Writer/Math handling of unicode symbols

[Glen_Reesor]

I'm working on translating the Math FAQs from French and have discovered that both Math and Writer only display a subset of the displayable characters in any given font.

For instance, the double arrow character ⇄ (unicode 21c4) exists in a number of fonts, and can be inserted by typing CTRL+u21c4, yet it doesn't show up in Writer's Insert->Special Character or Math's Catalog->Edit windows.

Does anyone know why there's only a subset? Is it arbitrary, or perhaps chosen to mimic the subset shown in MS Word?

Thanks.

- Glen

[Glen_Reesor]

That should be CTRL + SHIFT + u21c4.

[Regina]

Hi Glen,

Glen Reesor schrieb:

I'm working on translating the Math FAQs from French and have discovered
that both Math and Writer only display a subset of the displayable
characters in any given font.

For instance, the double arrow character ⇄ (unicode 21c4) exists in a
number of fonts, and can be inserted by typing CTRL+u21c4, yet it
doesn't show up in Writer's Insert->Special Character or Math's
Catalog->Edit windows.

Does anyone know why there's only a subset? Is it arbitrary, or perhaps
chosen to mimic the subset shown in MS Word?

No. The Insert Special Character dialog does only show those characters which are really contained in the font. It does not consider any character replacement. So to get the character ⇄ (unicode 21c4) you have to choose a font which contains it, for example "DejaVu Sans".

Kind regards
Regina

[toki]

Glen Reesor wrote:

Does anyone know why there's only a subset? Is it arbitrary, or perhaps chosen to mimic the subset shown in MS Word?

That is a limitation of the font that is being used, not of LibO.

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, OOAuthors had a list of recommended fonts for each suub-range of Unicode. I don't remember if that was an "officially adopted policy" within OOAuthors, or an informal proposal, or something else.

Regardless, I think that OOAuthors should at least have a document that can be pointed to, for both internal use, and public consumption, if only to avoid issues/problems such as the one being described.