Emojis lost colors, now only monochrome after updating to LibreOffice 7.5.5?

[Just_a_writer]

Hi,

I’m on Windows 10, 22H2, and I was using Libreoffice 7.4.5 until an hour ago.
I have a Calc spreadsheet that displayed multicolor emojis made with WIN+. (period) exactly as they should appear (at least in most cases), in multiple colors as they should be.

But now, opening that same document in 7.5.5, they’re different, ugly and monochrome, see comparison screenshot below.

Is there a setting I can reverse somewhere to revert this regrettable change? Or is a downgrade to 7.4.5 my only option to get it working properly again?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[mariosv]

Please take a look on Can’t get color emoji in Writer

[Just_a_writer]

@mariosv

Please take a look on Can’t get color emoji in Writer

Thanks for your reply @mariosv , but that doesn’t apply to my case at least - Skia is already active, and forcing it changes nothing.

[mikekaganski]

The Win+. does not define which font is used for the inserted emojis; and so, they are attributed with the same font (e.g., Liberation Serif) as the other text. But that font does not include the emoji glyphs. So, some substitution has to happen.

The automatic font substitution is never a perfect process; sometimes, there is something helping to make a good decision; but most of the time, the substitution machinery simply finds the first font that includes a glyph for the requested code.

Both the substitution algorithm may change with version (and be better in some cases, while worse in others); but the most probable is the tdf#144348 - which removed an emoji font (“EmojiOne Color”) from LibreOffice bundle. And it’s likely, that the font got used before, but not available now.

You likely need to define the font used for the emojis in your documents (simply select them, and apply a good-looking font); and possibly, it’s worth it to file a bug, so that we add some hard-coded preferred choice, allowing to use a good font when it’s just one of emoji fonts on the system.

[Just_a_writer]

Thanks for replying, @mikekaganski !
This sounds akin to what I was expecting.

@mikekaganski

You likely need to define the font used for the emojis in your documents (simply select them, and apply a good-looking font

Well, I did suspect that fonts played a part, however, I will say that I’ve tried changing the font to many different ones in an attempt to fix this issue, and nothing helps.

The final “nail in the coffin” that makes me think you’re perhaps a little off the mark is that if I choose “EmojiOne Color” as the font in Libreoffice 7.4, it actually goes monochrome.
Whereas the nicer, multicolor ones just appear correctly if the cell is Liberation Sans, Arial, etc.

I’d like your take (and anyone else’s who care to chip in) on this before filing a bug.

Cheers!

[Just_a_writer]

Hi @mikekaganski and any others, I’m still looking for a response to my latest post above, specifically this:

@Just_a_writer

I’d like your take (and anyone else’s who care to chip in) on this before filing a bug.

Cheers!

Please, anyone?

[EarnestAl]

If you have EmojiOne font (B&W) installed then it might be first selected, see How to insert emoji in plain-text (B&W) style? - #4 by EarnestAl

I would experiment but I don’t want colour emoji font

[Just_a_writer]

@EarnestAl, you solved my problem!

All I need to do is select the font “Segoe UI Emoji” for the cells I want proper color emojis in, and they are shown correctly! For some reason, this doesn’t happen automatically in LibreOffice 7.5.5, whereas it worked fine in 7.4.5 - although the older version does not display what actual font is used (it just stays on whichever font you had already set, such as Liberation Sans) - but it clear now that the older version substitutes into Segoe UI Emoji.

Hope this post helps anyone else running into this problem!
And I hope that the developers fix this bug.

Thanks, everyone.

[mikekaganski]

@Just_a_writer

And I hope that the developers fix this bug.

It is not a bug. You say “I want emoji index X”, and do not say which font to use. The software finds you some font then, having that emoji. Nothing wrong. And no one would ever consider a “fix”, unless there is a report.

[Just_a_writer]

Hi @mikekaganski

I have to disagree, but I realize I’m not on the dev team and their policy for these things may agree with you and not me.

But I would argue that when a user pastes something into a document, they have a reasonable expectation for it to be represented as closely to the original as possible. And as I’ve stated, it DID work much better in 7.4.5 - most emoticons looked the way they should without any extra steps required. But in 7.5.5 they’re “translated” to a different font, that looks uglier and is monochrome only.

I’m in IT myself for many years now, but I have to say I frequently scratch my head over what is and is not considered a bug or feature degradation in software by developers sometimes.

But if you think there’s no point in registering a bug ticket for this, I won’t waste my time doing so.

Do appreciate your input, thanks again.

[mikekaganski]

@Just_a_writer

But if you think there’s no point in registering a bug ticket for this, I won’t waste my time doing so.

??? I thought I made my point clear…

@mikekaganski

And no one would ever consider a “fix”, unless there is a report.

As to

@Just_a_writer

a user pastes something into a document, they have a reasonable expectation for it to be represented as closely to the original as possible

• what was pasted? If Windows does not define which font to use, LibreOffice has to guess. I already wrote initially, that the guess is just a guess; and it may change because of many reasons - and where it degrades in some way, it could well improve in a different more important scenario. But unless you file a ticket, there’s nothing to improve.