Bug 54227 - fonts display with incorrect spacing in kword
Summary: fonts display with incorrect spacing in kword
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: kword
Classification: Miscellaneous
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: 1.5 or before
Platform: Gentoo Packages Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Thomas Zander
URL:
Keywords:
: 46358 93757 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2003-02-06 23:11 UTC by Markus Lackner
Modified: 2007-10-20 11:50 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:


Attachments
Snapshot of KWord and Select Font dialog (115.67 KB, image/png)
2003-02-06 23:21 UTC, Markus Lackner
Details
This is how this document is rendered in Kword. (33.99 KB, application/pdf)
2004-02-25 07:57 UTC, Brandon Nuttall
Details
This is how the document is rendered in OpenOffice. (27.90 KB, application/pdf)
2004-02-25 07:58 UTC, Brandon Nuttall
Details
Screenshot (26.84 KB, image/png)
2005-03-20 22:12 UTC, Dik Takken
Details
Screenshot (11.20 KB, image/png)
2005-03-20 22:14 UTC, Dik Takken
Details
Screenshot of the KWord window (19.50 KB, image/png)
2006-03-20 14:09 UTC, Dik Takken
Details
Screenshot of the printing preview (14.10 KB, image/png)
2006-03-20 14:11 UTC, Dik Takken
Details

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Description Markus Lackner 2003-02-06 23:11:08 UTC
Version:           koffice-1.2.1r1 (using KDE KDE 3.1)
Installed from:    Gentoo Packages
Compiler:          gcc (GCC) 3.2.1 20021207 (Gentoo Linux 3.2.1-20021207) 
OS:          Linux

All fonts in kword does not work correct. The spacing between letters varies a lot and is dependent on font and size, but I couldn't find an font/size looking correct. I see this effect on screen, in the preview and also on the printer (I use cups; works ok with other apps).
The spacing also varies with zoom in and zoom out.

In the "select font" dialog all fonts are displayed correct!!!!!!

In older bug reports (closed) with similar problems I read about dependencies with screen settings.

My Settings:
1280x1024
95x96dpi
Comment 1 Markus Lackner 2003-02-06 23:21:20 UTC
Created attachment 896 [details]
Snapshot of KWord and Select Font dialog
Comment 2 David Faure 2003-02-12 12:23:59 UTC
Subject: Re:  New: fonts display with incorrect spacing in kword

On Thursday 06 February 2003 23:11, you wrote:
> All fonts in kword does not work correct. The spacing between letters varies a lot and is dependent on font and size, but I couldn't find an font/size looking correct. I see this effect on screen, in the preview and also on the printer (I use cups; works ok with other apps).
> The spacing also varies with zoom in and zoom out.
> 
> In the "select font" dialog all fonts are displayed correct!!!!!!
> 
> In older bug reports (closed) with similar problems I read about dependencies with screen settings.
> 
> My Settings:
> 1280x1024
> 95x96dpi

Do you have libXft, and a Qt linked to it?
Do you have the RENDER extension?  (xdpyinfo | grep RENDER)
Do you have TTF fonts? E.g. Arial from Microsoft.... :}

Comment 3 Markus Lackner 2003-02-17 21:22:31 UTC
Hi,

1. If have installed libXft 2.0.1 and also linked Qt to it (In qtconfig I see an
option "Enable Anti-Aliased Font Support (Xft)" which is enabled)
2. Yes
3. I think I have several TTF Fonts installed (arial, trebuchet, verdana,
georgia, ...) 
Comment 4 Dik Takken 2003-08-16 14:53:47 UTC
I have exactly the same problem with kword 1.2.91. Hopefully this can be resolved before 
the release of KOffice 1.3. 
 
I also have a recent libXft linked to qt and the render extension. But is should not have 
anything to do with that, because all other text in KDE apps look perfect. I use many 
different fonts all over KDE and they all display correct. Looks like a KWord-specific 
problem. 
 
Also, I don't use TTF, only Type1. But again, the rest of KDE proves that Type1 fonts can 
be rendered perfectly. Even KWrite displays any font better than KWord does. 
Comment 5 Peter Penz 2003-09-09 19:32:42 UTC
The problem is still there with kword 1.2.92: 
- SuSE 8.2 
- libXft linked to qt 
- render extension 
- TTF-fonts (Arial, ...) 
 
I also checked other KDE applications with the truetype-fonts and the 
spacing-problem only occurs within KWord. Maybe this bug is also related to 
47488 (... the 'g' is clipped on the bottom of each textline). 
 
As it seems that not everybody has this spacing-problem, it would at least be 
interesting, how many people are affected. For those who are: it would be 
great if someone could have a look into this issue before KOffice 1.3. Thanks 
in advance! 
Comment 6 Nicolas Goutte 2003-09-10 22:00:47 UTC
Can you really exclude KPresenter? (As KWord and KPresenter have the same text 
engine, it is important to know if they share the bug or not.) 
 
As for the cut descents, this should be fixed in the meantime. 
 
Have a nice day! 
Comment 7 Peter Penz 2003-09-11 11:57:01 UTC
I checked also KPresenter now: the same issue appears here. It is not always to 
easy to recognize this wrong used gap between the glyphs, because it seems to 
be dependant from the zoom-level and the used glyphs. I always try to write a 
simple "Hello" in e. g. Arial or Times - between the 'e' and 'l' the most time 
the gap is too large. Changing the zooming level also helps to recognize this 
issue... It helps also if you e. g. use KMail and set the same font with the 
same size for writing a mail and write 'Hello'. Compare it to the 'Hello' in 
KWord and KPresenter even when zooming is set to 100% you'll see the 
difference. The attached screenshot from Markus Lackner shows this issue quite 
well. I hope this description is not too confusing ;-)
Comment 8 David Faure 2003-09-11 14:08:53 UTC
Subject: Re:  fonts display with incorrect spacing in kword

On Thursday 11 September 2003 11:57, you wrote:
> I checked also KPresenter now: the same issue appears here. It is not always to 
> easy to recognize this wrong used gap between the glyphs, because it seems to 
> be dependant from the zoom-level and the used glyphs. I always try to write a 
> simple "Hello" in e. g. Arial or Times - between the 'e' and 'l' the most time 
> the gap is too large. Changing the zooming level also helps to recognize this 
> issue... It helps also if you e. g. use KMail and set the same font with the 
> same size for writing a mail and write 'Hello'. Compare it to the 'Hello' in 
> KWord and KPresenter even when zooming is set to 100% you'll see the 
> difference. The attached screenshot from Markus Lackner shows this issue quite 
> well. I hope this description is not too confusing ;-)

No, that's very clear to me. The bug is known, but unfortunately very difficult
to fix until Qt 4.

Yes, it "works in KMail", but KMail (or any other editor) isn't WYSIWYG. If you
change the zoom level, the text will take more, or less, space (proportionally).
In KWord it has to take the same space - so that changing the zoom level
doesn't change the layout of the document.

Comment 9 Dik Takken 2003-09-19 12:39:37 UTC
I have the same problem here with KWord 1.2.92. All fonts seem to be affected, but when creating a 
printing preview, it looks perfect. So, what do you mean, WYSIWYG?? 
 
One font is particularly ugly on screen: Luxi Serif @ 11 pt, 123% zoom. Try it, it's horrifying :) 
Prints beautifully though.. 
 
But People, Fonts in KWord still look much better than in MS Word :) 
Comment 10 Andrew Somerville 2003-10-13 17:08:53 UTC
It's funny, because the only word processor that resolves this on screen to my 
satisfaction is MS Word. 
 
With KWord I've had problems like the charactars appearing 2 spaces apart with 
every font I applied, and being aligned in vertical columns at rediculous 
distances from one another.  
 
I can't tell you how much I would like to see a typesetting configuration 
feature in kword, and some of these issues at least addressed with some way to 
let the user gain control over them, provided that they're not solvable 
internally (which I'm sure they are.) Or possibly a standard set of fonts that 
always work correctly and that the user can count on having in KWord.  
 
However I don't think I've ever seen a word processor with poorer typesetting 
than kword, and even if you had to steal the ABI Word's typesetting, I still 
think it would be a huge step ahead for the project. 
 
In any case, I wouldn't release another version until you're sure you have 
this bug well under control. I mean to start using kword, I have to know that 
I document I typed on one machine is still going to look the on every KDE 
machine I take it to (like it does in MS Word.) 
Comment 11 David Faure 2003-10-13 18:10:53 UTC
Subject: Re:  fonts display with incorrect spacing in kword

On Monday 13 October 2003 17:08, you wrote:
> However I don't think I've ever seen a word processor with poorer typesetting 
> than kword

And strangely enough, lots of people are very happy with it.
I'm certainly NOT saying you're wrong - this is definitely an annoying problem -
but it's very related to fonts: the actual fonts themselves, and the font setup
(RENDER, Xft, the DPI settings of the screen etc.). This is no excuse, the bug
is there and it's real, but I hope it explains at least why we can put out a new
version without shame - it works fine for some people, even though it doesn't
for others (no idea about the proportions there, so I'm not saying "most" for either).

Fixing this problem for real requires major changes in Qt (WYSIWYG in QFont)
- which are hopefully in the works, and which should be in Qt 4, but I have
no guarantee of that.

Comment 12 Nicolas Goutte 2003-10-13 19:41:32 UTC
Subject: Re:  fonts display with incorrect spacing in kword

At the end, it would really interest me to know why it is always people using 
SuSE (me included) that see such kind of problems. What is different that 
other distributions do not see it (or much less?)

By the way, if you use Xft, be sure that it is not disabled at Qt level (see 
the program qtconfig .) Because using Xft makes a lot of difference.

Have a nice day!

Comment 13 Brandon Nuttall 2004-02-25 07:56:46 UTC
I have seen this problem too.  I am attaching two .pdf files that show this problem in gratuitous detail.  The font is Thorndale, which is TTF.  The one that looks good was exported from OpenOffice.org, and the one that looks bad was exported from Kword.
Comment 14 Brandon Nuttall 2004-02-25 07:57:31 UTC
Created attachment 4874 [details]
This is how this document is rendered in Kword.
Comment 15 Brandon Nuttall 2004-02-25 07:58:18 UTC
Created attachment 4875 [details]
This is how the document is rendered in OpenOffice.
Comment 16 Jo Øiongen 2004-07-09 11:28:51 UTC
*** Bug 46358 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 17 missive 2004-11-23 16:41:00 UTC
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***
Comment 18 David Faure 2004-11-23 20:00:18 UTC
*** Bug 93757 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 19 Dik Takken 2005-03-20 22:10:20 UTC
I also experience severe kerning problems. My setup:

Gentoo Linux with all the latest stable packages:

* X.org 6.8.1
* QT 3.3.3
* KDE 3.3.2
* KOffice 1.3.5
* Latest stable fontconfig, freetype, etc

For me, the problem is exactly the other way around: Fonts display perfectly in KWord (at all zoom levels) but when you print a document, the kerning is very bad, it looks terrible. I will include screenshots of kword display and the print preview below. This happens with all fonts I have, both TTF and Type1. Even fonts like Arial and Times New Roman cannot be printed correctly.
Comment 20 Dik Takken 2005-03-20 22:12:05 UTC
Created attachment 10218 [details]
Screenshot

Screenshot of KWord font display. Everything looks perfect.
Comment 21 Dik Takken 2005-03-20 22:14:21 UTC
Created attachment 10219 [details]
Screenshot

Screenshot of the print preview. Severe kerning problems. Used TTF font is
Times New Roman, but all fonts look equally bad.
Comment 22 James Richard Tyrer 2005-04-06 10:33:30 UTC
IIUC, the glyph spacing problem is a Qt issue.

The glyphs are hinted to display at the screen resolution and the printed spacing is then based on these sizes NOT the actual size of the glyphs that will be printed.

-- 
JRT
Comment 23 Nathan Olberding 2005-04-06 17:27:28 UTC
So... should this be reported to Qt?
Comment 24 David Faure 2005-04-06 17:33:48 UTC
> So... should this be reported to Qt?


No. The wrong WYSIWYG implementation is in koffice, but Qt4 will come with a nice
implementation of a richtext engine including WYSIWYG text layouting. I'm in contact
with TT about this, and I have to wait for Qt4 - no need to report anything new.
Comment 25 Dik Takken 2006-03-20 14:08:44 UTC
I checked the font kerning problems again on KWord 1.5 Beta2, and things have improved. It is still far from perfect, but printed documents do not look obviously wrong anymore.

Will attach screenshots below.
Comment 26 Dik Takken 2006-03-20 14:09:59 UTC
Created attachment 15219 [details]
Screenshot of the KWord window
Comment 27 Dik Takken 2006-03-20 14:11:07 UTC
Created attachment 15220 [details]
Screenshot of the printing preview
Comment 28 m2j 2006-12-10 23:27:25 UTC
Hello,
again I want to remind of this Bug. In Version 1.6.1 this Bug still exists.
I stumbled on it on screening as well as on printing.
I'm confused, because the same text in same font and size looks brilliant in KSpread.
Comment 29 David Faure 2006-12-11 10:41:33 UTC
On Sunday 10 December 2006 23:27, mmj wrote:
> again I want to remind of this Bug. In Version 1.6.1 this Bug still exists.

The proper solution to the WYSIWYG problem will come with Qt-4.0 and KOffice-2.0

> I'm confused, because the same text in same font and size looks brilliant in KSpread.

Yes but kspread isn't WYSIWYG, so sometimes the printed text gets bigger than its containing cell,
while everything is fine on screen.
Comment 30 Thomas Zander 2007-10-20 11:50:55 UTC
*** Bug has been marked as fixed ***.