[Scribus] "Nice" PDF

[Andreas Vox]

Am 28.01.2006 um 12:00 schrieb scribus-request at nashi.altmuehlnet.de:

> From: Wolfgang Dobler <Wolfgang.Dobler at ucalgary.ca>
> Subject: [Scribus] "Nice" PDF
> To: scribus at nashi.altmuehlnet.de
> Message-ID: <17370.57550.717456.681923 at kolmogorov.capca.ucalgary.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> [I cannot find the thread on this, so I have to start a new one]
>
> I think I have found a way to convert Scribus' (printing-press 
> oriented)
> PDF into `nice' (more Web-oriented) PDF.
> Here's the story, plus a few questions:
>
> ...

> As you see, the resulting PDF is more than 5 times smaller.
>

Excellent work!

>
> And now for the mysterious part: The new PDF file is not only smaller, 
> but
> it is `nicer' (for on-screen reading) in three aspects:
>
> (i) In Acroread 7 (the buggy one, I don't have any other around for
>   comparing) on Linux, the text appears not to be antialiased for the 
> old
>   PDF, but is perfectly so for the new one.
>   Xpdf shows both fine (and identical as far as I can tell).
>   Gv/ghostscript hangs while antialiasing the old file, but shows the 
> new
>   file fine.
> (ii) Text marking and searching in the old file works not too well in
>   Acroread (with lots of gaps in marked text), and practically not at 
> all
>   in Xpdf. It works perfect for the new file in both applications.
> (iii) The picture is shown far too dark in Acroread for the old file, 
> but
>   fine for the new file. Xpdf once again shows identical results for 
> both.
>
> ...
>   Point (i) could be the switched-off font hinting in Scribus' PDF that
>     was mentioned before. But how on Earth can pdftohtml + gs 
> reconstruct
>     the hinting information?
>
Yes, that's what I think, too. The hinting information is still in the 
embedded fonts but gets destroyed be subsetting, since this also 
converts to outlines ATM.

>   Point (ii) sounds like it is caused by Scribus placing separate
>     characters into the PDF, rather than whole words -- and gs
>     reassembling the words very efficiently.

Exactly. I'm surprised gs is so good at it. Can you search only single 
words or whole phrases?

>   Point (iii) could have to do with the fact (I am quoting out of my 
> head)
>     that Acroread never touches the CMYK values, while other viewers 
> apply
>     colour profiles (or such).

No idea there.


Thanks for this interesting approach!

/Andreas