Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 58592
Urdu OpenType Unicode fonts not rendering correctly
Last modified: 2017-05-20 10:45:26 UTC
A friend is using OO in Southern Pakistan and is using Urdu OpenType Unicode fonts. Urdu is based on the Arabic script, and so the complex text layout options in OO 2.0 were a very welcome addition! There are a few different fonts used, but for the discussion at hand, there are two fonts of interest: Scheherazade and Noori Nastaliq. On a PC, both of these fonts work well in OO. On a Mac, the Scheherazade font works okay for the most part (there's still a few glitches) , but there's a major problem with the Noori Nastaliq font. The problem is that the dots in the letters (essential to the script) are missing from the Noori Nastaliq font. Will add an attachment following which shows this issue. The top line is Scheherazade and reads well. The bottom line is Noori Nastaliq and is missing the dots. The font developer sent the following based on what is being seen: "This sounds like a bug in OO, where it is not handling the "decomposition" of the letters into the base shape + dots correctly. I believe OO uses a considerably older version of the ICU libraries than I'm using in XeTeX, so that probably accounts for the difference. I'd recommend reporting it to the OO developers as a bug. (If you have the opportunity to try it on other platforms as well, that would be good; but I suspect it will behave the same everywhere.)" ... And then in a later email after I told him it works fine on the PC version of OO, but not on Mac... "I don't think the font installation method would be a factor in this; it's almost certainly because they're using a very old version of the ICU OpenType layout library. On Windows, OOo probably uses Uniscribe to handle OT fonts; that would explain the difference." "The Linux version would probably behave the same as the Mac one, as it'll be using the same ICU library."
Created attachment 31873 [details] Top line is Scheherazade (correct) and bottom is Noori Nastaliq (incorrect)
SBA -> jystickman: Please attach an .odt bugdoc the screenshot was taken from, thank you. SBA: Reassigned to ES. Put HDU and myself on CC.
Created attachment 57561 [details] Sample .odt file as requested
Created attachment 57562 [details] Output in 3.0
I'm attaching the requested .odt file and a new .pdf file which illustrate current behavior with the latest 3.0 release. The good news: We now see dots! The bad news: Suspect that lack of OpenType support on the Mac port is causing other joining problems now. In the new attached sample, we have three lines of text. Line 1: Scheherazade AAT font (works well - except it doesn't have the beauty and naturalness of a Nastaliq type font). Line 2: Scheherazade OT font (note that the letters no longer join together properly in the OpenType font) Line 3: Noori Nastaliq OT font. (We now have dots ... But the letters do not join together properly.) Unfortunately, Noori Nastaliq is ONLY available as an OT font. Please advise on a path for proceeding. Thanks!
The older screenshots were taken with "OOo 2.x X11 for OSX"? And the PDF for the newer version was taken also with "OOo 3.0 X11 for OSX" or already with "OOo 3.0 Aqua for OSX"? Here I could reproduce the problem on "OOo 3.0 Aqua for OSX" with the two Scheherazade versions (I don't have Noori Nastaliq, so I cannot confirm that aspect of the problem)
Correct - older screenshots were taken OO.o 2.0 for X11 on Macintosh. This is what was available 3 years ago when this defect was first filed.... Newer snapshots were taken with the latest 3.0 release Aqua port. Will attempt to get Noori Nastaliq font to you for testing. Thank you for your assistance.
The Noori Nastaliq font is unfortunately a licensed font - I believe it would be illegal to post the font as an attachment. Information on the font starts at http://www.monotypefonts.com/Library/Non-Latin-Library.asp?show=sample&lan=arabic I am not sure how to proceed here.
Arabic has similar problems on OOo Aqua and the test case with the two different kinds of Scheherzade fonts is already quite enlightening enough.
hdu, I'm seeing the same thing with rendering Hebrew on OOo 3.1.0/OS X. It looks to me like OpenType isn't being used at all, particularly no 'ccmp' GSUB or 'mark' GPOS tables. I'm glad to help as I can.
So what if adding FreeType to handle OT feature?
Reset the assignee to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".