LibreOffice 2.5 still installs Gentium Basic (2013) and Gentium Book Basic (2013) during setup. These versions aren’t maintained since 2013. They are now called Gentium and Gentium Book, (‘Basic’ doesn’t exist anymore), see version history https://software.sil.org/gentium/download/previous-versions/ The current version of these fonts is 7.00 - june 2025: https://software.sil.org/gentium/release-7-000/ In my PC install script I install the current Gentium and Gentium Book fonts, but after LibreOffice install I also get these old ‘basic’ fonts which I then remove by the same script. So I would like to see that LO stops installing the old Gentium Basic fonts or - if they are required for font conversion, update them to the current version.
LibreOffice 25.2.5 that must be of course.
+1 Had thought that Gentium Basic and Gentium Book deployed by LibreOffice were extended with Graphite SmartFont table support [1]. Not the case, just the OTF SmartFont table support as provided by the Gentium font designers. The more recent Gentium/Gentium Book releases doubtless have additional OTF SmartFont support and chould probably be bundled, at the least the legacy Gentium Basic, Gentium Book Basic in external/more_fonts should be dropped. =-ref-= [1] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Smart_font_optional_features_for_Graphite_and_OpenType_fonts
What happens next? Will this issue be adresed in the near future? Is someone looking into these bundled old fonts in LibreOffice to update them maybe?
these versions have not been maintained. They are now known as Gentium and Gentium Book; the term "Basic" is no longer used; refer to the version history. https://software.sil.org/gentium/download/previous-versions/ https://geometrydash-2.bitbucket.io
Created attachment 205431 [details] screenshot of added fonts after LO 26.2 installation
LibreOffice 26.2 again installs the old, not maintained, Gentium fonts as described in this bug report. This is undesirable because if you had already installed the newer versions, you now have both the old and the new version on your system. (see attachment). https://software.sil.org/gentium/download/ When are these old fonts going to be replaced with the updated ones (v7, 2025)? Or leave them out altogether, if there are no dependencies?
@Khaled, @László What do you think, could/should we go ahead and swap out the old Gentium Basic (with its limited Graphite smart font support) from /core/external for current SIL Gentium and Gentium Book with their more complete OTF implementation? Have to say, the Graphite smart font support from our delivered ver 1.102 Gentium Basic, Gentium Book Basic was pretty limited. Doubt there is any qa build testing that might be affected. While ver 7.0 Gentium and Gentium Book are now much more complete fonts, dropping Gentium support and implementing extensive OTF smart font feature support and additional font weights. But they are now larger packages. So perhaps just the regular weight (and italic, italic bold) for each. @Xisco, any issues? =-ref-= https://software.sil.org/gentium/download/
The new fonts are not metrically compatible with the old ones and they use different font names, so replacing them with the new fonts will break existing documents that use the old fonts. Since I don’t think LibreOffice should be a font distribution platform, I’d advice against including new font families. If people are bothered with the old fonts, then we should drop them. The less fonts that LibreOffice distributes, the best.
(In reply to Khaled Hosny from comment #8) > The new fonts are not metrically compatible with the old ones and they use > different font names, so replacing them with the new fonts will break > existing documents that use the old fonts. > > Since I don’t think LibreOffice should be a font distribution platform, I’d > advice against including new font families. If people are bothered with the > old fonts, then we should drop them. The less fonts that LibreOffice > distributes, the best. Fair enough, +1 for a simple removal (unless there is *great* objection, and strong justification to retain it for it OTF feature support). Looking at its history over on the AOO Bugzilla i89682, they were included more as a demonstration font. And it initially wasn't even under OFL, though our later builds are. But it would need a release note, with a suggestion for users to pick up current Gentium and Gentium Book family builds from SIL directly.
Proposed patch: https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/199086
Xisco Fauli committed a patch related to this issue. It has been pushed to "master": https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/f42a3ffb9e9274d396fdcabaeae25369a840b136 tdf#167563: drop obsolete bundled Gentium font It will be available in 26.8.0. 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.
Mentioned in https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/26.8#Feature_Removal_/_Deprecation
In case someone still needs to use the fonts, they can be downloaded from https://dev-www.libreoffice.org/src/1725634df4bb3dcb1b2c91a6175f8789-GentiumBasic_1102.zip
Fantastic, thank you very much.