Font Rendering

[manwithouthat1]

I've been using OpenOffice as my daily office suite for about a year now. Everything is great, except that I've noticed the font rendering (that is how text appears on the screen) is inferior to that of MS Word. I consistently use Century Gothic, size 8, and at all zoom levels, the spacing is more even and it is generally easier to read in MS Word. Odd thing is, once I export to .pdf, it looks great. It's only within OO that it appears less smooth.

Windows XP, 1024 x 768.
Toggling ClearType options has no effect.

Is there any way to improve the on-screen rendering of text?

[Hagar Delest]

Can you post a screenshot here to show the differences? (use .png format).

[foxcole]

http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/fontguide.html

OOo was originally designed to use XFonts, whereas Century Gothic is a TrueType font. It also contains few hint points, so if you zoom in on it, in either Word or Writer, you can see it is angular instead of curved. MS Office acquired TT fonts early in its career, so I'm not surprised it's better at rendering them. Very likely your printer is also designed specifically to work with TT fonts, so it prints a smooth rendition.

My only suggestion is you might want to choose a different font to work in. You need something more readable than Century Gothic, clearly. Perhaps you can change the default font style back to Century Gothic before printing (but you'd most likely need to go through your document and make sure it paginates cleanly because the text flow will change).

[Chai]

Hi,

I have been having the same exact problem. I just started using Open Office 2.4 on my Windows XP Pro SP2 machine and love it, except I use Century Gothic extensively and it renders it blocky, just like the original poster has experienced. This problem persists in Calc as well as Writer (I haven't tried any other apps yet).

If there is no extension to correctly render True Type fonts, I would like to know if there is a way to universally change fonts, such that OO can change all Century Gothic formatted text in any document into another font I choose? To manually do so would require so much time on my part it would not be worth it. Also, does anyone know if Sun intends to add True Type support anytime soon? Finally, is there a place for downloading additional fonts... maybe there is a XFont font similar to Century Gothic?

Thanks.

[bhmt]

I would like to know if there is a way to universally change fonts, such that OO can change all Century Gothic formatted text in any document into another font I choose?

Probably (Find & Replace.. format..font, etc..) but how about if you kept the font you like in your document and OO only showed YOU something different? Check Tools > Options > Openoffice.org > Fonts .

Put tick in the "Apply Replacement Table" and read the help maybe. Note that you can let it only change on your screen, or change your screen and what you print. As I understand it, it leaves the original font in the document itself for the rest of the world. (Especially helpful if you're reviewing someone else's odt and want to return it as was)

I haven't experience to know how much if might throw off your view of the formatting.

[Chai]

but how about if you kept the font you like in your document and OO only showed YOU something different? Check Tools > Options > Openoffice.org > Fonts

Thanks for the tip. That's good to know, but I share some of my docs with users of MS Office and want them to see the same thing I see.

Probably (Find & Replace.. format..font, etc..)

Though it would still require some manual inspection and editing, that would make it a lot easier to switch fonts. I'm going to experiment, thanks!