Bug 33590 - Add MathType 4+ support for .doc and .docx
Summary: Add MathType 4+ support for .doc and .docx
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: filter:doc, filter:docx
: 150486 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: DOCX DOC
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2011-01-27 05:54 UTC by Jaxson Lee
Modified: 2024-03-08 15:11 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Example .doc (Word 97-2003) with embedded MathType objects (56.50 KB, application/msword)
2011-01-27 05:54 UTC, Jaxson Lee
Details
A docx document with MathType 6.0 equations embedded into it (25.61 KB, application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document)
2011-11-28 13:46 UTC, Lior Kaplan
Details

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Description Jaxson Lee 2011-01-27 05:54:13 UTC
Created attachment 42590 [details]
Example .doc (Word 97-2003) with embedded MathType objects

Writer's handling of it's inability to edit a MathType OLE Object in a Word 97-2003 .doc file isn't very intuitive or user-friendly.

The attached example file gives two embedded equations, identified as "MathType Equation" and "MathType 4.0 Equation" in Word 97. (I couldn't find any way of identifying them in Writer.)

Attempting to edit the first one in Writer by double-clicking on it opens a read-only .tmp file in another Writer window, containing some of the characters used in the equation, but none of the formatting. It is not possible to edit the equation.

Attempting to edit the latter (4.0 type) in Writer results in a dialog box with a red cross icon, and the text "General Error".

This is a lot less helpful to a user than the behaviour in Word, where it is simply explained in a dialog box that it cannot edit the equation.
Comment 1 tester8 2011-01-27 12:01:17 UTC
LO RC4 Ubuntu 10.04 x86

In my case first formula behavior is equal to described by dave_james. When trying to edit second formula it just highlited, without any warning or appearing other windows.
Comment 2 Jaxson Lee 2011-01-28 16:37:20 UTC
Just tried it myself on Ubuntu 10.10 x86 LibreOffice 3.3.0 OOO330m19 (Build:6) tag libreoffice-3.3.0.4, Ubuntu package 1:3.3.0-1maverick1 and got the same for the second object as I did in Windows, the General Error dialog box.
Comment 3 Lior Kaplan 2011-11-26 14:26:11 UTC
With LibO 3.4.4 I get the same behavior in the example document. On another document I got, LibO fails to edit a "MathType 6.0 Equation" OLE in a doc file, and shows the general error popup for the same document in docx format.
Comment 4 Lior Kaplan 2011-11-28 13:46:03 UTC
Created attachment 53915 [details]
A docx document with MathType 6.0 equations embedded into it
Comment 5 Björn Michaelsen 2011-12-23 11:47:58 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 6 Lior Kaplan 2011-12-24 07:23:50 UTC
Still happens in 3.5.0 beta2, changing status to NEW.
Comment 7 bfoman (inactive) 2013-08-14 20:35:49 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> Attempting to edit the first one in Writer by double-clicking on it opens a
> read-only .tmp file in another Writer window, containing some of the
> characters used in the equation, but none of the formatting. It is not
> possible to edit the equation.
> Attempting to edit the latter (4.0 type) in Writer results in a dialog box
> with a red cross icon, and the text "General Error".

(In reply to comment #3)
> With LibO 3.4.4 I get the same behavior in the example document. On another
> document I got, LibO fails to edit a "MathType 6.0 Equation" OLE in a doc
> file, and shows the general error popup for the same document in docx format.

Confirmed with:
Version: 4.2.0.0.alpha0+
Build ID: 087a610fcd5c0c354a9ed6bfccd3451b667d62a3
TinderBox: Win-x86@6-debug, Branch:master, Time: 2013-08-04_21:41:24
Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview 64 bit
Comment 8 QA Administrators 2015-04-01 14:39:55 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 9 Buovjaga 2015-04-19 13:26:20 UTC
Double-clicking on either one on Ubuntu, nothing happens.

Some debug output:

warn:oox.storage:3835:1:oox/source/helper/zipstorage.cxx:67: ZipStorage::ZipStorage exception opening input storage: 
VisioDocument: version 0
Found xml parser severity error Document is empty

On Windows I happened to have MathType installed and it opened correctly for each formula.

Ubuntu 14.10 64-bit 
Version: 4.5.0.0.alpha0+
Build ID: afb82d3729bda2754d0add08cc6c4dce1dc76d59
TinderBox: Linux-rpm_deb-x86_64@46-TDF-dbg, Branch:master, Time: 2015-04-14_00:05:04
Locale: en_US

Win 7 Pro 64-bit Version: 5.0.0.0.alpha0+ (x64)
Build ID: 211c12b9c64facd1c12f637a5229bd6a6feb032a
TinderBox: Win-x86_64@42, Branch:master, Time: 2015-04-18_01:51:17
Locale: fi_FI
Comment 10 QA Administrators 2016-09-20 09:31:50 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 11 Timur 2016-10-05 07:39:34 UTC
Seems like LO supports MathType up to v.3 or v3.1 or v.3.5. I didn't find a bug asking for MathType 4+ support, so I rename this one. 

https://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Microsoft_Office
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq/Math/020/fr
Comment 12 QA Administrators 2018-05-04 02:40:27 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 13 Roman Kuznetsov 2018-07-24 18:14:23 UTC
double click on first OLE object -> Writer crashes (see bug 118919)
double click on second OLE object -> window with General error.

still repro in

Version: 6.1.0.2 (x64)
Build ID: b3972dcf1284967612d5ee04fea9d15bcf0cc106
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0; UI render: default; 
Locale: ru-RU (ru_RU); Calc: CL
Comment 14 Christian Pietzsch 2018-10-07 02:52:21 UTC
I see a different behavior in:
Version: 6.1.0.3
Build ID: 6.1.0-2
CPU threads: 12; OS: Linux 4.18; UI render: default; VCL: gtk2; 
Locale: de-DE (en_US.UTF-8); Calc: group threaded

Attempting to edit the formulas by double-clicking simply results in nothing happens.
The formulas feel like they are getting treated like images.
Comment 15 Buovjaga 2018-10-09 13:01:41 UTC
With attachment 53915 [details], double-clicking either formula on Windows gives General OLE error. On Linux it opens my image editor (but does not display anything.
In my comment 9 I say having MathType installed would make it open the file in it.

Arch Linux 64-bit
Version: 6.2.0.0.alpha0+
Build ID: b7835c1d7465db6bea4cc80b6d0c2f71596938f1
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 4.18; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3_kde5; 
Locale: fi-FI (fi_FI.UTF-8); Calc: threaded
Built on 8 October 2018

Version: 6.2.0.0.alpha0+ (x64)
Build ID: d9ad59da50c1172fe98f94370221c9c1b688200a
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0; UI render: default; VCL: win; 
TinderBox: Win-x86_64@42, Branch:master, Time: 2018-10-09_01:03:44
Locale: fi-FI (fi_FI); Calc: threaded
Comment 16 Eyal Rozenberg 2019-10-29 21:34:47 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 17 Buovjaga 2019-10-30 06:49:26 UTC
(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #16)
> I haven't noticed anyone saying this, so I will:
> 
> Why not contact Design Science - the company? They would probably be
> interested in ensuring compatibility of all sorts of versions with LO. After
> all, they already have an LO partial compat notice:
> 
> http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/works_with.asp#!target=libreoffice

Yes, please contact them, if you have time.
Comment 18 V Stuart Foote 2022-08-19 08:35:06 UTC
*** Bug 150486 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 19 Hossein 2023-06-25 10:38:28 UTC
LO 24.2 dev master still does not support MathType 4+:

Version: 24.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: bea05a79c8ed565909e341a24b298d8deab7e042
CPU threads: 20; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 22621; UI render: Skia/Vulkan; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_DE); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded

By double clicking the formula, I get this error:

Error
Error activating object:
General OLE error.
Comment 20 Pete 2024-03-08 15:11:58 UTC
I tried opening those attached Word documents in LO. I have no problem editing the embedded MathType (MT) objects therein; however, I have MT installed. Without it, I think the MT objects are treated as images.