LibreOffice Branding and Documentation

There is quite often arguements in the Ubuntu community regarding
fonts and the copyright that Microsoft holds for work that is made
using them. I don't think Microsoft would ever think about using this
copyright, yet they still persist with it and do not release their
fonts in an open way. You will find that Arial, TNR and Courier New
are read as 'Liberation Sans', 'Liberation Serif', 'Liberation Mono' ,
in Linux. Not sure about Macx,

The Liberation font set was an outcome of one of these arguements
across multiple communities that had been raging for some time.
I love the fonts, I think they are on par with MS fonts for screen
reading, I haven't really looked at printed typeface with them.

I think we should be using open licence fonts and the following links
are what I believe are the best of the bunch GPL Fonts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_(font)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%2B_Fonts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Libertine

The document that I sent out was simply a demonstration of what it
could look like.
Being new to the documentation team I don't want to push my views too
far and respect the work that has come before me, it is amazing how
much is there.

I think the larger Documentation team must discuss the numbered
outline before pushing it any further.
Also are we still going to have OOoAuthor trademarks on the
documentation or are we happy to associate the LibreOffice
documentation entirely with 'The Document Foundation' even if some
development is occurring on OOoAuthors?

Le 2010-11-04 21:09, Michael Wheatland a écrit :

============

I think we should be using open licence fonts and the following links
are what I believe are the best of the bunch GPL Fonts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_(font)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%2B_Fonts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Libertine

============

I believe that the Liberation font family is normally included in any Linux OS. The font was constructed by RedHat as direct replacement to MS primary fonts such as Ariel etc. They are also available for MSWin boxes as downloads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts

Marc

I just installed the Liberation fonts on my computer because they weren't
already installed. I think it would be nice if OpenOffice were to install
these fonts when the program itself was installed. This way everyone who
decided to look at the guides would have the correct fonts installed
automatically.

Hi Jeff:

In these cases, I think that it is always best to suggest to the user to install rather than have a programme install it for you without your permission. The user should always be in charge.

Are you on a Windows box?

Marc

In these cases, I think that it is always best to suggest to the user to
install rather than have a programme install it for you without your
permission. The user should always be in charge.

Are you on a Windows box?

I don't understand the "permission" aspect of having LibreOffice install
fonts automatically. If a user is voluntarily installing the program, then
they should accept whatever modifications the program performs. If would be
one thing if LibreOffice was installing a virus--it's simply installing
fonts which provide for a better user experience. It seems like it would
make sense for it to install free, open source fonts, especially if the
documentation is going to use a font other users may not have. We use
OpenOffice exclusively in my organization, and I can honestly tell you not a
single computer (300 of them) has the Liberation fonts installed. If I
wanted to distribute the documentation guide to my coworkers, they would not
be able to view it in its entirety.

And yes, I use Windows exclusively.

Jeff

These are MS licensed fonts, using them in free software manuals would be
suboptimal from a philosophical standpoint..

Deja Vu and Bitstream Vera families are installed by OOo, l presume therefore
libreO does the same.

cheers
GL

I guess it is OK if you have enough faith to let programmes install fonts on their own. It's just that not every computer is the same. Some people enjoy installing many fonts on their own, but I thought there was a maximum amount that you could install on a windows machine, maybe I am wrong. But what if there were and it caused your machine to fail?

IMO there should always be a warning window that will let a user accept or not accept installation of "extras" and that the software should not install any of these without user knowledge and permission.

Marc

Hello Michael,

Op 4/11/2010 9:38, Michael Wheatland schreef:

I have made a mock up document with the LibreOffice branding and colour scheme.
It also includes the number outline system, which personally I love
the professional look.

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B93nEslnhQO_YjAwMDE1ZDctNDM3MC00MTE0LTk5NDItNzlhZGFjNWQyODlh&hl=en&authkey=CKSL9MgJ

What do you all think?

It is nice to have the LibreOffice green in the documentation, but do not exagerate on the use of other colours. I noticed 4 shades of blue in the text, and the screenshots might still have another shade of blue. It looks to me that various types of fonts have been used as well, which, in my opinion, should be minimised.

Just my 2 €cents

Best regards

I don't understand the "permission" aspect of having LibreOffice install fonts automatically. If a user is voluntarily installing the program, then they should accept whatever modifications the program performs.

a) Does a user expect an office suite to install additional fonts?

b) Can their OS survive the addition of fonts?

How many fonts can be installed in Win7 before it blows up? I don't
remember the number, but it is low enough that people can, and do hit
the limit, just by installing additional non-MS software.

Windows is not the only OS that can blow up, because too many fonts are
installed. Admittedly, users have to work at installing fonts, for Linux
to blow up.

one thing if LibreOffice was installing a virus--it's simply installing fonts which provide for a better user experience. It seems like it would

When an OS blows up because of too many fonts, the effect is the same as
if the OS had been hit by a virus.

jonathon

Hi everyone,

b) Can their OS survive the addition of fonts?

How many fonts can be installed in Win7 before it blows up? I don't

remember the number, but it is low enough that people can, and do hit
the limit, just by installing additional non-MS software.

Windows is not the only OS that can blow up, because too many fonts are
installed. Admittedly, users have to work at installing fonts, for Linux
to blow up.

one thing if LibreOffice was installing a virus--it's simply installing
fonts which provide for a better user experience. It seems like it would

When an OS blows up because of too many fonts, the effect is the same as
if the OS had been hit by a virus.

This is possible? Never heard about that :S I do a lot of graphic design and
I do have several hundred of fonts, really, and I never had problems with
it.

I would strongly support LibreOffice installing up to around 20 open
source fonts and I would love to see the Liberation and Droid fonts
added to the default install.

People are installing LibreOffice because of it's open and free
philosophy (or maybe just because it's cheap), so we should provide
the end user with an overall experience which encompasses the full
open source package, including fonts.
How would you feel if you were inspired by the open source office app,
installed it and realised that it relies on MS fonts?

If people's OS blows up they need to submit a bug, but I can't see it
happening from installing fonts.
http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2002/06/mission_impossible_submitting.html

Michael Wheatland

Windows XP was around 600, then you need to install a font manager and yes
I've broken an XP install with too many fonts. I've had just shy of a
thousand in linux without any issues with the OS, Inkscape and the GIMP
occasionally have given problems which possibly could be tracked to having a
lot of fonts, but not definitively.

Cheers
GL

The Mac versions of LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org 3.3.0 include DejaVu, Gentium, and Liberation fonts. LibreOffice also has Libertine and Biolinum fonts.

If we are going to have LibreOffice install fonts, then we should have the user approve it through the installation process.

The Liberation fonts were created to replace the MS fonts on Linux boxes. I believe that these are normally installed on Linux so it's less of an issue there. I am not sure if this would clash with the installer if there are different versions of the fonts. Devs would have to be involved obviously to make all of this work.

I don't think that MS would ever consider having the Liberation fonts appear on their installs.

Marc

After spending 5-10 minutes searching the Internet for Windows font limits,
I was not able to find anything other than some older forum posts. I was
hoping to find something from Microsoft's website. If there were a limit to
the number of fonts that can be installed on a Windows XP or newer machine,
I'm sure something would've been listed in the search results. The only
Windows versions with font limitations were Windows NT/9x/ME, and I don't
think many people are running those still.

I agree with Michael--I'd like to see LibreOffice install a variety of open
source fonts.

There is an interesting article on about.com that states the following:

*How many fonts is too many?*
When you can no longer install more fonts you definitely have too many. As a general rule of thumb, you can expect to run into installation problems with 800-1000 or more installed fonts. In practice, you'll probably encounter system slowdowns with fewer fonts. There is no magic number. The maximum number of fonts will vary from system to system due to the way the Windows System Registry works.

There is a Registry Key within Windows (for Win9x and WinME versions) that contains the names of all the TrueType fonts installed and the paths to those fonts. This Registry Key has a size limit. When that limit is reached, you can no longer install more fonts. If all your fonts have very short names you can install more fonts than if they all had very long names.

But "too many" is more than just a limitation of the operating system. Do you really want to scroll through a list of 700 or even 500 fonts from within your software applications? For best performance and ease of use, you'd do well to limit installed fonts to fewer than 500, perhaps as few as 200 if you're using a font manager as described below.

http://desktoppub.about.com/od/fonttechnologies/f/toomanyfontswin.htm

Besides the registry limitation, you have to consider memory limits as well. 600 or more may cause slow performance for a users pc. But I agree that installing a few fonts is a good idea. I have just over 200 fonts on my system and I've had OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice and Microsoft Office installed. I'd be interested to see which fonts are installed with the current LibreOffice installation. Anyone know? I think installing 10 or so fonts with LibO would be a good number.

Ron

So I believe that with confirmation that you can install 200+ fonts
without problems, we could include 20 or so fonts with the LibreOffice
distribution.

When an OS blows up because of too many fonts, the effect is the same as if the OS had been hit by a virus.

This is possible?

I had to reinstall Win7 on my laptop, because I installed too many
fonts. (Literally, the only way to fix Windows was to wipe the drive,
and reinstall it.)

I do have several hundred of fonts, really, and I never had problems with it.

Whilst Win7 can handle more fonts than other versions of Windows, it is
very picky about those fonts.

The only figure that sticks in my mind, is 50K installed fonts for some
Linux distros, but majority can handle 100+K installed fonts.

jonathon

Yes, it works fine with 200+. 20 or so would be great. From what I read, some open source fonts are installed with a LibO installation. We may have to ask the programmers which ones.

BTW ... There have been on occasions where I have found that some files that I have helped with correcting font problems that the only solution was to install the Arial font. The files in question came from a friend of mine who does a lot of church community music work and receives files from all over the country. These file were on the whole either Impress or long convoluted write files first worked on Win machines. The formatting of the file was a mess even after I made sure that the compatible Liberation font was set to replace the Ariel font. It just didn't format correctly. After going over the file with various tries, I returned the original file and installed the public domain Arial font and the text realigned properly. For this person in particular, I now make sure that the public domain Arial font is always installed on her Linux box. In fact, I also do this for another contact who is also in the music field as composer and he had the same peculiar problems as well ... Linux box as well. All of my other linux contacts have never shown any indications of any such problems. I tried to find an example, but it looks like I've deleted them all.

I help manage approx. 40 Mandriva boxes in my local area.