Font Qs

users
#1

I just installed LO 4.1 on my win vista laptop. the font I normally use on my desktops (ubuntu 13.10) is freesans. There is no freesans in the font list. Is this a 'windows thing'?

How large (in K) are each font file (I'm sure they vary somewhat)?

How do I delete the ones that I will never use?

During the install, I saw a message saying that the install program was "deleting backup files". Are these files that were created during the install process, LO files from the previous version, or MY BACKUP FILES?? :slight_smile:

John

#2

Hi :slight_smile:
Font files are fairly small and deleting one, even one that you never
appear to use, could have fairly dire consequences in Windows (people
have tried it before). So it's better to keep them. Windows comes
loaded with many proprietary fonts with weird copyright restrictions.
Ubuntu therefore uses ones that have copyleft licenses (= permissive
copyright that don't restrict usage) fonts. You can probably google
it (or duck-duck-go or other search engine "it") to find those fonts
and install them on Vista fairly easily. I think you have to drag
them into the
C;/Windows/fonts
folder.

Just out of curiosity why go from Ubuntu to the currently worst
version of Windows? (hmm, some would say Win8 is worse but both are
clearly fighting for last place). Since they have just stopped
selling Win7 i would guess they stopped selling Vista ages ago and
it's end-of-life might even have happened already. Xp is still
supported (although not for long) and Win7 doesn't stop being
supported until next year. Errr, you don't have to answer, it's more
of a rhetorical question tbh. We all get forced into things we don't
want to do sometimes or find the best choice we have is a bad one.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#3

I don't understand why freesans is not in the windows version. Does MS exert some kind of restriction to keep 'free' fonts out of apps? that's weird.

Re: your question re: win. Good one. I use Ubuntu on my desktops. Unfortunately, I have a need for database applications that are run by others in my company, so i can't have them selecting queries, forms, etc. as in LO, and I am constantly looking for a database program with a language, e.g. Foxpro in Linux. Not found. The sqls are back ends, and I will need to learn a C like language to write the application. I hit the ground running with dBASE II in 1980 creating business applications with only some basic (dartmouth) experience.

Since MS does not give us backup CDs for the laptops, and they create drivers for laptop features (modem and what else), I don't want to remove win from the laptops. I have only dual booted one with suse 8.2 a few years ago.

John

#4

Hi :slight_smile:
The fonts are in the OS, not in the LO installer and different OSes
have different fonts by default but you can always add new ones.
Sometimes after installing a new font LibreOffice doesn't pick-up on
it and i don't know how to fix that. Our usual fonts expert hasn't
been around for several days so it might be worth checking the
archives to see if you can understand his usual answer to this.

Base is a good front-end and prefers to work with an extenal back-end
rather than an internal one. That makes it ideal for
reading/writing-to back-ends on servers. Base can be a good local
front-end. On this list we often have some experts at working with
MySql as a back-end, sometimes Postgresql and others.

Dual-booting is a great way to go but if you go that way with Vista
then it's probably wise to resize the Windows partitions from inside
Windows. Before Service Pack one Vista often broke if resized by
external tools (such as if you had Windows on another partition or
used GnU&Linux tools). Usually it's MUCH safer to do that sort of
thing to partitions that are NOT mounted (in order to avoid the
potential for corrupted data). Normally after resizing Windows it
needs to check the integrity of the partitions next time you boot into
Windows so just let it run through that process. I guess John knows
all that already but it's one for the archives.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#5

If you install fonts while LO is running it won't recognize them until you close LO and restart it.

Virgil