Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 83744
Equation editor objects greek alphabet corruption when exporting in PDF
Last modified: 2013-08-07 14:54:29 UTC
Open attached file "equation editor corruption.odt". It contains an equation Editor (the one bundled with MS Word) object, which display correctly. However, now export the open file to PDF in OO. What I obtain is file "equation editor corruption.pdf", where the math formula is OK EXCEPT for all greek letters which now are displayed as if "squeezed" horizontally: now they are half as wide as they should. Printing the pdf file unfortunately gives the same defect. A big problem when you are working with a coauthor that uses MS Word, since you would like to leave his formulas as they are (in equation editor format) even if you prepare a paper in OO. Also because the conversion of such formulas into OO Formula editor format is VERY cumbersome, and editing with OO formula editor a former Equation Editor formula after conversion is thus overly complicated.
Created attachment 49738 [details] Writer doc with the formula that goes corrupted when exporting to pdf
Created attachment 49739 [details] The corrupted pdf file obtained from previous odt attached file
Reassigned to HI.
I have realised that to the get greek symbols on math formulas back to their "unsqueezed" normal form, not only youhave convert mathtype objects into OO formulas - it is necessary to open each one of them at least once before exporting the PDF. Thus is the problem is worse than previously assessed for documents with a large number of formulas, where this multiple opening of all formulas can take a lot of time.
Confirming using 2.4m242 on WinXP - as described. Printout is OK.
Reassigned to PL
pl->hdu: could you please have a look ?
@tl: formula editor's greek font for PDF export has a squeezed width, reassigning
Changing target to OOo 3.1.
Please have a look into this ASAP, it is practically blocking the use of OO when importing scientific papers from MS word format (almost always there is the need to produce pdf exports). It is true that math formulas can be converted to native format, but: - the translation is EXTREMELY cumbersome; as soon as you want to edit the formulas things become impossible, and most of the times you'better rewrite it from scratch - the necessity for convertion prevents people not familiar with OO formula editor to start working with OO while still using euqation editor for embedded math. I really do hope 3.1 comes soon, and this problem is not reassigned to 3.2 or later...thanks!
While fiddling to work around this problem, I found a very easy partial solution: If you export if PDF/A-1 format, the file size is somewhat bigger but the problem is gone. Good news after all!
Not time left to fix this one in OO0 3.1 because of other issues.