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Times New Roman Greek font

Posted: February 2nd, 2015, 2:48 pm
by Andrew Chapman
On my computer (OS Ubuntu 14.04) the Times New Roman Greek font has characters of different heights:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0gFZC ... sp=sharing

This is the case both in LibreOffice and on Google Docs with Firefox. Is it meant to be like this? If not, does anyone else have the same issue, or any idea how to resolve it?

Thanks, Andrew

Re: Times New Roman Greek font

Posted: February 2nd, 2015, 5:20 pm
by Thomas Dolhanty
Andrew Chapman wrote:On my computer (OS Ubuntu 14.04) the Times New Roman Greek font has characters of different heights:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0gFZC ... sp=sharing

This is the case both in LibreOffice and on Google Docs with Firefox. Is it meant to be like this? If not, does anyone else have the same issue, or any idea how to resolve it?

Thanks, Andrew
That looks bad! The 'same' character with a different accent is, of course, a different Unicode character. But why they are a different size in Times Romans on your system I can't imagine. When I type your text, in Times Roman on Google Docs, my text is correct, and each character is the same size, no matter what the accent/breathing mark (ie. every "α" the same as every other "α" and so on).
I wonder if your Times Roman font installation is up to date? It almost looks like there is a font substitution happening for the enlarged letters. You might try highlighting individual letters in the sequence and then check to see whether the font for that specific letter is reported as Times Roman.

Re: Times New Roman Greek font

Posted: February 2nd, 2015, 7:17 pm
by Stephen Hughes
Thomas Dolhanty wrote:You might try highlighting individual letters in the sequence and then check to see whether the font for that specific letter is reported as Times Roman.
The system is intelligent enough to supplement missing characters in a font from other fonts. If your Greek font only supports monotonic Greek, it could take the other characters from a font that has them, rather than just displaying boxes.

Re: Times New Roman Greek font

Posted: February 2nd, 2015, 7:33 pm
by Jonathan Robie
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Thomas Dolhanty wrote:You might try highlighting individual letters in the sequence and then check to see whether the font for that specific letter is reported as Times Roman.
The system is intelligent enough to supplement missing characters in a font from other fonts. If your Greek font only supports monotonic Greek, it could take the other characters from a font that has them, rather than just displaying boxes.
I think Thomas is probably onto something here. At least in theory, Times Roman should have all the characters he needs, even Sampi (Ͳ, ͳ) and digamma (Ͷ, ͷ).

Re: Times New Roman Greek font

Posted: February 2nd, 2015, 8:01 pm
by Jonathan Robie
Andrew Chapman wrote:This is the case both in LibreOffice and on Google Docs with Firefox. Is it meant to be like this? If not, does anyone else have the same issue, or any idea how to resolve it?
Oddly, I am having the same problem on Fedora, with both LibreOffice and Google Docs with Firefox.

Can you use another font?

Re: Times New Roman Greek font

Posted: February 2nd, 2015, 8:07 pm
by Andrew Chapman
Thanks for your help. I tried highlighting individual characters, but they all show Times New Roman, same size.

If I upload the document (.odt) into google docs, and allow it to convert into their format, the Greek shows properly (but other things go haywire). But if I type straight into a new google docs document, then I have the same problem with the Greek.

Andrew

Re: Times New Roman Greek font

Posted: February 3rd, 2015, 4:32 am
by James Cuénod
I've had this problem with Times New Roman on Fedora for ages (now running FC21). I quite like FreeSerif though, it's a pretty good substitute. Also, I think Stephen is on the money here. If it's true that Times New Roman should support all the characters, it wouldn't surprise me if our Times New Roman font file is reduced and so missing a bunch of glyphs (kind of like they do for web fonts).

Re: Times New Roman Greek font

Posted: February 3rd, 2015, 8:18 am
by Jonathan Robie
James Cuénod wrote:I've had this problem with Times New Roman on Fedora for ages (now running FC21). I quite like FreeSerif though, it's a pretty good substitute. Also, I think Stephen is on the money here. If it's true that Times New Roman should support all the characters, it wouldn't surprise me if our Times New Roman font file is reduced and so missing a bunch of glyphs (kind of like they do for web fonts).
OK, I'm going with that explanation then. Stephen, you win ;->

Re: Times New Roman Greek font

Posted: February 3rd, 2015, 9:51 am
by Andrew Chapman
It looks like Ubuntu substitutes Liberation Serif for Times New Roman. I remember that Times New Roman didn't show up in the list of fonts in LibreOffice, so I typed it in and it said it was Times New Roman in italics. It is said one has to install the Microsoft Core Fonts to get the real Times New Roman - I did that and they seemed to install OK, but it hasn't solved the problem. I guess that having made the substitution, it is locked into that in some way.

Try typing in Greek in Liberation Serif and it's the same problem - I think it's the characters with breathings that are affected.

Andrew

Re: Times New Roman Greek font

Posted: February 3rd, 2015, 10:23 am
by Andrew Chapman
Update: now the Times New Roman Greek is OK in standard script, but has the enlarged character problem in italic script. Liberation Serif is now OK in both...

Andrew