How to get better scalable bracket?

[Lupp]

Scalable brackets in Math formulae get rather ugly now (since some time, currently with V5.02) as soon as they need to scale to greater height. In specific (next to) horizontal parts of square or curly brackets are rendered some mm thick then.

In “old times”, when I still used Math more often, this was not the case. Now even a curly bracket from the OpenSymbol font sized to 88 points is looking much better than the lbrace eg, scaled to similar height.

Are there settings to better that?

(Editing:)
I want to illustrate the issue. See the attached example.
lof60133ScalableBracketsInMath001.odt

Is ‘Math’ actually orphaned? (Does @Regina know something about it? Did anybody at least read my offer? Nobody commented on it to date.)

(Editing 2018-01-10:)
Is there a working solution meanwhile? What needs be done to make it also work for me?
OR:
When will a solution to bug tdf#32362 be available? Comment #35 there encouraged hope, but that’s more than a year ago, and nothing seems to happen. Too bad that I don’t understand the technical background.

[Lupp]

My memories of “old times” may be inaccurate. The well rendered curly brackets I have in memory may have been imported from Word documents as graphics. I remember that I once made the effort to reconstruct many formulae with ‘Math’, (of StarOffice V7 then) but I am no longer sure if they rendered nicely in the beginning. Nowadays they surely don’t in the mentioned cases.

[Lupp]

Like next to every flaw of LibO this issue isn’t one I need urgently a solution for since I am a retired teacher of Math and Physics.
However, from my experiences before retirement, I can say that scientific teachers are more open to accept and to indirectly promote open software. On the other hand bugs like this one are very severe disadvantages in their eyes, probably making LibO definitely unsuitable.

[Lupp]

Ok. This is bug tdf#32362 which was reported 2010-12-13 and meanwhile discussed now and then and reconfirmed for new versions.

There is no remedy obviously. For years (long ago, when I was very active in teaching) the formula editor, first the one coming with MS Word, was one of my main software tools. Later I didn’t use it much, and then I even missed the mess I finally found reentering the field lead by a recent forum question.

Since I am still interested in promoting free software, and I suppose that some of the relevant groups needed to help grow acceptance for it are science students, math teachers, technicians who will be repulsed by this perpetuated grievance particularly severe, I annonce:

If someone can propose a detailed plan to actually fix the general drawbacks of Math and specifically the issue under discussion here, I am willing to pay an advancement of EUR200,00.

On completion of the task another EUR300,00 will be granted.

This does not exclude a proposal to condition any existing extension making it suitable for integration into LibreOffice as a regular part under every supported system, and for portable versions, too, under the present conditions of core development. The ability to read/rebuild existing Math formulae and a basic interoperability with MS software should be ensured in this case .

This is not a statement, of course, directly entitling anybody to claim payment. The first offered reward is subject to my judgement of the quality of the proposal. Conditions for the second one will then be determined. I will not make the second grant part of my testament.

Yes, I am aware of the fact that the above rewards will most likely not be sufficinet for payed development. I’m talking of an inducement.

I can be contacted via the PM facilities of either libreofficeforum.org or of forum.openoffice.org. Replacing “Lupp” with “jag” in Lupp@psilosoph.de will also offer a way .

Also see bug tdf#39750 .

[Zeca]

This is what we need! A petition to further enhance ‘Math’! I could only afford a small donation… but… Is anyone else interested?

[Lupp]

I added a comment to the issue tdf#97111
Let us hope the problem actually was already solved as Regina is claiming, and someone will successfully fight the regression.

[rautamiekka]

Use any simple monospace font, that should do the trick.

free monospace font OR free monospace fonts is a good googling sentence.

[Lupp]

Thanks!

And sorry. The monospace fonts I tested were not clearly better than OpenSymbol. “Proportional” fonts do better.

My main concern is, however, how to get ‘Math’ to apply another font with scalable brackets - and even simply to tell me which one it is using by default.

[rautamiekka]

@Lupp You’re right, currently there’s no way to force only Math to use different font, just all of them, so you should make a feature request at https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=LibreOffice with Formula Editor as component and Inherited from OOo as version; I think those are the correct ones. If not, they’ll correct it. Be sure to link both ways !

[Lupp]

@rautamiekka Thanks again! However, I meanwhile found the bug reports mentioned in my own answer to this topic - and I lost any confidence in the possibility of step-by-step advancements for ‘Math’.

[Regina]

It is a bug. It was OK in version 5.1 in Build-ID a933e01a54f08132c2d8699f7c6851a8b493d5dc (2015-08-04_06:10:12) and is broken in Build-ID c614e711136205252ac2c72f9772c718dafc471e (2015-08-12_20:36:06).

I have added a comment to https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32362.

[Lupp]

I meanwhile tested with “Version: 5.1.0.2 (x64)
Build ID: ecd3574d51754b043f865cf5bafee286d24db7cc
CPU Threads: 4; OS Version: Windows 6.29; UI Render: default;
Locale: de-DE (de_DE)”

In addition: UI en-UK
Ugly Braces unchanged.

[dg.aragones]

I understand the issue, since I’ve also had problems of this kind. In my current installation (v6.0) some brackets aren’t even displayed.

The way I usually work with equations in LibreOffice is by using the TexMaths extension. It uses Latex and I haven’t had any issues until now.

It might be useful for you too.

[dg.aragones]

I understand the issue, since I’ve also had problems of this kind. In my current installation (v6.0) some brackets aren’t even displayed.

The way I usually work with equations in LibreOffice is by using the TexMaths extension. It uses Latex and I haven’t had any issues until now.

It might be useful for you too.