[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 141121] New: Better default font choice for the Writer comments, and/or ability to customize the font family and size for comments

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=141121

            Bug ID: 141121
           Summary: Better default font choice for the Writer comments,
                    and/or ability to customize the font family and size
                    for comments
           Product: LibreOffice
           Version: Inherited From OOo
          Hardware: All
                OS: All
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: medium
         Component: Writer
          Assignee: libreoffice-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
          Reporter: nekohayo at gmail.com

Created attachment 170579
  --> https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/attachment.cgi?id=170579&action=edit
screenshot of the default comment style

There are two issues at stake here:

A) Comments in Writer have this notion of full rich text including custom
per-comment font family and font size, instead of just semi-rich formatting
like bold/italics/underline/etc. I posit that it should maintain the latter,
but not respect the former; the font family and size should be set by the
application (or global user preferences) for legibility at all times. In-margin
comments, with the limited available space, is not the place to showcase
variable and fancy font choices depending on who touched the document last.

B) The default font family & size used for comments are not optimal.

Attached are two screenshots comparing the default appearance on Linux (GTK3
version under Fedora) with the "Liberation Serif" 10pt font, vs what I claim it
should be ("Droid Sans" 8pt).

Why Droid Sans, and why 8pt?

* Droid Sans was designed (commissionned by Google) for perfect legibility on
small LCD phone screens, back in 2007, before the era of gigantic retina
displays. This means it is highly readable ANYWHERE, especially at small font
sizes. I still think it's one of the very best fonts ever made, for this
reason. It clamps to the pixels of your screen like a champion, and it doesn't
create visual noise with serifs, allowing you to have it readable even at small
font sizes like 8 to 9 points.

* The LibreOffice Writer comments area/column/margin is not very wide, which
means that very few words can fit on a line at 10pts size, causing a ton of
wrapping, and comments end up super long, and if you have multiple comments on
the page it rapidly becomes a mess. On the other hand, it is normal and
somewhat expected that comments have somewhat smaller font sizes than the main
body text, because, well, they're comments stuffed in a margin area, whaddya
expect! and they're not meant to be as emphasized as the main contents.

Setting the font of a comment to Droid Sans 8pt not only makes it more legible
than the default 10pts serifed font, it also makes it look more professionnal
AND saves space.



I would therefore recommend that:

1- LibreOffice ignores comment metadata about font family and font size,
instead applying those two properties globally for the comments.
2- LibreOffice uses a better default font for comments (Droid Sans 8pt, or at
least some sort of highly-readable Sans serif font)
3- LibreOffice exposes a setting to control #2 (optional)

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