Noto Kufi Arabic doesn't render in Powerpoint on Windows

[michaelmee]

Noto Kufi Arabic doesn't render in Powerpoint on Windows.

After installing Onto Kufi Arabic, restarting Powerpoint and entering text with Noto Kufi Arabic selected, a default font appears instead of the expected font.

It does, however work as expected in:

• Word on Windows
• Powerpoint on Mac OS.

Office 365: version 16.0.8067.2115
OS: Windows 10 Enterprise

Font: NotoKufiArabic-Regular.ttf
From: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/googlei18n/noto-fonts/master/hinted/NotoKufiArabic-Regular.ttf
Date: 2017-05-30
Version: 1.04

[marekjez86]

@michaelmee : could you provide me with the text that you entered there (don't speak/write Arabic; while I could get a sample text from Wikipedia, I want to reproduce the situation as close as possible to the original)? thank you.

[michaelmee]

Certainly :)
لدي إكره قوي لمايكروسوفت
Thank you

[Aknetster]

Same problem here.

[molhaMaleh]

Same problem here.
@marekjez86 could you please fix this issue?

[mdqara]

Any updates on this problem.. I have the same until now

[marekjez86]

https://github.com/googlefonts/noto-fonts/issues/1526

[mdqara]

#114

[marekjez86]

@michaelmee @Aknetster : thank you for the issue report.

Could you help us by

1. uninstall existing Noto Kufi Arabic font(s)
2. download and install the fonts from https://github.com/googlefonts/noto-fonts/tree/master/phaseIII_only/hinted/ttf/NotoKufiArabic
3. In your powerpoint select all the text you want in NotoKufiArabic
4. choose NotoKufiArabic as the font for your selection
5. Please let me know how the selected text displays
6. Note that this is a new version of NotoKufiArabic so there might be some new issues present -- it also might or might not fix the problem described here (if it works in Word or Notepad on the same system, but not in PowerPoint, then it might be a PowerPoint problem)

[nizarsq]

For Word on Windows; Tested reported issue on word (version 16.0.11929.20392) and NotokufiArabic work as expected. I used NotoKufiArabic in this directory https://github.com/googlefonts/noto-fonts/tree/master/phaseIII_only/unhinted/ttf/NotoKufiArabic.

[mdqara]

Still the problem exists with MS PowerPoint

[nizarsq]

@mdqara can you attach screenshot for the current behavior?

[mdqara]

@mdqara can you attach screenshot for the current behavior?

Yes, please check how the font is not working on powerpoint for this senstence: (بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم)
you may see how it will work on MS word

Thanks

[simoncozens]

Could you try something? Please uninstall the font you have and try this build instead:
https://github.com/google/fonts/raw/7a5fe95970040ec5ab452b11b953ebb3efad8c1c/ofl/notokufiarabic/NotoKufiArabic%5Bwght%5D.ttf
(Just as a test.) The version of Noto Kufi Arabic we have shipped so far just contains the Arabic glyphs; the link above is a version of the same font but with a number of added characters from the Latin glyph set. I wonder if Powerpoint does not show fonts which do not contain certain "important" glyphs (punctuation etc.)

[mdqara]

Thank you @simoncozens but still I have the same result.. you may try at your end and copy paste this sentence: (بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم)

[nizarsq]

@mdqara can you attach screenshot for the current behavior?

Yes, please check how the font is not working on powerpoint for this senstence: (بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم) you may see how it will work on MS word

Thanks

Thank you @mdqara. As far as I remmber PowePoint doesn't use Noto Kufi font, It shows the font is Noto Kufi but the actual font used to rendering the text is not Noto Kufi. I believe this is App issue. See https://github.com/googlefonts/noto-fonts/issues/1526#issuecomment-733396922

[mdqara]

Understood, that very unfortunate that PowerPoint has this issue.
Thank you @nizarsq

[simoncozens]

@chrissimpkins suggested that we check the OS/2 Unicode range and Code Page range flags. I think these should be OK because they passed a fontbakery check, but they are apparently used to determine font fallback in Powerpoint.

[chrissimpkins]

@chrissimpkins suggested that we check the OS/2 Unicode range and Code Page range flags. I think these should be OK because they passed a fontbakery check, but they are apparently used to determine font fallback in Powerpoint.

Here is Simon's build from https://github.com/googlefonts/noto-fonts/issues/931#issuecomment-1112114544 with the Unicode range and code page range flags set according to DTL OTMaster 8.9 approach.

NotoKufiArabic[wght]-bitflag-edit.ttf.zip

This sets Latin and a handful of other bits for ranges that have partial coverage in the font. We ran into a similar problem with fall back to a different family than intended in the PowerPoint environment a couple of years ago and it turned out that the target script bit flags were not set. The issue is different here but my understanding is that (at least in 2020'ish era PowerPoint) these bit flags play an important role in the PowerPoint font fallback stacks. It is not clear to me how they should be set in MS environments. Might be worth a check to see if this happens to address the PowerPoint problem.

ttx diff vs. Simon's build:

--- NotoKufiArabic[wght].ttf    2022-04-28T14:58:47.992391-04:00
+++ NotoKufiArabic[wght]-bitflag-edit.ttf       2022-04-28T14:49:29.598725-04:00
@@ -1075,12 +1075,12 @@
     <!-- Most of this table will be recalculated by the compiler -->
     <tableVersion value="1.0"/>
     <fontRevision value="2.107"/>
-    <checkSumAdjustment value="0x291cbf37"/>
+    <checkSumAdjustment value="0xe7cb9933"/>
     <magicNumber value="0x5f0f3cf5"/>
     <flags value="00000000 00000011"/>
     <unitsPerEm value="1000"/>
     <created value="Tue Jun  1 07:42:49 2021"/>
-    <modified value="Wed Apr 27 13:35:43 2022"/>
+    <modified value="Thu Apr 28 18:49:29 2022"/>
     <xMin value="-493"/>
     <yMin value="-593"/>
     <xMax value="2179"/>
@@ -1162,9 +1162,9 @@
       <bMidline value="0"/>
       <bXHeight value="0"/>
     </panose>
-    <ulUnicodeRange1 value="00000000 00000000 00100000 00000000"/>
-    <ulUnicodeRange2 value="00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000"/>
-    <ulUnicodeRange3 value="00000000 00000000 00000000 00001000"/>
+    <ulUnicodeRange1 value="10000000 00000000 00100000 01100111"/>
+    <ulUnicodeRange2 value="10000000 00000000 00100000 00001011"/>
+    <ulUnicodeRange3 value="00000000 00000000 00000000 00101000"/>
     <ulUnicodeRange4 value="00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000"/>
     <achVendID value="GOOG"/>
     <fsSelection value="00000000 11000000"/>
@@ -1175,8 +1175,8 @@
     <sTypoLineGap value="0"/>
     <usWinAscent value="1374"/>
     <usWinDescent value="738"/>
-    <ulCodePageRange1 value="00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000"/>
-    <ulCodePageRange2 value="00000000 00001000 00000000 00000000"/>
+    <ulCodePageRange1 value="00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001"/>
+    <ulCodePageRange2 value="00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000"/>
     <sxHeight value="890"/>
     <sCapHeight value="1272"/>
     <usDefaultChar value="0"/>

[simoncozens]

Thanks, Chris! @mdqara, please try Chris’ linked file. (I would test it myself but don’t have a Windows computer or PowerPoint…)

[simoncozens]

I've had no feedback on this for a year, and I don't have access to Powerpoint to test. If anyone can test the new version and finds a problem, I'll reopen.

[mdqara]

Thanks, give me a day and I’ll get back to you

…

On Sat, 3 Jun 2023 at 9:35 AM Simon Cozens ***@***.***> wrote: I've had no feedback on this for a year, and I don't have access to Powerpoint to test. If anyone can test the new version and finds a problem, I'll reopen. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AD23SMN7J4VRVWR6W7X7IKDXJLLMRANCNFSM5ZJOOO7Q> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[mdqara]

Hello @simoncozens
I can confirm the problem still exist exactly like what is shown on this: #4 (comment)

My powerpoint version is: 2303 (build: 16227.20318)

[mdqara]

Thanks, Chris! @mdqara, please try Chris’ linked file. (I would test it myself but don’t have a Windows computer or PowerPoint…)

I have tested out Chris linked file but the same problem as well