Issue 123742 - Discontinued Arabic characters when exporting odt to pdf
Summary: Discontinued Arabic characters when exporting odt to pdf
Status: CLOSED NOT_AN_OOO_ISSUE
Alias: None
Product: Writer
Classification: Application
Component: save-export (show other issues)
Version: 4.0.1
Hardware: PC Windows Vista
: P3 Normal (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: AOO issues mailing list
QA Contact:
URL:
Keywords: Arabic, needhelp
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2013-11-24 12:50 UTC by amoun.butterfly
Modified: 2017-05-20 10:15 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: DEFECT
Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---

Attachments
Samples of discontinued Arabic words inside PDF (117.45 KB, image/jpeg)
2013-11-24 12:50 UTC, amoun.butterfly 		no flags Details
Sample text (23.66 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2013-11-24 14:55 UTC, amoun.butterfly 		no flags Details
PDF of the sample odt text (55.31 KB, application/force-download)
2013-11-24 14:58 UTC, amoun.butterfly 		no flags Details
Add an attachment (proposed patch, testcase, etc.)

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this issue.
Description amoun.butterfly 2013-11-24 12:50:08 UTC 
Created attachment 81984 [details]
Samples of discontinued Arabic words inside PDF

There is a problem when exporting odt to pdf. The problem is that characters which come after a consonant germination mark (shaddah) become discontinued. A kashida appears after the character which has a consonant germination mark (see attachement). The problem only occurs when exporting a justified text to pdf (not when the text is aligned right or left for instance), and it is something which cannot be seen in odt. It is only seen in pdf. 

P.S.: I came to realize that the same thing also happens randomly if I am using some other marks of tahskil (phonetic guides) like fatḥah and dammah.

For further information about tashkil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_diacritics
Comment 1 Edwin Sharp 2013-11-24 14:10:37 UTC 
Please attach odt of attachment 81984 [details].
Comment 2 amoun.butterfly 2013-11-24 14:55:44 UTC 
Created attachment 81985 [details]
Sample text

In red the sentences with characters which appear broken (discontinued) when the odt file is exported to PDF.
Comment 3 amoun.butterfly 2013-11-24 14:57:54 UTC 
(In reply to Edwin Sharp from comment #1)
I've attached a sample odt file as requested. I am also going to attach the PDF version of this text. The sentences colored in red are the ones which appear broken or discontinued when exported to pdf.
Comment 4 amoun.butterfly 2013-11-24 14:58:47 UTC 
Created attachment 81986 [details]
PDF of the sample odt text
Comment 5 amoun.butterfly 2013-11-25 01:24:09 UTC 
The issue which I signaled isn't technically a 'bug,' I think. The problem I pointed out is a font issue. I used in OpenOffice writer the same font which I used for years now in Microsoft word which is Arial.
However this is where the problem lies, some fonts' characters when used in Open Office Writer will appear broken if the odt were transported to PDF, under the conditions I detailed in the issue's description I originally posted.
Other fonts besides Arial will cause the same problem but I kept testing all the fonts installed in my PC till I found two which didn't cause the problem I signaled, which are Traditional Arabic and Simplified Arabic. 
I am genuinely sorry. I really thought that it was a bug because I also use the Arial font in Microsoft Word files which I export to PDF and the characters are displayed normally without a problem whatsoever.