Bug 155608

Summary:	Set default font easily in settings
Product:	LibreOffice	Reporter:	Greg <noh.spam.jose>
Component:	LibreOffice	Assignee:	Not Assigned <libreoffice-bugs>
Status:	UNCONFIRMED ---
Severity:	enhancement	CC:	heiko.tietze, himajin100000, stephane.guillou, vsfoote
Priority:	medium
Version:	7.5.3.2 release
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
URL:	https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/how-do-i-change-the-default-font/28854
See Also:	https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=159261
Whiteboard:
Crash report or crash signature:		Regression By:
Bug Depends on:
Bug Blocks:	102985

Description Greg 2023-05-31 11:05:41 UTC

Description:
The global/product options/preferences panels have a font entry which is of no help in changing the default font. For some reason that's beyond me (as an ergonomist and designer) products always choose a horrible, cramped and ugly serif font as default, with no way to allow it to be changed in one hit across the product.

Even if users like serifs or prefer sans-serifs, imposing a single font on users, making them have to work out how to edit templates or individually on each doc or style is draconian if intended behaviour and just bad usability if it just evolved that way.

A simple entry in the Options' Font tab labled "Default Font" with a dropdown with all the fonts, would be an easy win. It would also help to have context help* explaining that "More extensive customisation can be done by editing the Default Paragraph Style" with a link to open that dialogue  


*context help is in place explanatory text in the dialogue panel as used for example in the Security tab



Actual Results:
Not relevant for an RFE - see description

Expected Results:
Not relevant for an RFE - see description


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
Not relevant for an RFE - see description

Comment 1 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2023-10-31 06:12:03 UTC

You can already do that for Writer: Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > Basic Fonts.
However, I could not find the option for Calc nor Impress/Draw (but see bug 135650), and there isn't one for a

Workarounds, depending on the app:
- modify your default style (works for current document)
- modify your default template (will work for any new document)

There are discussions about changing the default font (bug 97577), but has there already been a discussion about adding one option for the app-wide default font, Heiko?

Comment 2 Heiko Tietze 2023-10-31 10:22:10 UTC

The topic is surprisingly complex. Somehow default fonts have to be defined, although the mentioned dialog is challenged (Bug 152550 - Drop the "Basic Fonts" option dialogs). Reason here is that you need different fonts depending on the language (eg. Bug 151215 - Let me choose different fonts for different languages in the same group or Bug 151122 - Need way to avoid selecting fonts which don't cover the relevant language Unicode range) and if documents are shared cross-platform (see Bug 96872 - Make it more obvious that a font has been substituted and Bug 78186 - Add an easy way to know which fonts are used in a document and which of them are missing).  

And we have request to provide one common place across all modules for the font (Bug 33743 - Add "Basic Fonts" option to Calc, Impress, and Draw).

Shall we make this ticket a duplicate, Greg?

Comment 3 Greg 2023-10-31 21:08:24 UTC

TBH, I'd sidestep the complexity and on install or first use allow the user to pick a global default font from a selection of tested fonts with extensive (full?) glyph coverage, representing as many languages as we can and perhaps favouring the ones that match the install location's locale. I'm not suggesting the default will always be used by a user in all circumstances but allowing the global setting of a preferred default and having that used as the root choice for all inherited styles would go a long way.

Comment 4 Greg 2023-10-31 21:10:46 UTC

Bug duplicate seems to de-focus bugs with 'significant common ground but not identical'

Comment 5 Heiko Tietze 2023-11-02 09:19:39 UTC

(In reply to Greg from comment #3)
> TBH, I'd sidestep the complexity and on install or first use allow the user
> to pick a global default font from a selection of tested fonts with
> extensive (full?) glyph coverage...
Although there is interest in such a first-start customization (bug 137931), we got rid of the dialog in the past and many users are probably grateful being able to start over without answering a couple of questions first.
There are not so many fonts with good/complete glyph coverage. Noto comes in mind where the full set takes some space. AFAIK we split the set but not sure.