Fonts revert to Liberation Mono for all Template choices Although not Chosen

An ODT Writer document updated across many months for some reason today has begun to use Liberation Mono (LM) as the font for all choices of Paragraph Style selected for new text entry. In addition, using Ctrl+M (via either keyboard or Menu) also ends up with LM. I’ve checked, and LM is NOT the default font for any paragraph template. It all looks like a bug, yet I am unaware of any recent changes in the Desktop.

OS: PRETTY_NAME=“Devuan GNU/Linux 5 (daedalus)”
uname: Linux ng3 6.1.0-18-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.76-1 (2024-02-01) x86_64 GNU/Linux
LO: 7.4.7.2
menu:Tool | Options | Libreoffice Writer | Basic Fonts (Western) :

  • Default: DejaVu Serif :: 10pt
  • Heading: Open Sans :: 14pt
  • (all others) : Open Sans :: 10pt

The ODT file uses templates for everything throughout. I have checked them as much as I can & all seems well. I have many years of experience using LO but cannot track down what could possibly have gone wrong.

I’m looking for methods to diagnose the reason for this strange new behaviour. Can anyone assist?

Hello ! Glad to see you’re back. If you don’t want to expose publicly one example file and its template, send them to me through private mail. In Discourse, click on the icon left of my name, then Message button.

I reported the same problem in the LO forum and the only response I’ve head is bullying insults from someone who has no clue but dominates the board anyway. I’m a retired AI computer scientist from the Pascal/Lisp era, and I’ve used LO as well as OO before that and Word Perfect before that (and used a program I wrote before that)–not to mention I’m a Mensan. So dumass bullies don’t phase me. But not getting a solution is a huge black-eye for LO. I don’t know what’s happened to LO, but it isn’t good and failure to fix such complaints doesn’t bode well for LO.

@Spook1 Which “LO forum”?

Regarding the issue, can you tell in which circumstances it happens? With which LO version? It may also be an undesirable interaction between user profile, LO and OS. Have you a sample file in which you observed the change? Was it base on LO factory default template or on a template of yours?

Your post is not a solution to he problem. You should have use Comment instead of Suggest a Solution.

Please attach a small sample file for analysis. Make sure the issue is still present. Add a description/note/pointer telling where to look at.

Example: Table Contents style is the default font (not Liberation) and all is well until I change the table. E.g., adding a new row in the middle of the table, the entire table becomes Liberation even though the Styles sidebar still shows the correct default font.

Version: 24.8.5.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: fddf2685c70b461e7832239a0162a77216259f22
CPU threads: 20; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (10.0 build 26100); UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

A description will never replace a sample file.

However, I think I understand you inserted a table in your document. You customised Table Contents paragraph style to your taste. But when you add a row, all your formatting is messed up.

This looks like your table was created according to a so-called “style”. These are not styles in the traditional sense. Consider they are some sort of macros which fire under various circumstances, like adding rows or columns. Then the macros scan the whole table and reset the formatting to their hard-coded specification.

If you intend to have custom formatting in a table, don’t use the so-called “styles”. The only reliable one is None. With any other, you must accept the formatting and layout designed by the “style” author. The macros operate with direct formatting which always takes precedence over paragraph and character styles, ruining your own decisions.

Attach a small sample file to confirm the diagnostic.

Thank you, you nailed it.

ISSUE
Sadly, a sample would only be a Before/After screenshot. I can’t record screen movement.

  1. Am in any table.
  2. Click (via Table tools above status bar) green bar for add a row.
  3. New row added.
  4. Entire table becomes Liberation Sans.

You took a lot of time to explain and I appreciate that.

FIXES

  1. I was thinking about editing the macro when I decided to make sure my default fonts were still correctly set–and they were not. I fixed those (again) and that may have helped. Not sure why an update changed the defaults but hopefully that will prevent the table action font change.

  2. Will set table style in dialog box to None.
    I have a detailed default template for my daily docs that has all the text, bullets, outlines, and tables I generally use. Once the table style is set to None, my template tables seem to work fine.

Again, thank you for your time. It will save me lots of frustrated minutes and hours going forward.

You cannot remove a table style by setting it to none.

I would remove the table style by selecting the table and then

  1. click Table - Convert - Table to text
  2. Select the resulting text and click Table - Convert - Text to table
  3. When the dialogue comes up ensure separate with Tab and table style None

For future reference, a sample is an .odt file with sensitive information removed but still showing the problem. Prepare the file then click the Upload icon, 7 th from left

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