Re: How to make unknown font width known?

[Jody Goldberg <jody gnome org>]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2003 at 03:46:19PM +0900, Yukihiro Nakai wrote:
> Hi,
>
> When I open Japanese Excel file on Gnumeric, it always barks like:
>
> ** (gnumeric:28982): WARNING **: EXCEL : unknown widths for font '*******', guessing
>
> ('******' is MS font name in Japanese multibyte - hide for this public list ;-)
>
> Adding an appropriate entry to XL_font_width strct seems to
> prevent this message and let gnumeric know the true width. But
> how can I get the value? If there are some tools for this, please
> let me know. And I need to know what the default character is for this,
> too.

gnumeric/plugins/excel/ms-excel-util.c : init_xl_font_widths

There is a large comment at the top of that explaining how to test
for what XL thinks the widths of things are.  It is easier to do
than it sounds, but still a somewhat bizarre procedure because
Microsoft appears to use two _distinct_ notions of what the size is.

The procedure revolves around editing the 'normal style' in a copy
of MS Excel (Format -> Style from the menu, then Modify) to be the
font of interest.  Then resizing a column in various ways by
dragging the seperator and noting the pixel size.

If the instructions in there are not clear enough grab me on irc and
I can walk you through the procedure.