https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=156625
Bug ID: 156625
Summary: It's difficult to figure out how to export unicode
characters to PDF/UA
Product: LibreOffice
Version: 7.3.7.2 release
Hardware: ARM
OS: Linux (All)
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Severity: normal
Priority: medium
Component: Writer
Assignee: [email protected]
Reporter: [email protected]
Description:
Special Character inserter adds unwanted and invisible character formatting,
making it difficult to export a document with hundreds of these characters to
PDF/UA.
Steps to Reproduce:
In a Writer document, use Insert -> Special Character. Search for "half" and
insert the ½ character.
Elsewhere in the same document, type a series of digits 123456. Between 3 and
4, Insert -> Special Character. In the Hexadecimal field, set it to U+202F.
Put that character into your favourites, and insert it into your document from
there.
Now use Tools -> Accessibility Check.
(The Accessibility Check is also run as part of Export to PDF, when PDF/UA is
selected)
Actual Results:
At these locations in the document (and sometimes at other invisible locations)
you are told "The text formatting conveys additional meaning."
But this is perplexing because you never added any formatting, and there
doesn't appear to be any formatting. It is difficult to find and remove the
formatting.
More likely the user assumes that the error message is flagging the wrong
error, and that Unicode simply isn't usable in PDF/UA.
Expected Results:
Inserting Special Characters shouldn't add any character formatting (unless the
user actually specified different formatting, such as a different font).
Reproducible: Always
User Profile Reset: No
Additional Info:
The boxes above weren't the best way to explain this.
For me, this is impacting these characters:
* the quantity ½, common in recipes and carpentry
* numbers of the (Canadian) form 12 345.67 (where the whitespace is U+202F)
If these characters are copied from another document, or if whitespace is
inserted by Insert -> Formatting Mark, they pass the Accessibility Check (which
can be run independently or part of export to PDF/UA).
If these characters are inserted from the Special Character dialog, they look
identical, but they fail the Accessibility Check saying "The text formatting
conveys additional meaning." But as far as the user knows, there was no text
formatting. They didn't ask for any, and it looks just like the surrounding
text.
When you go looking for help on this, you encounter a number of web pages
claiming that you shouldn't use unicode in PDF/UA, so you think you can't use
these characters. But that's not the actual problem.
The problem is that characters inserted from the Special Character dialog are
getting extra character formatting that is hard to detect, but needs to be
removed to pass the Accessibility Check.
If you use Style Inspector and use the arrow keys to move over that area, there
is just the briefest blip that there is some Character Direct Formatting but it
immediately vanishes, so that gives you, maybe a hint. (Is this a bug? Why does
it vanish?)
You can use the Clone Formatting painter to copy the format of characters that
are OK, but that has no effect (which is itself a defect, but it's not THIS
defect). Again that makes you think it must be the characters themselves at
fault, but that's not the case.
Further, if you select the text that includes that character, the Styles
sidebar indicates "No Character Style" (this happens even if any multiple
styles are selected) so you think it can't possibly be a style problem. But it
is a formatting problem.
This works reliably: Clear Direct Formatting for selected text does work to get
rid of the formatting that was secretly added.
I'm on a new install of LibreOffice so I didn't reset my profile.
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