Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 31272
ZWSP (CTL) should print when "non-printing characters" selected
Last modified: 2013-08-07 14:38:26 UTC
In some Indic languages, such as Thai, Khmer and Lao, words are written one after the other without space between them. In order to separate the words (for line breaking, spell checking, etc.) the Zero-Width Space (ZWSP, /u200B) is used. The ZWSP cannot be seen at all in normal text, but it should be detectable when using the "non-printing characters" option, so that users now if they have been placed in the right location. Word processing in these languages becomes much more difficult without this feauture. In other processors, a glyph with two squares (one inside the other)is used to represent the zero width space.
reassigned to US.
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related: issue 28795 issue 13092 and especially issue 30361 (this one is probably a dupe of the latter)
Request for enhancement: Zero-Width Space US->FT: you may consider to change issue 30361 to a broader sence and also cover this issue within issue 30361.
Falko, Relating this issue to 30361 has somehow killed it for 2.0, which is a pity because for Khmer and Lao (and also Thai, but less important because they have other solutions) ZSWP itself is 16% of the characters typed (most used character by far, as space in English). So it is an important issue to be able to know where the character has been typed. Would there be any way of saving it for 2.0 ?
Microsoft word uses a very wide character to represent zero-width space when the "non-printing characters" option is selected: a full-height square with another square inside. A text that uses Zero width space will have a large number of them in one line (our statistics say that 16% of characters are ZWSP), so when the "non-printing characters" option is selected, and to avoid changing the line-breaking, the text really needs to be compresed to 2/3 to half of the space that it occupied before. As this is not possible, the text is displayed in a very ugly way. The character used to represent ZWSP should therefore be very thin, so that it does not affect too hard the rearrangement of text when "non-printing characters" is selected. My favourite would be a thin line with some character above or below, such as an inverted circunflex accent placed above).
HDU->FME/FT: this seems to be an important feature for some scripts, which shouldn't be too difficult. Is it possible to rechedule it to a 2.x target?
I have created a small picture with how MS behaves, its problems and a proposed glyph. It is in: http://www.khmeros.info/ooo/issues/ZWSP_example.jpg
Fixed in 2.0.1
The Issue you raised has been marked as 'Resolved' and not updated within the last 1 year+. I am therefore setting this issue to 'Verified' as the first step towards Closing it. If you feel this is incorrect, please re-open the issue and add any comments. Many thanks, Andrew Cleaning-up and Closing old Issues ~ The Grand Bug Squash, pre v3 ~ http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/announcementbeta.html
As per previous posting: Verified -> Closed. A Closed Issue is a Happy Issue (TM). Regards, Andrew