  Postponed
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  Stevan_White
Open/Closed:  Open Release:  * 2012-05-03
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Wed 30 Nov 2016 02:37:13 PM UTC, comment #21: 

Several days ago, TDF announced LibreOffice 5.3.0 beta1 is released in their wiki page.
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/BugHuntingSession/5.3.0Beta1
This version is also available on their official website. On this version all the standard ligatures you have made in FreeFont can be available on the document, and you can turn off. I think LO 5.3 and later can also be used for test the font.

Hsing-yen He <hammerandsickle>
Thu 03 Nov 2016 03:12:55 AM UTC, comment #20: 

Recently LibreOffice intergrated HarfBuzz on all platforms, which started in version 5.3. It would resolve this bug.

Hsing-yen He <hammerandsickle>
Sat 07 Nov 2015 06:50:17 AM UTC, comment #19: 

It seems to me that they works in LibreOffice 5.0.

Hsing-yen He <hammerandsickle>
Fri 07 Aug 2015 04:39:16 PM UTC, comment #18: 

Well, I have noticed that they have comments for this issue, but it seems that they have nothing to do it for Windows.

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=66916

Hsing-yen He <hammerandsickle>
Mon 30 Sep 2013 01:10:41 AM UTC, comment #17: 

Khaled, many people interact with me very helpfully.  You're not one of them -- it's a pity, but -- sure, call it a clash of style.

Stories about Graphite?  Something more than the guess that I made, based on some old posting I found?  As I said, that may have been confusion on my part, but I certainly didn't make it up.  Should I apologize some more?  Nah--I'm done apologizing.

I would very much like to avoid ever arguing with you Khaled.

It's a very reasonable practical policy for L/O (O/O) to interact with MS Office. 

But numerous discussions on these projects have involved the word "emulate" -- misused in the sense of "be as bad as".  I regard this as defeatist.  It would be better if the software were better than MS Office, and could also interact with MS Office profitably for our users.

The intent of my remark was to encourage you to dispel the idea that L/O can only be as good as Word, and moreover, to encourage you to implement more modern typographic capability in word.

I'm a supporter of what you've done for L/O and other software. It's great work.

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Sun 29 Sep 2013 09:36:33 PM UTC, comment #16: 

Given your communication style, I can see why you don’t get that many helpful interactions.

There is so much nonsense being thrown here that I’d duplicate most of this thread by listing it, though I have enjoyed the stories behind Graphite support in LibreOffice that are completely the result of someone’s imagination.

I don’t believe in the importance of being compatible with Microsoft Office, to begin with, so I’m not going to defend it. You are arguing with the wrong person.

I guess I used the wrong word, I meant “silently” not ”secretly”; I just did enable OpenType features unconditionally and deferred the discussion that should have taken place to when someone complains about the new “feature”, nobody did so far, so the discussion did not happen.

Khaled Hosny <khaledhosny>
Sun 11 Aug 2013 02:41:12 PM UTC, comment #15: 

Wow Khaled,

Great to see your adjectives are still in form!

On Sun, Aug 11, 2013 at 3:16 PM, Khaled Hosny <INVALID.NOREPLY@gnu.org> wrote:

> Follow-up Comment #14, bug #39484 (project freefont):
>
> Did any if you guys even bothered to actually ask someone who knows anything
> about LibreOffice (or OpenOffice) before making up all the nonsense you
> spitted here?
>

No, I didn't.  And frankly, I didn't know whom to ask.
Over the years, I've had several disappointing experiences dealing with these groups.
Sometimes they're utterly unhelpful, sometimes they're weirdly rude.

I just did experiments and web searches.

What follows is interesting and germane to the topic, so I'll reply.

> OpenOffice supports Graphite since version 3.0 (that was during Sun days) and
> it was done by volunteer interested in Graphite support (mostly for minority
> scripts not supported by OpenType and/or Unicode). ICU was never patched to
> support Graphite and never will.
>

OK, I probably mixed up reading something about ICU and another about Graphite patches in LibreOffice.   But I had earlier in this thread emphasized that LibreOffice are separate things.
Is this the nonsense you were referring to?  Or was there something else?

The question was, why did L/O's ligatures work for some fonts, but not others.  It took some work, but we discovered the explanation had to do with Graphite.  Your remark explains why Graphite ligatures happen to work.

It's interesting though:

Does Word support Graphite ligatures? I can't see that it does...
If not, the argument against L/O supporting OpenType ligatures is inconsistent.

> OpenOffice have been supporting OpenType since ever, but it didn’t enable it
> for Latin and other “simple” scripts just like Microsoft office does.
> OpenType support was briefly enabled for all scripts in LibreOffice after it
> was forked, but was disable again because ICU LayoutEngine was so slow. When I
> ported LibreOffice to HarfBuzz, I secretly enabled OpenType support for all
> scripts, but this is suboptimal because it is incompatible with Microsoft


I wasn't aware that L/O had been fitted with Harfbuzz...(and now we know why: it
was a secret!)  But I don't understand...

Does some version of L/O use Harfbuzz?  Its behavior is very different from other
Harbuzz-based apps...

> Office and can affect page breaks etc. An optimal solution is to disable
> OpenType support again by default and provide and option to enable it, and may
> be provide a UI to control optional font features as well (this is not easy,
> though, since LibreOffice uses three different layout engines on Windows, X11
> and Mac).
>

A lot of people really want modern features.  In fact, I remember being very disappointed back in the 80s to find that Word didn't do proper "small caps", which other software did right even then.  After all these years... lots more bells and whistles, but...

I would encourage you to do this.  I understand that there will be those who would block it on the grounds that L/O should be a "bug-for-bug emulation" or some such, but I don't see it as an either/or proposition.

> LibreOffice on Windows still does not enable OpenType for simple scripts and
> probably will never do it by default.
>

Since we're now discussing L/O policies, let me suggest that L/O ought to emulate Word in the literal sense, of doing a better job than Word. 

So it would make sense for it to be compatible somehow (with a "Word compatability" switch or whatever) but to allow it to move ahead in ways that Word does not.

Thanks for your input!

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Sun 11 Aug 2013 01:16:06 PM UTC, comment #14: 

Did any if you guys even bothered to actually ask someone who knows anything about LibreOffice (or OpenOffice) before making up all the nonsense you spitted here?

OpenOffice supports Graphite since version 3.0 (that was during Sun days) and it was done by volunteer interested in Graphite support (mostly for minority scripts not supported by OpenType and/or Unicode). ICU was never patched to support Graphite and never will.

OpenOffice have been supporting OpenType since ever, but it didn’t enable it for Latin and other “simple” scripts just like Microsoft office does. OpenType support was briefly enabled for all scripts in LibreOffice after it was forked, but was disable again because ICU LayoutEngine was so slow. When I ported LibreOffice to HarfBuzz, I secretly enabled OpenType support for all scripts, but this is suboptimal because it is incompatible with Microsoft Office and can affect page breaks etc. An optimal solution is to disable OpenType support again by default and provide and option to enable it, and may be provide a UI to control optional font features as well (this is not easy, though, since LibreOffice uses three different layout engines on Windows, X11 and Mac).

LibreOffice on Windows still does not enable OpenType for simple scripts and probably will never do it by default.

Khaled Hosny <khaledhosny>
Fri 19 Jul 2013 05:45:40 PM UTC, comment #13: 

OpenType features will be supported on 4.1 version of LO:

Text layout on Linux (and other X11 platforms) has been ported from the deprecated and unmaintained ICU LayoutEngine library to HarfBuzz, which provides better support for OpenType layout in general and complex scripts in particular, as well as noticeable performance improvements especially for fonts with big number of OpenType lookups (Khaled Hosny, Fridrich Štrba)

Rosella Capriotti <rosy58>
Tue 16 Jul 2013 11:19:33 PM UTC, comment #12: 

Hi Rosella,

On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 9:05 PM, Rosella Capriotti

> If you say so... boss!
>

Not the boss here.  Just the admin.

> Anyway, the LO development team opposed OpenType because it's proprietary,
> just like Java is, it's free but not open-source, I mean, you can't just
> devise a new tag or rename/modify the existing ones. Remember LO was formed as
> a form of open-source fundamentalism because they didn't want to have anything
> to do with OpenOffice's JAVA.
>

I don't know the whole story of the split betweeen OpenOffice and LibreOffice (I'm sure this is only part of it, but this really isn't the place for that discussion anyway.)

But since this is appearing in a forum of an organization that insist on software freedom, I should point out, some of your remarks seem to confuse the concepts.  OpenType doesn't have any sources -- it's a standard, so the term open-source doesn't apply.  Java was open-source long before it became GPL'ed, and now it's open-source and free -- all such complaints should have been dropped years ago.

The official line here is that GPL'ed software such as GNU FreeFont is free software in the sense of free speech, and that open-source is a lesser thing.

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Tue 16 Jul 2013 07:05:46 PM UTC, comment #11: 

If you say so... boss!

Anyway, the LO development team opposed OpenType because it's proprietary, just like Java is, it's free but not open-source, I mean, you can't just devise a new tag or rename/modify the existing ones. Remember LO was formed as a form of open-source fundamentalism because they didn't want to have anything to do with OpenOffice's JAVA.

Rosella Capriotti <rosy58>
Tue 16 Jul 2013 02:28:57 PM UTC, comment #10: 

To make clear what our policies are: we would be glad to support Graphite extensions, when our font editing software supports them.

As to ownership of OpenType, it is my understanding that there is no license restriction on implementing the standard.

LibreOffice ought not to be identified with the font rendering software it uses, ICU.  The LO group has patched ICU, but it isn't really their software.

I would personally strongly encourage LibreOffice to support these basic font features however they can... except I see many others have already done so, for years.

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Tue 16 Jul 2013 09:50:16 AM UTC, comment #9: 

Hello,

I couldn't find any link, I think it's bundled with Ubuntu but now finding out where it's hiding will be a bit painful... I'll upload it here as soon as I locate it :)

Forget about Graphite, nobody knows about it (let alone uses it) even in the tiny fine-typography microworld: fonts with OpenType support are already so few, Graphite fonts are to all extent and purpose inexistent. The geniuses of LO development team didn't want to support a "proprietary feature" (i.e. OpenType) so they thought it'd be good to implement an unknown standard that at least was open-source. But then they found out no font developer had actually bothered about it. So, they had to rush the G version of Libertine because otherwise LO's Graphite subsystem would just have been a useless abandonware.

Crazy folks!

Rosella Capriotti <rosy58>
Mon 15 Jul 2013 10:01:26 PM UTC, comment #8: 

Hi,

Could you give me a link for Linux Libertine O, anyway?
I just tried searching for it again, but "O" isn't a very good search term.

I have now tried this 2011 version of Old Standard TT with LibreOffice, and I can now give you an answer:

Unfortunately, we cannot at this time support ligatures in LibreOffice. 

As you surmised, LibreOffice supports Graphite ligatures, but not plain old OpenType ligatures.  The latest version of FontForge I have does not support Graphite.  So we're stuck until one or the other of these products moves.

> I'm starting to understand what's going on: in Linux Libertine G, "G" stands
> for Graphite, Old Standard TT does support graphite, the others don't. LO only
> supports Graphite, it has no inbuilt support for OpenType, that's why
> Libertine O (without Graphite) doesn't show ligatures.
>

This sounds like what I saw looking at a bunch of newsgroup postings and bug reports.

It appears that ICU has been patched to support some Graphite features, but still can't support OpenType ligatures (which have been around for a very long time!) (Wow! I can only say wow!)

When Fontforge gets Graphite support, we'll be glad to add Graphite features to FreeFont.

For now, this request will have to be postponed.

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Mon 15 Jul 2013 10:01:59 AM UTC, comment #7: 

I'm starting to understand what's going on: in Linux Libertine G, "G" stands for Graphite, Old Standard TT does support graphite, the others don't. LO only supports Graphite, it has no inbuilt support for OpenType, that's why Libertine O (without Graphite) doesn't show ligatures.

I attached my test file and my version of Old Standard, which is dated 2011, don't bother with Libertine O, I just want to see whether your version of LO supports Graphite. Actually, I'm running the same version as you: 4.0.2.2. The only plug-in I installed is Grammar Tool, which obviously has no effect on ligatures.

(file #28584, file #28585)

Rosella Capriotti <rosy58>
Mon 15 Jul 2013 09:39:12 AM UTC, comment #6: 

Rosella,

Where do we find Libertine O?

Alexy's site at www.thessalonica.org.ru has been down for a while.
I found a copy of Old Standard (2.0.2 dated 2008).

I see no ligatures at all.

What exact version of LibreOffice are you using? (mine is 4.0.2.2)
Are you sure you don't have some fancy plug-in installed? 

Could we get a copy of your test file?

(file #28583)

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Mon 15 Jul 2013 09:15:04 AM UTC, comment #5: 

I'm sorry, it was a lapsus, Libertine O shows no ligatures on LO, while Libertine G does, if your LO doesn't get ligatures out of Libertine G, then our LOs behave differently.

Rosella Capriotti <rosy58>
Mon 15 Jul 2013 08:56:43 AM UTC, comment #4: 

Hello,

No, Linux Libertine G's ligatures don't work on LO, only Linux Libertine O's ones do. I don't know why. Clearly that must be a LO problem, I think I should file a bug report there.

I opened your html file and yes, all four fonts display ligatures, you're right DejaVu Serif does have ligatures.

But the fact remains that Libertine O and Old Standard get their ligatures to work under LO, so maybe you could learn some tricks from them.

Regards,

Rosella Capriotti <rosy58>
Sun 14 Jul 2013 09:05:10 PM UTC, comment #3: 

You're right about Times New Roman 5.07 does not have OpenType ligatures.  I have to confess: I'm surprised.

However, DejaVu Serif does have ligatures, as does Minion Pro.

But I downloaded linlibertine-g (Linux Libertine).  Yes it has ligatures too.

Now I tried it with L/O 4.0.6. And I'm still batting 0.
What are we missing here? 

On Firefox, simple text shows these ligatures beautifully and effortlessly for all fonts that have ligatures.

Attached is my new test, a PDF of the text as displayed in L/O writer, and a PDF of the same text in Firefox, with the HTML file.

(file #28576, file #28577, file #28578, file #28579)

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Sun 14 Jul 2013 07:22:27 PM UTC, comment #2: 

I don't have Times New Roman but I can bet it doesn't have ligatures, neither does DejaVu, I'm sure of it. Download Linux Libertine G or Old Standard from Alexey's site and test them, I'm sure they'll display ligatures.

Rosella Capriotti <rosy58>
Sun 14 Jul 2013 07:16:41 PM UTC, comment #1: 

Here's my test, using LibreOffice Writer 3.6.2.2 to show some words, "Confine inflate iffy effluent" that should have ligatures,
in Times New Roman, Minion Pro, DejaVu Serif, and GNU FreeSerif.

No ligatures whatever are evident, in any font.

Am I doing something wrong?
Could I have your test file?

(file #28574, file #28575)

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Sun 14 Jul 2013 06:49:31 PM UTC, original submission:  

Hello Steve,
In the attached image you'll see a test with standard ligatures: respectively f+i, f+l, and f+f. The fonts are from top to bottom:
Free Serif
Old Standard TT
Linux Libertine G
Minion Pro
As you can see, the first and the last one don't display ligatures in LO although they do so in XeLaTeX, so maybe by comparing their implementation you'll be able to ascertain what is to be done.
Regards,

Rosella Capriotti <rosy58>

 

(Note: upload size limit is set to 16384 kB, after insertion of the required escape characters.)

Attach Files:
   
   
Comment:
   

Attached Files
file #28585:  Ligatures in LO.odt added by rosy58 (16KiB - application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
file #28584:  OldStandard-Regular.ttf added by rosy58 (708KiB - application/x-font-ttf)
file #28583:  LO-ligatures.pdf added by Stevan_White (30KiB - applicaton/pdf)
file #28579:  FF-Ligatures.pdf added by Stevan_White (174KiB - application/x-pdf)
file #28576:  ligatures.html added by Stevan_White (629B - text/html)
file #28577:  LO-ligatures.pdf added by Stevan_White (21KiB - application/x-pdf)
file #28578:  LO-ligatures.docx added by Stevan_White (4KiB - application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document)
file #28574:  LO-ligatures.docx added by Stevan_White (4KiB - application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document)
file #28575:  LO-ligatures.pdf added by Stevan_White (26KiB - application/x-pdf)

 

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    Follow 13 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2013-07-15 Stevan_White StatusNeed info Postponed
    2013-07-15 rosy58 Attached File- Added OldStandard-Regular.ttf, #28584
        Attached File- Added Ligatures in LO.odt, #28585
    2013-07-15 Stevan_White Attached File- Added LO-ligatures.pdf, #28583
    2013-07-14 Stevan_White Attached File- Added ligatures.html, #28576
        Attached File- Added LO-ligatures.pdf, #28577
        Attached File- Added LO-ligatures.docx, #28578
        Attached File- Added FF-Ligatures.pdf, #28579
    2013-07-14 Stevan_White StatusNone Need info
        Assigned toNone Stevan_White
    2013-07-14 Stevan_White Attached File- Added LO-ligatures.docx, #28574
        Attached File- Added LO-ligatures.pdf, #28575
    2013-07-14 rosy58 Attached File- Added Standard Ligatures in LO 4.png, #28572

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