'[Bug 140546] Koffice don't embed fonts during printing Koffice don't'

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List:       koffice
Subject:    [Bug 140546] Koffice don't embed fonts during printing Koffice don't
From:       Kurt Pfeifle <pfeifle () kde ! org>
Date:       2007-01-24 23:23:48
Message-ID: 20070124232348.20488.qmail () ktown ! kde ! org
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http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=140546         

------- Additional Comments From pfeifle kde org  2007-01-25 00:23 -------
Sorry, Thomas, 

a bit less in-accurateness looking at bugzilla reports would do a bit more good in \
the area of user:developer relations....  :-)

Here's why:

  *  Vera Serif is *not* "a bitmapped font"! 
  *  And it neither is "embedded just fine"! 

Qt (and hence, all Qt-based apps that rely on Qt for printing) sucks donkeyballs when \
it comes to font processing. (That's why Scribus does its own stuff when it comes to \
PostScript and PDF creation, and therefore they don't suck, despite relying on Qt \
too....). KOffice, of course, delegates all responsibility for this field over to Qt \
(and its sucking "PostScript Level 1 only" feature), and hence suffers from the same \
weaknesses when it comes to PDF generation or to printing. (I know KOffice developers \
do hope this gets solved one day in the future, but I dare to be a bit pessimistic \
about this, given for instance   )

So, Vera Serif indeed is a TrueType font.

In this case, it isn't embedded *at all* (see user's report). Why not, I don't know \
(but see below, how it *may* be fixed by an assortment of different user settings). 

In other cases, a Type3 fonts *may* get embedded by Qt/KDE-apps (this problem \
concerns f.e. Konqueror too, not just KOffice), when they create a printjob, but the \
embedding may be very "un-fine" (if you allow me to invent a new word). It will take \
place without a proper name assigned to it (or, internally, the naming may be done in \
a way that isn't accessible for outside applications that want to use it).  You will \
read "[none]" in the resulting "KPDF --> properties" dialog, or get the same result \
reported by the "pdffonts" command {see the "[none]" here too}. 

But such a situation that will mean f.e. that the PDF is...

  ...not searchable, 
  ...text extraction will not work, 
  ...screen reading with KTTS will fail, etc. pp.

Oh, and a PDF file may print even *excellently*, despite containing made-bitmapped \
fonts!

So, Thomas, you are wrong on so many items here, in that single, little 1-liner you \
wrote above!

And my hope for getting magic fixes for our printing deficiencies from Trolltech by \
ways of new Qt versions has diminished over time. See f.e. this comment in bugzilla \
(I came across it recently by reading a Dot comment):

   http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54410#c2

It is nearly 4 years old, and a KDE developer says about another one of our major \
real life printing problems (we can't handle custom size media): "This is a Qt or in \
the end a KDE issue. Qt and therefore KDEPrint doesn't use the user defined settings \
yet. Trolls say, this is intended to be implemented in QT 3.2, so we need to wait \
until it is also implemented in KDE 3.2." 

Now go to the Trolltech bug tracking system, here: 

   http://www.trolltech.com/developer/task-tracker/index_html?method=entry&id=99441

So it looks it was carried along their old bug tracker version throughout the 3.x Qt \
series. It has now entered their new bug tracker too. There, they had at first as the \
Qt version to fix this set to "4.1.0". Then it became "4.2.0". Currently it is \
"4.3.0".

Fixing Qt's major printing weaknesses is just no priority for them. Do you have any \
indications or smoke signals that that will change with Qt 4.4.0?

--------------

Thatall being said,... 

...now to you and your problem, Nicolas:

You *may* be lucky, and get a better results in a few lucky cases if you follow these \
steps to configure your system (it will work less likely if you have an older version \
of Ghostscript, instead of a recent one):

  * Run "qtconfig": 
  -----------------
    --> on the Printer tab:  + check if you've enabled font embedding
    --> on the Fonts tab:    + check which font substitutions there are enabled [*]

  * Run "kaddprinterwizard --kdeconfig": 
  --------------------------------------
    --> on the Fonts screen: + check if you've enabled font embedding
                             + insert all directories where on your system fonts are \
                found
                               (no need to include X server font paths -- these are \
searched by default)

  * Print to PDF file again, but this time pay attention to the settings:
  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    --> click "Properties", go to the "Driver Settings" tab
    --> Use for "Target Device" the "Printer" (not "Default" or "Screen")
    --> Use for "Compatibility Level" the "1.4"
    --> For "Embed all fonts", select "Enabled"
    --> For "Embed font subsets", choose "Embed complete font"
    --> For "Maxium subset percentage" use "1" (not "0", not "100")
    --> For "Bitmap font resolution" set it to the same as your printer is capable \
                of.
    --> Save Your Settings! Save Your Settings! Save Your Settings!

I hope this helps. Let me know.

Cheers,
Kurt

----------------
[*] Oh, and BTW: don't you *dare* to think there are no font substitutions enabled if \
you just look at the tab and only see a big white field there. Not so! It's not as \
intuitive as you may think: You have to go through all the font entries available on \
the upper drop down "Select or Enter a Family" (hint: use the mouse wheel for quick \
scrolling through the list!). You'll notice that "Arial" is substituted by \
"helvetica"; that's OK (and default on most Linux systems). But you shouldn't have \
many more (unless you are a font expert). ____________________________________
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