[Bug 1464056] Re: Some characters are invisible (libreoffice/freetype) - depends on font-rendering

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

** Changed in: freetype (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Confirmed

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1464056

Title:
  Some characters are invisible (libreoffice/freetype) - depends on
  font-rendering

Status in freetype package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Symptom:
    Certain characters are not reliably displayed in LibreOffice. Which character is visible depends on font size, font face, and even mouse-over.  It looks as though about 40% of the letters have been randomly made white-on-white!
  (This is really weird to track down, and extremely annoying!)

  Debugging:
   * I note that this affects LO, but not export to PDF. It also shows up in Abiword.
   * The font needs to be about 18pt or higher to show this, eg Liberation Sans, 18pt.  Font-face doesn't seem to matter.
   * Mouse-over the text, or even changing the window size alters which letters vanish.

  Test case (after hours of experimenting):
   * Font-rendering: smoothing = None   -> triggers this bug.
   * Font-rendering: smoothing = Greyscale -> all is well.

  I attach some screenshots both ways, to make this clear, showing both LO and the control panel. Toggling from one setting to the other makes the bug appear/disappear immediately.
    
  I think the root cause is in libfreetype6, but it might be in Cairo, or elsewhere.
  I'm using Ubuntu Wily-64 (having upgraded today from Vivid which also had the same bug)
  I'm running this under Ubuntu-Mate.

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