08 Sep 2020

LibreOffice Tips & Tricks: Replacing Microsoft Fonts

Posted in Tips & Tricks By Italo Vignoli On September 8, 2020

Fonts are one of the main culprits of LibreOffice interoperability problems with Microsoft Office documents, when viewed from the end user’s point of view. In fact, Microsoft Office document are often using one of the default fonts – either the old “Core Fonts for the Web” (deprecated in 2002, but still in use) or the new “ClearType Fonts” (launched in 2000, and now adopted by Windows and Office) – which are not always available in LibreOffice, as they are proprietary and cannot be distributed with open source software. Also, in the case of ClearType fonts, the license is strictly connected to the Windows and/or Office license, so to legitimately use them with LibreOffice you need a Windows license where they are included.

When LibreOffice opens a Microsoft Office document, it will replace the fonts which are not available with one of the default Liberation fonts, which are metrically compatible with Arial (Liberation Sans), Courier New (Liberation Mono) and Times New Roman (Liberation Serif), but will have an impact on the visual appearance of the document if they replace a different font (in this case, the user will usually start to complain loudly about LibreOffice, without even checking if the contents are still there…).

To reduce the impact of this problem, which cannot be eliminated, at least until users stop using fonts creatively, LibreOffice offers a specific feature, a font replacement table that can be configured according to the user’s needs, and is among the program’s options. If the table is configured correctly, LibreOffice replaces the fonts with those metrically compatible – or simply more similar – defined by the user, and this in most cases will prevent the document from looking different. Luckily, there is a large number of free open source fonts available, with some specifically developed to replace Microsoft fonts as in the case of Croscore Fonts, from several online repositories. I suggest Google Fonts, as the website provides not only the font files but also all the associated legal resources, including the license.

My LibreOffice font replacement table, which has been developed over the years, includes the following font pairs (the first is replaced by the second, which is installed on my Linux PCs): Arial -> Arimo, Calibri-> Carlito, Cambria -> Caladea, Consolas -> Inconsolata, Courier New -> Cousine, Franklin Gothic -> Libre Franklin, Georgia -> Neuton, Gill Sans -> Cabin, Impact -> Oswald, Palatino -> Crimson Text, Perpetua -> Lustria, Times New Roman -> Tinos, Twentieth Century -> Spartan, and Verdana -> PT Sans. This is how it looks in LibreOffice:

Installing fonts is rather easy, but for those who are not familiar with the procedure there are a couple of articles which provide a quick tutorial: Windows & macOS, and Linux.

Comments

  1. By Pierre

    It would be fine if the user is informed that some of the fonts in its documents are missing. Not Only for MS documents, but for all document. The way it done now is only an italic name of the font in the UI. Maybe just having a red name of the font would warn the user that the current font is not available on his computer OS
    Better, he could be told if the font is free and available on the web
    Better again, if not free, the substitution font could be proposed

  3. By James Harking

    Hi Italo,

    This is a fantastic idea, thank you for highlighting this point. However let me just ask why isn’t this the default for non Microsoft Windows users (I assume that Windows Users have all the fonts through the OS) of LibreOffice?

    You have these mappings, I think as a pragmatic approach these (or similar mappings) be the defaults upon new installation. LO ships empty with no substitutions by default, you would cut down quite a lot of the complaints users have with incompatibilities by supporting their productivity by doing the mappings on their behalf. I would hazard a guess that a sizable number of users have no idea of this functionality.

    If the end user is then not happy with the default choices they are free to change. The point is that you are supporting the end user through sane and reasoned defaults.

    If you can’t install these fonts by default and set the mappings then can they packaged up as easy extensions? I know that this is an area that is a big focus for LibreOffice 7.1. Make them super easy to install and inform the user that they are available.

    Kind regards,

    James

  4. By Romano

    Really useful and nice, thanks! Just a question: is there a way to save/restore this table in an external file, to avoid recreating it on every installation?

    • By Chris Kirkland

      I find a lot of settings can be saved to reinstall after computer problems by saving the User folder. This is the Windows location …AppData\Roaming\LibreOffice\4\user . I have not checked the font replacement table though.

  5. By Stephen R

    Somebody needs to package this up as a click-to-install for average non-techie users. Install the fonts and set LibreOffice font replacement table settings.

    Better yet would to make this the default for LibreOffice, if the license(s) allow it.

    It’s funny… I’ve never noticed this issue because I’ve only ever run Libreoffice as a test on computers that had the fonts. My Mac even has the fonts — probably a holdover from the last time I installed Office maybe 20 years ago.

  6. By Gilberto Schiavinatto

    Does anyone know if these replacements are preserved when updating versions.

  7. By sudo

    Thank you. Shared pairs are a very valuable resource.

  8. By Ariella

    Hint:

    The font replacement table cannot be edited until after you go down beneath it and check the “Apply replacement table” checkbox. Then the “Add” and “Remove” buttons become enabled. The dual text entry+drop down list fields remain editable throughout, which can be misleading. Bizarre UX choice.

  9. By Ariella

    Bulk font installation tip for linux users:

    It’s easier to bulk-add fonts that have been downloaded to achieve the substitution list suggested in the article. To do that, install the utility “font-manager” from apt repositories. It has a + button at the top left of its interface that lets you shift or control click multiple .ttf files in a file requester, and install them in bulk.

    • By Gus Pinsard

      I’m not sure if you got the point. Problem is exactly avoid installing proprietary fonts (if you don’t have the license for those) while still being able to maintain layout compatibility. The substitution table is the way to go. Sure there should be a more controlled and automatic way to (re)aply the table as others pointed out, but this depends on the OS. In Linux one can do it several different ways but much probably, the minimum common denominator would be saving the user’s preference folder as pointed by Chris Kirkland.