[Scribus] Exporting to PDF

[Craig Ringer]

Calum,

First on the matter of your PDFs. SingleDiagramNoResample.pdf and 
SingleDiagram300Resample.pdf appear to be alright, but SingleDiagram.pdf 
is hopelessly corrupt. This is most likely a Scribus bug.

I have not been able to reproduce this corruption with current CVS using 
your document. When I export it with a variety of settings it works just 
fine. I'd really appreciate it if you could try starting with a blank 
document and writing down each step you take to get the corrupt PDF from 
that point.

Calum Polwart wrote:

> Just years and years ago when I first used gs on windows (this would 
> have been version 4 or 5 probably!) I seem to recall I had to create a 
> ps file for it to then convert to pdf.  Since my windows printers didn't 
> know what ps was I had to install a ps printer - for which I used a HP 
> Colour Laser and set it to print to file.

If you need to do this, it's better to use the AdobePS driver (a free 
download from Adobe).

> So what I'm saying is would gs or 
> scribus use the supposedly (but not truely) ps driver for my laser to 
> create the ps-file... or do they not do that?

No it does not. Scribus's PostScript generation is done internally, as 
is typical for many portable applications. However, it will use CUPS to 
get information about the printer and will obey the rules set out in the 
printer's PostScript Printer Description file (PPD). CUPS generates this 
if your printer doesn't supply one.

A "PostScript driver" is only necessary when a program actually uses a 
different drawing language (like GDI+ on Windows), in which case the 
printer driver translates to PostScript. Scribus speaks it natively.

> So that sounds like you are saying that scribus doesn't access my "post 
> script" driver - but does gs?

No. GhostScript is a PostScript implementation - it pretty much is a 
PostScript printer "driver", as well as a lot more.

> If gs is converting the EPS to raster  then that may be the problem?

Scribus asks GS to do so. The EPS can't just be embedded into the PDF, 
it's not legal in the PDF language. We use gs to convert the EPS into a 
raster image that /can/ be embedded.

Note that Scribus produces PDF directly, it does not use GS for that. GS 
is only used in the PDF export process when its necessary to rasterise a 
PostScript or EPS document that's been included in the Scribus document.

Ideally we'd ask gs to make a PDF out of the EPS, then embed that PDF 
instead, so that the rasterisation requirement could be avoided. We 
can't do that quite yet. Similarly Scribus doesn't know how to 
"translate" the EPS into native PDF operations that can be inserted into 
the PDF file. At this point, raster conversion is the only option 
available that will work well in Scribus for the full range of possible 
EPS files.

For some EPSs, those without raster image contents, it's possible to use 
File->Import->PS/EPS to explicitly tell Scribus to attempt to translate 
the EPS into native vectors that can then be output to PDF.

Calum Polwart wrote:

 > Just quickly tested with an EPS and it works perfectly... THANK YOU.

Great.

 > (If I continue using the CVS download method
 > will it always have oo.o, svg and eps import compiled in?)

Yes. It should with snapshots too. If you still have it, I wouldn't mind 
seeing your config.log from the snapshot build.

 > Now that I understand why EPS is putting the image at 72dpi (although
 > I'd have thought it would be better if the eps -->gs import using the
 > raster method imported at a higher resolution?) I understand  why I
 > get a rasterised output.  So there are several questions:
 >
 > * Is something still broken?  presumably yes because the raster method
 > doesn't let me print the pdf

A corrupt PDF is not OK. If you can still produce the corrupt PDF, then 
yes something is still broken, and I'd love your help tracking down how 
to trigger the issue so we can look at getting it fixed.

 > * Will collecting for output from the 3rd January CVS result in any
 > difference from the December version? (its here:
 > 
http://wittongilbert.free-online.co.uk/scribus-debug/SingleDiagram.sla.gz  )

No. As it happens I don't particularly need a collected version now that 
I have the other information you put together. What you uploaded isn't 
what I was looking for either. "Collect for output" produces a directory 
full of all the files used in the project, which you can then zip or tar 
up and send off. It doesn't embed everything into the .sla file.

 > ? Confused - my version of Inkscape doesn't seem to offer that
 > feature? When I do Save As and choose EPS it gives me a dialogue with
 > convert text to outlines and page boundary.  When I do save as SVG I
 > don't get that option?  I can't see it anywhere else either...

I don't know if it can do it during "save as" of SVG content, but it can 
do it as you edit. I don't recall the exact menu name. Anyway, if going 
via EPS works well for you I wouldn't mess with that.

 > As a couple of other notes - PDF production is at least 10 times
 > faster using the vector output and the file size is 128kb which makes
 > more sense given the size of the EPS.

Indeed, that's to be expected.

 > Also - not only is PDF production faster someone added a progress box -
 > that is SO useful.  THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU... ...I now know how
 > many games of minesweeper I can fit in while PDF exports!!

You can thank Craig Bradney for that one.

--
Craig Ringer