ChrisThe bad news is that I have the msstcorefonts installed already and it still doesn't work. But the good news is that your new suggestion (desktop=none) did in fact do the trick. I will use it until the package gets properly fixed.
Thanks so much for all your help on this.
# can be worked around by installing msttcorefonts and is verified # unreproducible on several different gnome systems - downgrade severity 241529 important thanks As Nicolas verified, you can work around this by intsalling msttcore fonts. But before you do that, can you let me know if starting OOo like this works around it too? OOO_FORCE_DESKTOP=none oowriter (please make sure there are no soffice.bin processes left running before the restart)
-- Aron Trauring Zoteca http://www.zoteca.com/