149566 - MathML turns all math chars into Greek

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: MathML, defect)

Description

[jsmith]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020529
BuildID:    2002052918

When accessing any web page containing MathML, and running under RedHat 7.3,
Mozilla hangs for a long time (>30 sec). Just as I'm about to kill it, it
displays the web page, but all of the mathematics characters (including the ones
normally displayed in a roman font) are turned into Greek letters

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.Just access the MathML Start Page, running under RedHat 7.3.
2.
3.

Actual Results:  I could show you a screenshot...

Comment 1

[rbs]

> I could show you a screenshot...

Please do.


Do you get a message about missing MathML fonts?
If not, did you install the *Type1* TeX fonts (not TrueType)?

Comment 2

[Robin Green]

Confirming.

I have installed all fonts recommended by the mozilla.org mathml page. I get a
dialog box the first time I open
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/start.xml saying "this page will not
display correctly if you don't have these fonts: ..." and the math displays in
greek letters.

xlsfonts doesn't seem to list any of the fonts that I've installed, which is
odd. I have restarted the machine after font installation.

(I don't get the 30 second hang though)

Screenshot coming up...

Comment 3

[Robin Green]

Attachment: screenshot of greek letters on mathml page

Comment 4

[rbs]

> xlsfonts doesn't seem to list any of the fonts that I've installed, which is
> odd.

So it is a font installation problem, as evidenced by the weird look of the
radical symbol (bug 27860).

Also, if you are are using a TrueType Symbol, you will be running into troubles:
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&th=1453307737e2abc6

...And it has been reported that RH7.3 ships with a TrueType Symbol font by
default, and this may explain why you are running into troubles anyway.

================
I suggest you file a separate bug against the GFX Compositor component, and
provide a *non-MathML* document with a testcase containing:

  <font face="Symbol"> a b c </font>

According to bug 33127, this should render as "a b c", but from your
description, this is rendering as &alpha; &beta; &gamma; on RH7.3 because it has
a TrueType Symbol font by default.

It is important that you report such a bug with a HTML testcase (i.e., no MathML
at all to illustrate that the problem is non-MathML specific). This way, it will
get the proper attention of other module owners. Thanks.

Comment 5

[Dieter Siebörger]

Attachment: Testfile mathml and text alignment

Comment 6

[Dieter Siebörger]

Attachment: Screenshot mathml and text alignment

Comment 7

[Dieter Siebörger]

Same behaviour on Mac OS 9.0.4 with
Mozilla 1.1 Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC; de-AT; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826: roman
characters inside <math> are displayed as greek characters. Time until the page
is displayed is normal. 

Although, in one special condition the characters are displayed properly: if the
math is inside a <div style="text-align: justify"> </div> and _not_ in display
mode the roman characters are displayed properly. I've added a testfile and a
screenshot.

Yes, the characters of the symbol font are displayed as Greek.
Yes, there is a message that CMEX10 fonts etc. are missing as there are no free
TeX fonts available for the mac. But stretchy characters are displayed properly
using Mathematica fonts. 

Comment 8

[rbs]

As a work-around _delete_ the math's font-family declaration in mathml.css. See:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3D6EB021.8FC1A9FE%40maths.uq.edu.au

Comment 9

[Paul Gartside]

Perhaps you will find that swapping over Symbol and Times in the mathml.css will
work.

I dont know why this would work. But it does for me.

Comment 10

[Nicolás Lichtmaier]

I'm seeing this in a very recent build: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US;
rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050917 Firefox/1.4

All chars are greek, MathML is unusable here... =( This is Debian system with
the latex-xft-fonts package installed. This package contains:

/usr/share/fonts/truetype/latex-xft-fonts/cmsy10.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/latex-xft-fonts/wasy10.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/latex-xft-fonts/cmex10.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/latex-xft-fonts/msam10.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/latex-xft-fonts/msbm10.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/latex-xft-fonts/cmmi10.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/latex-xft-fonts/cmr10.ttf

This package is currently suggested by the Debian mozilla packaging to get the
MathML fonts:

$ dpkg -s mozilla-firefox | grep latex
Suggests: mozilla-firefox-gnome-support (= 1.4.99+1.5beta1-2), latex-xft-fonts,
xprint

The problem is gone if I edit res/math.css to remove the "Symbol" font.

Is there anything I can do to help debug this?

Comment 11

[Nicolás Lichtmaier]

I had a truetype symbol font and I hadn't commented out the proper lines in
res/fonts/fontEncoding.properties. Now it's working. (Having MathML working in
linux is pretty complex!)

Comment 12

[rbs]

nick, be sure to write something about it so that others who google can learn
from your own experience.

Comment 13

[Jean-Pierre Branchard]

Same behaviour on Ubuntu Linux with Firefox 1.5.0.6
Errors reading mathml.css (line 65 and 432) : see javascript errors.

Comment 14

[rbs]

Those who still see Greek letters in Firefox are likely using a distro with a TrueType Symbol font (rather than Type1). If so, be sure to edit your $MOZILLA_HOME/res/fonts/fontsEncoding.properties and UNCOMMENT these lines:

#encoding.symbol.ttf = Adobe-Symbol-Encoding
#encoding.symbol.ftcmap = mac_roman

to

encoding.symbol.ttf = Adobe-Symbol-Encoding
encoding.symbol.ftcmap = mac_roman

See also bug 128153 comment 81.

Comment 15

[Frédéric Wang Nélar]

Is this bug still present?