Bug 105812 - LibreOffice v.5.3.0.3 (Base,Writer,Calc, etc) not recognizing system font configurations on KDE Neon 5.8.5
Summary: LibreOffice v.5.3.0.3 (Base,Writer,Calc, etc) not recognizing system font con...
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LibreOffice (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
5.3.0.3 release
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64) Linux (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard: snap
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2017-02-06 22:27 UTC by Geo Chura
Modified: 2018-04-17 06:08 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Geo Chura 2017-02-06 22:27:57 UTC
Description:
LibreOffice v.5.3.0.3 SNAP install (including Base,Writer,Calc, etc) not recognizing system font configurations on KDE Neon 5.8.5, including OpenType and Type1 fonts. This includes system fonts installed by Neon such as Noto Sans. 

Additional Helvetica, Univers, and Trade Gothic .OTF fonts from Abode TypeFolio have also been installed. Despite appearing in the Neon Font Manager and functioning in various other applications, LO 5.3 does not recognize them I have re-cached the fonts and rebooted various times and cannot find them in LO. The same fonts do appear in LO 5.2 running on Fedora 25 Design Lab.

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Boot LO Writer or Calc
2.Type and select text
3.Attempt to select fonts from either the Character dialogue or Properties panel

NOTE: fonts also fail to appear in any of the Options configuration drop-down menus.

Actual Results:  
Follow the above three steps. Perhaps the issue is exclusive to the SNAP.

Expected Results:
I expect to have access to all properly installed system fonts, certainly those included in the Distro.


Reproducible: Always

User Profile Reset: Yes. Also created a new profile and observed the same bug result in the new profile.

Additional Info:


User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Fedora; Linux x86_64; rv:51.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/51.0
Comment 1 Geo Chura 2017-02-07 21:05:44 UTC
In an effort to resolve this issue I have purged a few lingering components from an older Synaptic install of LO 5.1.4 (from the Neon repos) along with the original SNAP install of LO v 5.3.0.3 and subsequently reinstalled the 5.3.0.3 SNAP from scratch. 

The bug persists. LO writer & calc only recognize the few fonts in the SNAP fonts folder ... ie Deja, Liberation, etc. None of the other known-good fonts can be accessed from LO. For a premium word processor and page layout application, this is a MAJOR weakness. 

Out of frustration, prior to my reinstall of the SNAP 5.3.0.3, I downloaded and verified the LO v 5.3.0.3 DEBS direct from Document Foundation. Upon what seemed like a successful install, all system fonts were accessible from both Writer and Calc. BUT ... (and it's a big fat one) the regular DEB install (as reported elsewhere) installed with gaping holes in the toolbar and sidebar panels which see-through to the desktop below. This is insane!! The end result is that the user interface is left with an unrecognizable abstract background pattern in the most critical tool palettes of the applications. 

Thus, neither of these beautiful new releases seem usable on KDE Neon. Sure hope someone can offer a suggestion soon.
Comment 2 Buovjaga 2017-02-11 20:36:18 UTC
Björn: what do you say about this Snap problem?
Comment 3 Björn Michaelsen 2017-02-12 01:57:41 UTC
(In reply to Geo Chura from comment #1)
> The bug persists. LO writer & calc only recognize the few fonts in the SNAP
> fonts folder ... ie Deja, Liberation, etc. None of the other known-good
> fonts can be accessed from LO.

As https://snapcraft.io/ says:

> Most importantly snaps are designed to be secure, sandboxed, containerised
> applications isolated from the underlying system and from other applications.

the snapped application is sandboxed, containerised and isolated from the underlying system and that is by design. This includes access to system fonts of the host system. There are a few intentional allowed connections between the host system and the snapped application (interfaces and plugs). For LibreOffice, one of these is access to the $HOME directory of the user. I have not tried this yet, but it should be possible to install fonts in the $HOME directory and have them picked up by the snapped application as well.

As of now, there is AFIACS currently no interface/plug available for snap to allow access to the hosts _system_ fonts.
Comment 4 QA Administrators 2018-03-23 03:35:00 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 5 Olivier Tilloy 2018-04-17 05:03:18 UTC
Recent versions of the libreoffice snap should have access to system fonts (this is part of the desktop interface, which is connected by default when installing the snap). See https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/desktop-allow-access-to-host-system-fonts/1796 for details.
Comment 6 Buovjaga 2018-04-17 06:08:28 UTC
Thanks, let's close as FIXED.