Issue 88539

Summary: kerning is broken in oowriter
Product: Writer Reporter: dmiceman <dmiceman>
Component: editingAssignee: AOO issues mailing list <issues>
Status: CONFIRMED --- QA Contact:
Severity: Trivial    
Priority: P3 CC: don.troodon, hdu, issues, kpalagin, orw, sundman
Version: OOo 2.4.0   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: All   
Issue Type: ENHANCEMENT Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---
Issue Depends on:    
Issue Blocks: 88572    
Attachments:
Description Flags
inconsistent kerning, marks show trouble spots none

Description dmiceman 2008-04-21 13:18:10 UTC 
Kerning (character spacing) does not work properly in 2.4.0. 

System: gentoo, linux, xorg-server 1.4.0.90, nvidia-drivers 169.12, freetype
2.3.5-r2.

Steps to reproduce:

1. open oowriter
2. select Arial 12pt (any other font can be used, but with Arial it is most visible)
3. type some text with “iâ€, “lâ€, “y†and combinations of them to feel the page.

Result: very inconsistent kerning across page. In some places “i†moved left
from it's real position, in some places “l†moved right. 

Expected result: correct kerning.

Options, such as enabling/disabling “kerning pairsâ€, opengl, antialiasing,
justification does not take any effect.

Please look at attached screenshot with marked inconsistencies.
Comment 1 dmiceman 2008-04-21 13:19:39 UTC 
Created attachment 53087 [details]
inconsistent kerning, marks show trouble spots
Comment 2 eric.savary 2008-04-21 16:11:09 UTC 
@HDU: please comment.
Comment 3 hdu@apache.org 2008-04-22 08:18:33 UTC 
When View->PrintLayout is enabled Writer positions the glyphs on the screen as close as possible to 
their counterparts on the printout. If the screen resolution and the resolution of the reference devices 
are not exact integer multiples then the effect shown in the attached screenshot is visible.

Enable View->WebLayout instead to see the text perfectly kerned for the screen. Because these View 
semantics are somewhat surprising even to experienced users I submitted issue 88572.

The best solution of the dilemma between readability and position-fidelity would be that Writer's print 
layout mode is changed to prefer optimal inter-glyph positions over optimal absolute glyph positions 
=> reassigning to FME

If blurry text was acceptable then a naive downscaling of a high resolution reference layout would be an 
interesting third alternative. If this gets done I suggest to name it "physical view" mode and to rename 
the current "print layout" mode to "mixed view".
Comment 4 frank.meies 2008-04-22 12:44:12 UTC 
.
Comment 5 dmiceman 2008-04-22 16:12:47 UTC 
@HDU: great explanation, thank you! 

(And i think it would be great to have a special mode like “Physical layout for
device with 96dpi†or such.)
Comment 6 dmiceman 2008-04-22 16:18:41 UTC 
By the way, what is a “reference devices†and how i can view/change their
properties?
Comment 7 hdu@apache.org 2008-04-23 08:35:29 UTC 
> what is a “reference devicesâ€

Layouting is done on a reference device, so that e.g. line breaks in a document do not reflow 
depending on the display resolution, the zoom level, etc.

> how i can view/change their properties

Open the dialog page Tools->Options->Writer->Compatibility and enable the checkbox "use printer 
metrics". The printer properties are then the device properties that can be changed.

> it would be great to have a special mode like “Physical layout for device with 96dpi†or such

Install a printer driver for a printer that supports a print resolution of 96dpi and enable Writer's "use 
printer metrics" compatibility flag.
Comment 8 hdu@apache.org 2009-08-27 11:48:51 UTC 
*** Issue 104541 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***