PDF weirdness

[Robert Heller]

At Mon, 29 Oct 2012 07:01:04 +1100 Andrew Greig <pushin.linux at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> On Sun, 2012-10-28 at 09:12 -0400, Robert Heller wrote:
> > At Sun, 28 Oct 2012 23:48:43 +1100 Andrew Greig <pushin.linux at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > On Sun, 2012-10-28 at 09:44 +0000, Colin Law wrote:
> > > > On 28 October 2012 09:35, Andrew Greig <pushin.linux at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > Hi All,
> > > > >
> > > > > I am running GC 2.4.11 under a Suse 12.1 64bit system.  The program runs
> > > > > fine, and I have just done a run of Invoices as pdfs and attached and
> > > > > sent them to my clients.  I needed to run an AR report for a couple of
> > > > > delinquent customers.  Tried printing the reports directly, and the only
> > > > > stuff that printed was the Table frames and the blue hyperlinks, no
> > > > > black text was printed.  So I saved the 2 reports as PDFs and when I
> > > > > opened them the tables were fully populated with black text and blue
> > > > > hyperlinks (just as in the HTML format previously).  On printing one of
> > > > > the PDFs from evince, and later from Okular, I had the same issue - only
> > > > > the rulings for the table cells and the Blue hyperlinks were printed.
> > > > 
> > > > Can I just check what you are saying.  Gnucash has generated pdf files
> > > > that look fine in evince and okular but do not print correctly?  Have
> > > > you considered that it may be an issue with your printing rather than
> > > > the pdf files?  Have you tried printing on a different PC and printer?
> > > > 
> > > > It might be useful to put the files through a pdf validator [1]
> > > > 
> > > > Colin
> > > > 
> > > > [1] http://www.pdf-tools.com/pdf/validate-pdfa-online.aspx  (I can't
> > > > vouch for whether this is any good).
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Hi Colin,
> > > 
> > > I ran the pdf validator on the pdf I created in the Print dialog.  It
> > > returned that the pdf was pdf1.5  so it appears to be OK.
> > > 
> > > Thr reason that I do not suspect the printer is that the table cells
> > > were all defined cleanly with black borders, and the only text that
> > > printed was hypertext.  
> > > 
> > > I have never encountered anything like this before.
> > 
> > What kind of printer is it (make, model) and what printing software are
> > you using (version of CUPS, etc.)?  It probably *is* your printing
> > software, probably a font or color problem of some sort.
> > 
> > > 
> > > Andrew
> > > 
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> > >                                             
> > 
> Hi Robert,
> 
> Thanks for your reply,
> 
> Printer is an HP PhotoSmart C5280 All-in-one
> CUPS 1.5
> 
> For regular printing it works fine and the scanner works very well.
> 
> hplip 3.11.10-3.1.2 is is installed (3 packages)

All I can say is that at the Wendell Free Library on a CentOS 5 system
with a HP all-in-one (OfficeJet) is that we have our own 'PDF
weirdness' (not related to Gnucash at all): printing random PDF's from
Adobe's PDF reader fails (the print job crashes). The same PDF prints
just fine using evince, xpdf, or being converted to Postscript by
Ghostscript.  Adobe's PDF reader can print just fine to an *older* HP
laser printer (with native Postscript).  It is not the PDF files, but
the software involved in converting it to Postscript (Adobe's Reader)
and/or converting the Postscript to HP Inkjet raster format (eg
Ghostscript & hplip / CUPS).  

I suspect you are seeing a simular sort of bug here.  It *might* be
related to something Gnucash is (not?) doing, possibly  related to
fonts, since the problem seems to be related to text. And might just be
a Ghostscript and/or hplip bug.

> 
> Andrew Greig
> 
>                                                  

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
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