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SUBSTITUTING MICROSOFT OFFICE FONTS IN LIBREOFFICE DECEMBER 2017
SUBSTITUTING MICROSOFT OFFICE FONTS IN LIBREOFFICE
DECEMBER 2017
Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................3
Introducing the Carlito and Caladea fonts...................................................................3
Substituting Calibri and Cambria in LibreOffice............................................................4
Embedding fonts in LibreOffice documents.................................................................6
For more information..............................................................................................6
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IntroductionMicrosoft Office contains many components designed to intentionally lock businesses into using expensive Microsoft products. Examples of this practice range from proprietary, non-standardised file formats (which can only be interpreted correctly by Microsoft Office1), to the full set of features only being available on Microsoft Windows (preventing businesses from adopting superior Windows alternatives2). The cumulative effect drastically reduces choice for businesses and increases costs—especially when exchanging documents with other parties.
A frequently-overlooked point of lock-in with Microsoft Office is its default use of proprietary fonts. Contrary to the popular view, fonts are often not freely distributable, and may in fact be covered by restrictive license terms similar to proprietary software. Microsoft Office by default uses two such fonts: Calibri and Cambria. These fonts are only available in Microsoft Office, and are not freely available for download and use otherwise.
Alternatives such as LibreOffice have substantially levelled the playing field for businesses, making available comprehensive and powerful business office software for extremely low cost.3 However, Microsoft Office's proprietary fonts can create a pain point for businesses looking to adopt LibreOffice; without access to these fonts, documents received from Microsoft Office users can appear with "broken" formatting when opened in LibreOffice. The amount of time spent manually correcting formatting issues—caused exclusively by Microsoft's deliberate use of non-standard technology—can lead to frustrated staff and the completely incorrect assumption that the alternative product is not fit for use.
Industry experts identified this critical aspect of Microsoft Office lock-in and moved to create freely-distributable font replacements for Calibri and Cambria. This guide describes these replacement fonts in more detail, and how to use them with LibreOffice to resolve problems experienced when exchanging documents with Microsoft Office users.
The information which follows is generally only needed when sending and receiving documents intended to be editable. If editing is not required by either party, then documents should be converted to PDF format, which ensures documents will appear exactly as authored.4
Introducing the Carlito and Caladea fontsCarlito and Caladea are two free and high-quality fonts designed as drop-in replacements for Microsoft's Calibri and Cambria fonts.
These fonts are metrically compatible with Calibri and Cambria. This means that when Microsoft's fonts are substituted with Carlito and Caladea, the formatting does not change—as the replacement fonts are identical in width and height right down to each individual character.
1 www.apertura.co.nz/documentfreedom
2 www.apertura.co.nz/ubuntu
3 www.apertura.co.nz/office
4 www.apertura.co.nz/noneditabledocuments
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Carlito is a drop-in replacement for Calibri
Caladea is a drop-in replacement for Cambria
Carlito and Caladea should be installed alongside existing fonts in your computer's operating system (OS). They will then appear in all of your font-enabled applications, including LibreOffice.
The method of installing fonts on your OS of choice (for example, Ubuntu, Apple macOS, or Windows) is outside the scope of this guide, so please consult with your OS documentation or seek technical support if needed.
If needed, Carlito and Caladea can be downloaded from the following links:
http://openfontlibrary.org/en/font/carlito
http://openfontlibrary.org/en/font/caladea
Once the fonts have been installed, proceed with configuring LibreOffice to use them as substitutes.
Substituting Calibri and Cambria in LibreOfficeSubstituting Microsoft's Calibri and Cambria fonts with Carlito and Caladea means that when you receive an editable document authored in Microsoft Office, the presence of Calibri and Cambria will be detected and automatically substituted with Carlito and Caladea. The formatting of the document will therefore not change due to missing fonts, and will appear as the author intended.
Automatic font substitution results in:
• Smoother document interchange when opening documents containing Microsoft Office default fonts
• Fewer layout issues with opening and converting files to OpenDocument Format (ODF)
• Smoother document interchange with LibreOffice installed on non-Windows systems
• One less critical dependency on expensive Microsoft products
To enable this feature, first go to LibreOffice's font preferences window, which is found under Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Fonts:
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On the right-hand side of the window is the font replacement table. First, enable the tableby ticking the Apply replacement table tick-box. Next, select Calibri and Cambria as the fonts to be replaced, followed by Carlito and Caladea as the replacements. Untick the Screen only tick-box in both cases.
Here is a screenshot with the necessary settings made:
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Restart LibreOffice for the new settings to take effect. Now, documents containing Microsoft's proprietary fonts will be automatically substituted with Carlito and Caladea.
Embedding fonts in LibreOffice documentsAn additional step you can take to ensure the fidelity of documents authored in LibreOfficewhen exchanged with external parties using Microsoft Office is to embed fonts. Fonts embedded in a LibreOffice document are included as part of the file, which addresses the scenario of an external party receiving a document authored in LibreOffice using fonts not installed on the recipient's computer. Because the font is embedded within the file itself, the document will appear as intended when opened by the recipient.
Note: embedding fonts will increase the document file size.
The required setting can be made within the properties of the document being edited. Go to File > Properties > Font and select the Embed fonts in the document tick-box:
For more informationContact us at:
Apertura Designs Auckland, New Zealand www.apertura.co.nz © 2017 Apertura Designs. All rights reserved. Made exclusively with open source, open standards software.
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