Bug 32953 - Malayalam font substitution selection is not proper.
Summary: Malayalam font substitution selection is not proper.
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LibreOffice (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
3.3.0 RC2
Hardware: Other Linux (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Caolán McNamara
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2011-01-10 00:11 UTC by Biju
Modified: 2011-07-07 04:19 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
lo_ml_1.png (159.71 KB, image/png)
2011-01-10 00:11 UTC, Biju
Details
lo_ml_expected.png (145.45 KB, image/png)
2011-01-10 00:12 UTC, Biju
Details

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Description Biju 2011-01-10 00:11:40 UTC
Created attachment 41828 [details]
lo_ml_1.png

Best Malayalam Font available now is AnjaliOldLipi. It will be difficult to read a Malayalam text for a Malayali if the font wont properly render combination/complex letters. AnjaliOldLipi has mostly covered this. So preference should have been given to AnjaliOldLipi.

But right now on my Ubuntu 10 system by default LibreOffice is selecting "Lohit Hindi". And content becomes horrible and some times unable to read.

Steps:-
0. Ensure you have Lohit fonts from Fedora project, 
   as well as AnjaliOldLipi from Varamozhi team or Malayali bloggers
   https://sites.google.com/site/cibu/

1. Copy the Malayalam text from below to clipboard.
2. Open a new document in LibreOffice Writer Application
3. Paste text content from clipboard as formatted text

Result:-
The font selection is made as "Lohit Hindi". 
see attachment lo_ml_1.png
Additional bug 32951 also show up.


Malayalam Text to Copy
കുങ്കുമച്ചെടിയുടെ പൂവിൽ നിന്ന് വേർതിരിച്ചെടുക്കുന്ന ഒരു സുഗന്ധവ്യഞ്ജനമാണ്‌ കുങ്കുമം. കുങ്കുമപ്പൂവിന്റെ പരാഗണസ്ഥലമായ മൂന്നു നാരുകളാണ് സുഗന്ധവ്യഞ്ജനമായി ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നത്. വരണ്ടിരിക്കുന്ന ഈ നാര്‌ പാചകവിഭവങ്ങളിൽ സുഗന്ധം പകരാനായും നിറം നൽകുന്നതിനായും ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നു. ദശാബ്ദങ്ങളായി ലോകത്തിലെ ഏറ്റവും വിലപിടിപ്പുള്ള സുഗന്ധവ്യഞ്ജനമായി തുടരുന്ന കുങ്കുമത്തിന്റെ സ്വദേശം തെക്കുപടിഞ്ഞാറൻ ഏഷ്യയാണ്‌. ചവർപ്പ് രുചിയുള്ള കുങ്കുമത്തിന്‌ ഐഡോഫോമിന്റെയോ അല്ലെങ്കിൽ വൈക്കോലിന്റെയോ മണമാണ്‌. പിക്രൊക്രൊസിൻ, സഫ്രണാൽ എന്നീ രാസവസ്തുക്കൾ അടങ്ങിയതിനാലാണ്‌ കുങ്കുമത്തിന്‌ ഈ മണം കിട്ടുന്നത്. കുങ്കുമത്തിലുള്ള ക്രോസിൻ എന്ന കരോട്ടനൊയ്ഡ് ചായം, ഭക്ഷണവിഭവങ്ങൾക്കും തുണിത്തരങ്ങൾക്കും മഞ്ഞ കലർന്ന സുവർണ്ണനിറം നൽകാൻ സഹായിക്കുന്നു. കൂടാതെ കുങ്കുമത്തിന്‌ ധാരാളം ഔഷധ ഗുണങ്ങളുമുണ്ട്.
Comment 1 Biju 2011-01-10 00:12:27 UTC
Created attachment 41829 [details]
lo_ml_expected.png

Expected Screen ....
Comment 2 Kohei Yoshida 2011-01-10 22:01:50 UTC
Re-assigning to Caolan as this is a font issue.
Comment 3 Caolán McNamara 2011-01-11 01:07:08 UTC
There's also "Lohit Malayalam" and "Meera" as well as AnjaliOldLipi. What do you think the best fallback ordering of these three fonts should be ?

I've used AnjaliOldLipi;Lohit Malayalam;Meera for now
Comment 4 Biju 2011-01-11 04:16:21 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> you think the best fallback ordering of these three fonts should be ?
> 
> I've used AnjaliOldLipi;Lohit Malayalam;Meera for now

That will be good enough for now...
As far as I can tell AnjaliOldLipi is the only font available which will render Malayalam almost correct (yes, it is still missing common single glyph for സ്ത്ര, സ്തു,  etc and it is irritating).

Lohit Malayalam - missing glyph for combination letters
Meera - almost good as AnjaliOldLipi, but totally missing  0D7A, 0D7B, 
        0D7C, 0D7D, 0D7E

Good link https://sites.google.com/site/cibu/history
Comment 5 Manilal K M 2011-07-07 03:56:45 UTC
I tried the same text in LibreOffice-3.3.3 (fedora 15) and didn't found any issues with Meera except the issues with the new unicode characters. So I would say this change was not at all required in LibreOffice.
Comment 6 Caolán McNamara 2011-07-07 04:19:46 UTC
For reference:
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/libs-core/commit/?id=2f70074be979ca4a58e653a561a45d8d75b52f19

Note that it does two things. Firstly it adds AnjaliOldLipi and Lohit Malayalam as known fonts which can render Malayalam which should be considered when searching for a font to use as a default document font for Malayalam. Secondly it sets AnjaliOldLipi as the preferred Malayalam font.

Under fontconfig platforms (e.g. Linux, but not Windows) only the first font in the list is taken and presented to fontconfig along with the language and the best match fontconfig returns is used by LibreOffice.

Under non-fontconfig platforms (e.g. Windows) we iterate through the list until we find one of them

Either way, if Meera *is* considered the better font over AnjaliOldLipi as a default document font, the fix isn't to revert the patch, but to put whichever is the best font to the start of the list