How can I fix missing bullet point characters in Word Online?

Update

I submitted a bug report and this issue has been fixed as of Firefox 68.

This issue originally affected all browsers, but Microsoft fixed it for Chrome by adding downloadable versions of the fonts to the Word Online site.

The workaround is below in case this is still broken for other browsers.

Workaround

  1. Install the missing fonts locally

    mkdir -p ~/.fonts/
    wget https://source.winehq.org/git/wine.git/blob/HEAD:/fonts/symbol.ttf -O ~/.fonts/symbol.ttf
    wget https://source.winehq.org/git/wine.git/blob/HEAD:/fonts/wingding.ttf -O ~/.fonts/wingding.ttf
    wget https://bmaupin.github.io/askubuntu-983191-research/symbol_msfontservice.ttf -O ~/.fonts/symbol_msfontservice.ttf
    wget https://bmaupin.github.io/askubuntu-983191-research/wingdings_msfontservice.ttf -O ~/.fonts/wingdings_msfontservice.ttf
    fc-cache -f -v
    
  2. Once that's done, the bullet points should be fixed:

    enter image description here

Details

Examining the source of the page, here's the information on the various bullet points:

  • First level
    • Character: unicode f0b7 ()
    • Font: Symbol
  • Second level
    • Character: o
    • Font: Courier New
  • Third level
    • Character: unicode f0a7 ()
    • Font: Wingdings

You can find more details than you ever wanted to know about this issue here: https://github.com/bmaupin/askubuntu-983191-research#readme


I have the same issue, tried your solution, but the problem remained. It was as though the wingdings is not well installed.

Word Online: In Word Online, selecting: bullets / Define new bullet / Wingdings

LibreOffice: In LibreOffice, inserting special character

What succeeded at fixing it was to download the font from https://github.com/IamDH4/ttf-wps-fonts/blob/master/wingding.ttf. I placed it directly in /usr/share/fonts/truetype/. Then I ran:

sudo fc-cache -rv