Bug 159752 - 17 Noto Fonts dropped from 24.2 bundle without notice (and 1 added)
Summary: 17 Noto Fonts dropped from 24.2 bundle without notice (and 1 added)
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LibreOffice (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
24.2.0.3 release
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Xisco Faulí
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2024-02-17 04:22 UTC by Jim DeLaHunt
Modified: 2024-02-26 13:02 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Jim DeLaHunt 2024-02-17 04:22:54 UTC
Seventeen Noto fonts appear to have been dropped from LO 24.2.0.3 (installers for macOS_x86-64 and macOS_aarch64, at least) compared to LO 7.6.4 (installer for macOS_aarch64). The 24.2 Release Notes (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/24.2#Feature_Removal_/_Deprecation) do not mention unbundling any fonts. The  Fonts wiki page (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Fonts#List_of_fonts_in_LibreOffice) still lists these fonts as included.

Font file counts:
152 in `/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Resources/fonts/truetype` within **LibreOffice_7.6.4_MacOS_aarch64.dmg**
136 in `/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Resources/fonts/truetype` within **LibreOffice_24.2.0_MacOS_aarch64.dmg**

(Identical contents in `/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Resources/fonts/truetype` within the macOS_x86-64 and macOS_aarch64 `.dmg` for LibreOffice 24.2.0 .)

The following font files are in LO 7.6.4 (macOS_aarch64), but not in 24.2 (macOS_aarch64):

NotoMono-Regular.ttf
NotoNaskhArabicUI-Bold.ttf
NotoNaskhArabicUI-Regular.ttf
NotoSans-Condensed.ttf
NotoSans-CondensedBold.ttf
NotoSans-CondensedBoldItalic.ttf
NotoSans-CondensedItalic.ttf
NotoSans-Light.ttf
NotoSans-LightItalic.ttf
NotoSansArabicUI-Bold.ttf
NotoSansArabicUI-Regular.ttf
NotoSerif-Condensed.ttf
NotoSerif-CondensedBold.ttf
NotoSerif-CondensedBoldItalic.ttf
NotoSerif-CondensedItalic.ttf
NotoSerif-Light.ttf
NotoSerif-LightItalic.ttf

There are 31 other Noto fonts in both 7.6.4 and 24.2:
NotoKufiArabic-Bold.ttf, NotoKufiArabic-Regular.ttf
NotoNaskhArabic-Bold.ttf, NotoNaskhArabic-Regular.ttf
NotoSans-Bold.ttf, NotoSans-BoldItalic.ttf, NotoSans-Italic.ttf, NotoSans-Regular.ttf
NotoSansArabic-Bold.ttf, NotoSansArabic-Regular.ttf
NotoSansArmenian-Bold.ttf, NotoSansArmenian-Regular.ttf
NotoSansGeorgian-Bold.ttf, NotoSansGeorgian-Regular.ttf
NotoSansHebrew-Bold.ttf, NotoSansHebrew-Regular.ttf
NotoSansLao-Bold.ttf, NotoSansLao-Regular.ttf
NotoSansLisu-Regular.ttf
NotoSerif-Bold.ttf, NotoSerif-BoldItalic.ttf, NotoSerif-Italic.ttf, NotoSerif-Regular.ttf
NotoSerifArmenian-Bold.ttf, NotoSerifArmenian-Regular.ttf
NotoSerifGeorgian-Bold.ttf, NotoSerifGeorgian-Regular.ttf
NotoSerifHebrew-Bold.ttf, NotoSerifHebrew-Regular.ttf
NotoSerifLao-Bold.ttf, NotoSerifLao-Regular.ttf

Also, LO 24.2 has one font which 7.6.4 did not, and this is not mentioned in the 24.2 Release Notes:
NotoSansLisu-Bold.ttf
(This is, strictly speaking, a different bug than fonts dropped.)

The expected behaviour is that LibreOffice 24.2 bundles the same fonts as LibreOffice 7.6.4, or that the Release Notes, and Fonts wiki page, identify all fonts which are added and removed.

The impact for me was that I had an existing LibreOffice Calc document, which I had formatted in Noto Mono font, and when I upgraded from LO 7.3.2 to 24.2, the Noto Mono font disappeared and my document had the wrong appearance. I am completely sympathetic to the argument that I should install directly those fonts I want to use for my own documents — LibreOffice is not a font distribution — but also, LibreOffice does not make it clear when I use a bundled font instead of a font installed outside LibreOffice.

I am unable to find a bug which documents intentional removal of these fonts. Maybe tdf#124591 indirectly documents the removal of Noto Mono.
Comment 1 Julien Nabet 2024-02-17 12:50:50 UTC
Khaled: thought you might be interested in this one.
Comment 2 Xisco Faulí 2024-02-23 12:09:09 UTC
At least NotoMono-Regular.ttf was explicitly removed in https://git.libreoffice.org/core/+/739ee655294be56021dc6244dde3faa75e288bd5%5E%21
Comment 3 Xisco Faulí 2024-02-23 12:34:47 UTC
Re-adding the NotoSans* and NotoSerif* ones in https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/163825. the NotoSansArabicUI* and NotoNaskhArabicUI* ones doesn't seem to exist upstream anymore
Comment 4 Commit Notification 2024-02-23 14:17:08 UTC
Xisco Fauli committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/aa49b95cd1bb2baa357c9aac7e5d046630ffac85

tdf#159752: Add missing NotoSans/NotoSerif fonts back

It will be available in 24.8.0.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
Comment 5 Commit Notification 2024-02-23 14:19:11 UTC
Xisco Fauli committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "libreoffice-24-2":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/73bec7219024319caf9898b7d2ab94feeb877a62

tdf#159752: Add missing NotoSans/NotoSerif fonts back

It will be available in 24.2.2.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
Comment 6 Xisco Faulí 2024-02-23 14:24:31 UTC
Dropped fonts info added to the release notes: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/24.2#Feature_Removal_/_Deprecation
Thanks for the detailed report!
Comment 7 Jim DeLaHunt 2024-02-24 05:35:02 UTC
Thank you for the response!

Is it appropriate to add to the release notes an explanation for why those fonts were dropped? I was thinking about making an edit to the wiki page https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/24.2#Feature_Removal_/_Deprecation with this. But maybe the release notes page is not the place for explanation.

Also, it would be nice to mention the added font in the Release Notes. Should I go ahead and do that?  How can I find the commit or bug documenting this addition?

Finally, would it be appropriate of me to note these font changes in the Fonts wiki page https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Fonts#List_of_fonts_in_LibreOffice ?
Comment 8 ⁨خالد حسني⁩ 2024-02-24 07:10:45 UTC
We can’t use condensed font style in LibreOffice (bug 152396), so it is just dead weight. Light and other non-R/B/I/BI styles are not consistently handled in LibreOffice across platforms (bug 35538), so a document using one on Windows will render with fallback font on macOS and vice versa, so also not a good idea to bundle font styles we can’t consistently handle. We bundle way too many font files, so it seemed to be a good idea to trim it a bit by dropping problematic styles. The commit messages should have mentioned all of this, so that is on me.
Comment 9 Xisco Faulí 2024-02-25 11:06:56 UTC
(In reply to ⁨خالد حسني⁩ from comment #8)
> We can’t use condensed font style in LibreOffice (bug 152396), so it is just
> dead weight. Light and other non-R/B/I/BI styles are not consistently
> handled in LibreOffice across platforms (bug 35538), so a document using one
> on Windows will render with fallback font on macOS and vice versa, so also
> not a good idea to bundle font styles we can’t consistently handle. We
> bundle way too many font files, so it seemed to be a good idea to trim it a
> bit by dropping problematic styles. The commit messages should have
> mentioned all of this, so that is on me.

Thanks for the information Khaled.
I'll revert my patch then.
Comment 10 Commit Notification 2024-02-25 20:22:44 UTC
Xisco Fauli committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/4114b916102d7df76f7a59b4d82435d9ab0ffec6

Revert "tdf#159752: Add missing NotoSans/NotoSerif fonts back"

It will be available in 24.8.0.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
Comment 11 Commit Notification 2024-02-26 07:49:47 UTC
Xisco Fauli committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "libreoffice-24-2":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/cc2a6503e62103e8767108d064774639d1d9f34f

Revert "tdf#159752: Add missing NotoSans/NotoSerif fonts back"

It will be available in 24.2.2.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
Comment 12 Xisco Faulí 2024-02-26 09:11:24 UTC
Adapting status
Comment 13 ady 2024-02-26 13:02:21 UTC
FWIW...

I might be wrong, but I think that the differences when rendering Noto fonts was with version 1. At least some of those problems were supposed to be solved with the very latest versions (2.xxx). Please don't just take my word; this needs to be actually tested.

Regarding the Noto Mono fonts in version 1, they were replaced in the newer versions with Noto Sans Mono.

Additionally, the newer versions of Noto fonts come in 2 variants, static and variable, respectively.