Bug 210256

Summary: Ghostscript, ps2pdf produces ugly pdf, same problem when printing from kde to pdf
Product: [openSUSE] SUSE Linux 10.1 Reporter: Gero Mudersbach <geroxp>
Component: PrintingAssignee: Johannes Meixner <jsmeix>
Status: RESOLVED INVALID QA Contact: Johannes Meixner <jsmeix>
Severity: Normal    
Priority: P5 - None CC: werner
Version: Final   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: i686   
OS: Other   
Whiteboard:
Found By: Other Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---
Attachments: Letter spacing and vertical position is ugly
PDF created with Suse 10.1 fresh install, view with any pdf reader

Description Gero Mudersbach 2006-10-05 15:39:15 UTC
When using ps2pdf or gs directly or through kde print to pdf dialog ugly pdfs are generated. The letters are "jumping" up and down. This problem is valid for ghostscript-esp-8.15.1 and ghostscript-esp-7.07.1. The following command was used to convert postscript to pdf:
gs -dNOPLATFONTS -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -q -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=test.pdf
-dSAFER -c .setpdfwrite -f pdfproblem.ps

I can reproduce this on Suse 10.1
Comment 1 Gero Mudersbach 2006-10-05 15:40:46 UTC
Created attachment 100560 [details]
Letter spacing and vertical position is ugly
Comment 2 Johannes Meixner 2006-10-09 06:40:55 UTC
Gero,
please also provide the PostScript input (i.e. your pdfproblem.ps).

I added our Ghostscript maintainer to Cc to have him informed.
Comment 3 Dr. Werner Fink 2006-10-09 09:12:08 UTC
Broken font?

 Error: Bad bounding box in Type 3 glyph

is what I'm aware on stderr if I view attachment #100560 [details]
with xpdf.
Comment 4 Johannes Meixner 2006-10-09 09:20:57 UTC
Gero,
please provide us with the info when you have also reported it on
the CUPS site instead of letting us search for it by ourselves:
http://www.cups.org/str.php?L2010
Comment 5 Johannes Meixner 2006-10-09 09:22:48 UTC
For our information:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2006 09:50:18 -0400
From: Helge Blischke <h.blischke@srz.de>
Reply-To: Mirror of cups.bugs Newsgroup <cups-bugs@easysw.com>

[...]

> Link: http://www.cups.org/str.php?L2010
> Attachment: http://www.cups.org/strfiles/2010/gs8.pdf

The sample PDF looks good when viewed with Adobe Reader,
and it prints OK.
Which viewer/printer shows the "jumping" characters?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comment 6 Dr. Werner Fink 2006-10-09 09:41:04 UTC
Hmmm ... I see the jumping letters also with acroread ... maybe Helge
has some fonts more installed on his system wereas we see the result
of a missing font which is emlutated by an other font.
Comment 7 Johannes Meixner 2006-10-09 10:34:50 UTC
Comment #3 and comment #6 indicate that it is an invalid bug report because
it seems either the font in the PDF is broken or it is missing at all
so that an "ugly" replacement font must be used.
Comment 8 Gero Mudersbach 2006-10-09 14:15:09 UTC
Created attachment 101006 [details]
PDF created with Suse 10.1 fresh install, view with any pdf reader
Comment 9 Gero Mudersbach 2006-10-09 14:15:26 UTC
Well, I can (at least with a fresh install of Suse 10.1 and recent updates) reproduce this behaviour:
1. Open Konqueror
2. Go to http://www.cnn.com
3. Print the page with kde's pdf printer (which is nothing else but ps2pdf, I think)
4. Watch the pdf either with kpdf (which is default viewer) or with acroread and you will see the jumping letters
If thats the desired result, then let this bug be resolved :)

see attachment, created with Suse 10.1.
Comment 10 Gero Mudersbach 2006-10-09 14:23:59 UTC
Johannes:
It wasn't already active and public accessible on the cups site when I reported this bug, I would have added this information later today.
Comment 11 Gero Mudersbach 2006-10-10 06:27:41 UTC
I have investigated the problem further:
The problem only occurs, when using kprinter to print the pdf OR generate a postscript-file which will be used to create a pdf. It could have something to do with kprinter itself or with GNU enscript (which is used by kprinter).

When using Mozilla-Firefox to print to a cups-pdf printer (http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/17636.html) this problem does not occur (while firefox uses its own postscript generator). When printing from a kde application or using kprinter we have again the mysterious jumping letters.

As soon as I have more info on this I'll get back here.
Comment 12 Johannes Meixner 2006-10-10 06:56:58 UTC
Then it is really invalid regarding Ghostscript and/or the printing system.
But it is valid regarding KDE and/or whichever tool such problematic
PostScript produces or perhaps one of our fonts is buggy.

Gero,
please file a new seperated bug report regarding KDE or whichever tool
the problematic PostScript produces.
Preferably with a description how to reproduce and one example file
of such a problematic PostScript as attachment.
Comment 13 Gero Mudersbach 2006-10-10 07:09:42 UTC
Created new bug #211235