LibreOffice not displaying foreign characters (Solved)

[gemk65]

Hello,

I have been enjoying Linux Mint since I installed it two months ago.

One problem that I have found is that, in a certain situation (described below), I have not been able to get LibreOffice Calc to display Hebrew characters correctly.

If I am doing something wrong, or if I have not made all of the configurations that I need to make, I would appreciate any guidance.

I have:

- Linux Mint 18.1 64-bit
- Cinnamon 3.2.7
- Linux Kernel 4.4.0-53-generic

The following details are pertinent:

1. I downloaded data, in the form of an Excel spreadsheet file (.xls), from one of the websites that I use frequently.

2. When I open the .xls file with LibreOffice Calc, the Hebrew characters appear as follows:

עמלה ערוץ ביצוע ×ﾐסמכתה יתרה לסוף יו×ﾝ ב-₪

3. When I open this same Excel file with MS Excel, all Hebrew characters display as perfectly readable Hebrew, and appear just as intended.

4. In Cinnamon Control Center ("System Settings"), I have successfully made an installation/configuration in the Language category, and it now shows: "Hebrew Israel UTF-8 -- Fully Installed".

5. In Cinnamon Control Center ("System Settings"), in the Keyboard category, in Layouts >> Options >> Switching to Another Layout, I have successfully set a keyboard combination to switch (toggle) the keyboard layout between English and Hebrew.

6. In LibreOffice, under Tools >> Options >> Language Settings >> Languages >> Default Languages >> CTL (Complex Text Layout), I have selected Hebrew.

7. In all LibreOffice applications (Writer, Calc, etc.), I am able to successfully toggle the keyboard language layout, and thus I am able to successfully type Hebrew characters that display properly, executed with right-to-left presentation as well as can be expected. (This latter issue is never 100% solved anywhere in the world, as far as I know, not in Israel anyway, so I'm OK with the situation such as it is).

8. The list of Font Names in LibreOffice Writer and Calc shows an entry "Noto Sans Hebrew". I can use this font, but it doesn't seem to make any difference: When I toggle my keyboard layout to Hebrew, Hebew characters are properly displayed regardless of the Font Name. And applyling "Noto Sans Hebrew" font to the gobbledegook characters shown in item #2 above does not render their display into Hebrew.

9. When I am typing in Hebrew, I note that the Font Name "Lohit Devanagari" always (or almost always) jumps uninvited into the Font Name display box for some strange reason and seems to be a bug. I think that Lohit Devanagari is an Indian font. I do not know whether this issue is related to the problem that I am experiencing with displaying Hebrew characters.

[gemk65]

This problem has been fixed in Linux Mint 20.2.

The post is Solved.