This is the COSCUP2022 presentation material. https://coscup.org/2022/en/session/LDXDFN

1. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.
Improve features about our language:
CJK issues of LibreOffice in 2022
Shinji Enoki
shinji.enoki@libreoffice.org
in COSCUP 2022
2022-07-30

2. 2
Shinji Enoki (榎真治)
● From Nishinomiya City, Japan
● A member of LibreOffice Japanese Team (2011-)
● Membership Committee Deputies of The Document Foundation
(2020-)
● Activity: organizing events, building communities,
sometimes QA
● Other community:
● Volunteer staff of Japan UNIX Society
● Volunteer staff of KANSAI OPEN SOURCE

3. 3
Live in Nishinomiya(西宮), Japan

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I joined COSCUP 2018 and 2019, 2021

5. 5
Talk summary
● About CJK functions of LibreOffice
● Case: Font dialog redesign
● Typical CJK bugs

6. 6
What are CJK issues /bugs
● CJK is an abbreviation for “Chinese-Japanese-Korean”
● Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are different languages, but
they have some common features
● LibreOffice has many language-specific features and issues,
CJK issue is one of them
● For example, RTL (Right-to-left script) such as Arabic is also
supported.

7. About CJK functions of LibreOffice

8. 8
Overview of CJK functions
● Text Layout
● Vertical writing
● Phonetic guides (ruby)
● Page Formats, include Line Composition
● Multibyte character
● Input methods
● Fonts
● etc...

9. 9
Chinese Conversion
● Convert Simplified and Traditional Chinese
● Writer: menu [Tools]-[Language]-[Chinese Conversion]
● Words convert, not only Chinese glyphs

10. 10
Vertical writing
● Writer: [Page Style] setting can be set to vertical writing

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Other slides
● COSCUP 2019 my slide
● https:/
/www.slideshare.net/eno_eno/state-of-cjk-issues-of-li
breoffice-2019
● COSCUP 2021 my slide
● https:/
/www.slideshare.net/eno_eno/state-of-cjk-issues-of-li
breoffice-2021-in-coscup
● LibreOffice Conference 2021
● https:/
/www.slideshare.net/eno_eno/state-of-cjk-issues-of-li
breoffice-2021-edition

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Reference: W3C Requirements documents
● Requirements for Japanese Text Layout
● https:/
/www.w3.org/TR/jlreq/
● “This document describes requirements for general Japanese layout realized with technologies like CSS, SVG and
XSL-FO. ”
●
Requirements for Chinese Text Layout 中文排版需求
● https:/
/www.w3.org/TR/clreq/
● “This document was developed by people working in different areas, using both Simplified and Traditional Chinese. ”
● Requirements for Hangul Text Layout and Typography
● https:/
/www.w3.org/TR/klreq/
● Rules for Simple Placement of Japanese Ruby
● https:/
/www.w3.org/TR/simple-ruby/
● Requirements for Japanese Digital Text Layout
● https:/
/github.com/w3c/jlreq-d/blob/gh-pages/README.md
● The new document is being created. Documents of digital native Japanese text layout

13. Case: Font dialog redesign

14. 14
TDF : Next Decade Manifesto
“To support the preservation of mother tongue by
encouraging people to translate,document, support, and
promote our office productivity tools in their mother tongue”
● I think these “Our Values” is very important
● But it's not easy to achieve
● Let's take a look at the font tab case

15. 15
Redesigned "Font tab" in dialogs
● Redesigned "Font tab" in dialogs for 7.4
● For CJK users, the redesign could significantly reduce
usability
● After all, it was redesigned again for usability
● Let's see what happened

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Redesigned "Font tab" in dialogs
〜7.3
Proposed
change
7.4rc1

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Trigger for redesign: Bug 139395
● "Font Effects" tab issue next to the "Font" tab
● Depending on the environment, the OK button cannot be
pressed

18. 18
Added transparency
OK/Cancel buttons are not visible.
Occurs only on low resolution
displays

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Why "Font" tab was redesigned
● The Font tab is also vertically long, so the same problem
could occur
● It's only in special cases where the resolution of the display is
low
● However, it violated the design guidelines
● Of couse, there are many places that violate design guidelines

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Feedback on the first redesign
● Some CJK members pointed out that there is a usability issue
● But it wasn't easily accepted
● The reason was that the developer gathered feedback in advance in
Telegram's CJK group and RTL group, and the feedback was positive
● There was no strong opposition,
but it was possible that there
was a problem.
● Note: It can be difficult to
oppose later

21. 21
Some suggestions
● Suggestion: Add an option button to set the same font in
Western and Asian (Bug 146910)
● Suggestion: Tabs (Western/Asian/Complex) are opened
according to the currently selected text (Bug 146928)
● Suggestion: Fit to guidelines with less whitespace and
minor layout changes (Commented in Bug 146928)
● --> None of the suggestions were adopted

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Second redesign
● Western is always
displayed on the left,
Asian and Complex are
switched by tab
● Usability issues have
improved for many users
● Will be released with
this design in 7.4

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Thanks to everyone who worked hard
● Communication is important
● Communication in English is not easy
● I think it's important to explain it carefully
● It would be nice to be able to commit code or make
suggestions
● To be honest, I couldn't do that.
● I think various suggestions led to the final improvement

24. Typical CJK bugs

25. 25
Asian phonetic guide for Japanese does not work
properly if I change the default "base text".: Bug#141466
● delete a part of Base text and press Apply, it becomes an
incorrect string
● Not fixed
delete

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Calc: Characters rotated when printed in Asian
layout mode of vertical writing : Bug#144378
● Calc menu
[Format]-[Cells]
>>[Alignment] tab
>>Enable "Vertically stacked"
and "Asian layout mode"
● Rotates when printed
●
Fixed 7.2.5/7.3 by Mark Hung

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Vertical writing issues
● There are some vertical writing bugs in LibreOffice
● Recently, when exporting to PDF or printing, bugs tend to
occur
● Regression bugs sometimes occur
● If you report a bug, it will often be fixed

28. 28
Meta issue for CJK
● Bug 83066 : [META] CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and
Vietnamese) language issues
● Meta issue for each CJK language
● Bug 113193 : [META] Traditional Chinese (zh_TW, zh_HK)
● Bug 113194 : [META] Simplified Chinese (zh_CN)
● Bug 113195 : [META] Japanese CJK issues
● Bug 113196 : [META] Korean
Basically only Bug 83066 is used

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Conclusion
● CJK features are difficult to understand unless they are CJK
people
● Not only the CJK function like the font dialog, but it can
have a big impact on us
● We have the potential to improve them through bug
reporting and communication

31. 33
Contact
●
Email: shinji.enoki@libreoffice.org