Bug 34255 – All display fonts in KOffice display as small boxes in user created documents. Documents print correctly, though.

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

[Description John Thomas 2003-11-24 05:20:57 UTC]

Tried emerging both koffice-1.2.1-r1 and koffice-1.3_rc1.  Both seemed to
compile and install without error.  Attempt to create a document in KOffice. 
Text in the user interface (Title bar, menus, etc) appears correctly.  Text in
user-created documents appears as small boxes - one for each typed character. 
Tried changing fonts - all installed fonts produce the same result.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.Install koffice (1.2.1-r1 or 1.3_rc1)
2.Attempt to create a document in KWord (or any other KOffice app)
3.
Actual Results:  
All user typed text in the document appears as boxes.


Expected Results:  
Text should have displayed in the selected font.

[Comment 1 Paul de Vrieze (RETIRED) 2003-11-26 02:20:44 UTC]

Does this also happen in other kde/qt applications? In that case are the fonts in question also available through xfontsel? If not, try to check that they are world readable, and that the relevant fonts.dir and fonts.scale files exist and are complete.

[Comment 2 John Thomas 2003-11-26 05:10:50 UTC]

The problem only occurs in koffice, not in other kde/qt apps.  I can see fonts in xfontsel.  I tried all fonts that listed in the koffice user interface - all display as small boxes in user documents - but print correctly.

[Comment 3 Kenneth Jakobsen 2004-01-18 10:09:46 UTC]

I was just about to report this.
Thanks god, i've only written ~10 lines.
None of the other applikations, that have kword support can open it.
Ohh well.
My report properly needed a rewrite anyway... :D 

[Comment 4 Marcelo Goes (RETIRED) 2004-01-20 14:39:26 UTC]

I observed this same behavior here, kword only.
Portage 2.0.49-r21 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.2, glibc-2.3.2-r9, 2.6.1-gentoo)

[Comment 5 John Thomas 2004-01-20 16:15:09 UTC]

For what it's worth, I found a work around for this.  At least in my case, if I open the KDE Control Center and access the Font Installer under System Administration, I can fix the problem.  What I do (not all steps may be necessary) is to select the font categories that are enabled, disable them, and then reenable them.  When this is done, I click Apply and then close the Font Installer.  If KOffice or any of it's apps were open, I close them, then reopen KOffice.  The fonts are back and the boxes are gone.

I think this has something to do with getting X to reload its font cache, but I'm not sure.  Anyway, it works for me.

JATMAN

[Comment 6 Mikkel Schubert 2004-02-06 08:34:20 UTC]

The workaround posted fixed the fonts for me, but not all fonts showed up in the fonts list in kword. Starting XFS fixed that (dunno why I hadn't enabled it before). 

[Comment 7 Caleb Tennis (RETIRED) 2004-05-26 08:48:21 UTC]

going to reassign to xfree to let them ponder on font caches and the like...

[Comment 8 Seemant Kulleen (RETIRED) 2004-09-09 15:31:24 UTC]

is this a common problem that you've seen, kde people?

[Comment 9 Gregorio Guidi (RETIRED) 2005-07-23 02:58:26 UTC]

Old bug and a lot of things changed in the meantime. Please reopen if this is 
still happening.