Bug 167204 - Font character displays differently than Microsoft Word
Summary: Font character displays differently than Microsoft Word
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 126111
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.6.7.2 release
Hardware: All Windows (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2025-06-25 12:44 UTC by Mihai Vasiliu
Modified: 2025-06-25 18:38 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Font as displayed in Windows Settings (40.07 KB, image/png)
2025-06-25 12:44 UTC, Mihai Vasiliu
Details
Document with wrong symbols (9.72 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2025-06-25 12:45 UTC, Mihai Vasiliu
Details
Displayed fine on Linux (30.04 KB, image/png)
2025-06-25 13:02 UTC, Mihai Vasiliu
Details
Office 2003 vs LO 5.4 (236.65 KB, image/png)
2025-06-25 15:19 UTC, Mihai Vasiliu
Details
Original Office 2003 file (723.00 KB, application/msword)
2025-06-25 15:29 UTC, Mihai Vasiliu
Details

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Description Mihai Vasiliu 2025-06-25 12:44:33 UTC
Description:
Some font characters (maybe missing symbols?) are displayed differently in Writer vs Word.

This specific character in the example below is used in a lot of Romanian legal documents as a placeholder box for writing numbers on printed pages. The character displayed in Writer does not have the same outline so, when printed does not allow filling by pen.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open attached document
2. Notice that there are multiple fridge-like symbols.


Actual Results:
The symbols used are displayed as fridge-like figures.

Expected Results:
The symbols should be displayed as empty vertical rectangles.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
The font used is Symbol (see font screenshot). The symbols should be displayed as in the picture with the font sample, but instead it is displayed with an unknown symbol.

Version: 25.2.4.3 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 33e196637044ead23f5c3226cde09b47731f7e27
CPU threads: 8; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (10.0 build 26100); UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: ro-RO (ro_RO); UI: ro-RO
Calc: CL threaded
Comment 1 Mihai Vasiliu 2025-06-25 12:44:58 UTC
Created attachment 201467 [details]
Font as displayed in Windows Settings
Comment 2 Mihai Vasiliu 2025-06-25 12:45:19 UTC
Created attachment 201468 [details]
Document with wrong symbols
Comment 3 Mihai Vasiliu 2025-06-25 12:48:53 UTC
The same issue happens in

Version: 7.6.7.2 (x86) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: dd47e4b30cb7dab30588d6c79c651f218165e3c5
CPU threads: 8; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 26100; UI render: Skia/Vulkan; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (ro_RO); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded

but the same symbols are displayed as christian crosses in

LibreOffice 3.3.0 
OOO330m19 (Build:6)
tag libreoffice-3.3.0.4
Comment 4 Mihai Vasiliu 2025-06-25 13:02:36 UTC
Created attachment 201470 [details]
Displayed fine on Linux
Comment 5 Mihai Vasiliu 2025-06-25 13:03:45 UTC
On Linux, the same identical font is displayed as expected, seems that it affects only Windows versions of LibreOffice.


Version: 25.2.4.3 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 520(Build:3)
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 6.12; UI render: default; VCL: kf6 (cairo+xcb)
Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); UI: en-US
25.2.4-2
Calc: threaded
Comment 6 Takenori Yasuda 2025-06-25 15:06:41 UTC
Just to clarify — were Microsoft Word and LibreOffice used to open the document on the same PC and environment, or on different systems?

If they were opened on different environments, the difference may come from font fallback behavior or system font availability rather than LibreOffice itself.
Comment 7 Mihai Vasiliu 2025-06-25 15:19:15 UTC
(In reply to Takenori Yasuda from comment #6)
> Just to clarify — were Microsoft Word and LibreOffice used to open the
> document on the same PC and environment, or on different systems?
> 

Must be related somehow with the fallback font used by LibreOffice on Windows.

On Linux (with the same SYMBOL.TTF font copied and installed from Windows), the characters are displayed correctly.

On Windows, with the Font manager from Windows Settings (See screenshot), the font is displayed the same as in Linux (correctly, with rectangle symbols).

On the same Windows PC, LO 3.3 displays the characters as crosses, LO 7.6 - LO 25 displayes as refrigerators.

So it is somehow related to what LO uses to display these characters on Windows.

Attached another screenshot from Windows XP with the original document, LO 5.4 displays as black hackers, MS Office as rectangles.
Comment 8 Mihai Vasiliu 2025-06-25 15:19:35 UTC
Created attachment 201472 [details]
Office 2003 vs LO 5.4
Comment 9 Mihai Vasiliu 2025-06-25 15:29:14 UTC
Created attachment 201473 [details]
Original Office 2003 file
Comment 10 Khaled Hosny 2025-06-25 18:38:33 UTC
The charter in question is U+F0A0 which is a Private Use Area (PUA) character, so closing this as duplicate of bug 126111, since the root issue here is that we apply font fallback to PUA characters but we probably shouldn’t.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 126111 ***