Re: [gentoo-user] Ghostscript - font path

[Hans-Werner Hilse]

Hi,

On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:13:50 -0700
Joseph <syscon@×××××××××.com> wrote:

> >> "gs -h" gives me the following font path for Ghostscript
> >> Search path:
> >> [...]
> >> Where these paths are coming from?
> >
> >Compiled into the binary?
>
> Not a good solution but, it would be better if we input the path via a config file.

Of course, this is only the basic configuration. You can override this
by configuration file or even environment variable (so you can set it
up in your .bashrc). The environment variable is GS_FONTPATH. See the
use.html document you've already found, it should be explained there.
Also have a look at /usr/share/ghostcript/<ver>/lib/Fontmap.GS, but I
don't suggest editing it as it will get overwritten by updates. I'm not
sure ATM if there's a standard path for overrides in GS, maybe someone
else can comment about this.

By the way: the X server probably doesn't know of all fonts either.
Take into account that a lot of programs nowadays use fontconfig, which
is configured in /etc/fonts. Yes, this is a bit convoluted.

> >Yes, might happen. But it is common sense that you should embed all
> >needed fonts into the PDF anyway. For older versions of PDFs there was
> >an exception for the Base14 fonts, and those are (by means of
> >replacement versions) accessible from GS' own font store (the path you
> >said is present and works). You never know at a later point in time
> >whether you have the right font, with the right encoding: even if the
> >name matches you can't be sure.
>
> I think this is the clue.
> Well, if I generate the PDF file on Linux the fonts are embedded in
> every PDF document when I received the file from somebody else the
> fonts most of the time are not embedded.

Yeah, that's the culprit if you have to use other peoples' documents...

> I have one document I received (pdf file) it printed fine two weeks ago;
> when I try to re-printed it I can not, and I
> know it is a font problem: egsample when I run  pdf2ps file.pdf I get:
>      **** Warning: Fonts with Subtype = /TrueType should be embedded.
>                    But TimesNewRomanPSMT is not embedded.
>      **** Warning: Fonts with Subtype = /TrueType should be embedded.
>                    But TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT is not embedded.
>      **** Warning: Fonts with Subtype = /TrueType should be embedded.
>                    But ArialMT is not embedded.

Ghostscript should mostly be able to recover from those warnings and
use replacement fonts here. You might also want to give acroread a try
(it has command line options to generate Postscript, IIRC) or pdftops
(from poppler/Xpdf).

> How can they configure their system on Windows so the fonts are embedded?

That's hard to tell, and certainly depends on the "production chain".
For most ways of generating PDF on Windows, there is a configuration
option where it is to be expected. I.e. in the printer settings for a
PDF-printer style generator, in the "save as" options for programs
saving to PDF natively and so on.

> What puzzle me is that this document printed fine two weeks ago
> and all of a sudden I'm getting an error so I'm looking for a fault
> on my end.

Did you do an emerge -u by chance? (Of course, this isn't a fault, but
might be the cause, and then, I'd consider it a bug)

OTOH, I think most ESP specific code is now in the "main development
line" (ghostscript-gpl). You might want to try this out... The newest
release is 8.61 -- released yesterday -- and is not yet in portage.


-hwh
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