[scribus] Fwd: RE: PDF Studio Support Question

[Bert Driehuis]

First of all, when forwarding HTML formatted mail to a mailing list,
please consider removing the HTML makeup by pasting the text into
Notepad (or it's nearest equivalent if you're using Linux or MacOS),
and copying it back.

Putting the blame on Scribus is too easy. I am not aware of any bugs
in Scribus's font embedding. I am, however, painfully aware of how
hard font handling is, so I'm not excluding anything up front. I have
downloaded a copy of Baker Signet Std Regular as an OTF off the first
link that Google gave me, and ran it through FontForge's font
validator. It gave around thirty warnings about missing points at
extrema, and two about disordered and too-close elements in the
BlueValues/OtherBlues arrays. Heaven knows if any of these trip up PDF
Studio, or if the submitter used a different copy of Baker Signet than
I found, or if, heaven forbids, Scribus tripped up on it. If I find a
spare moment in the next days, I'll see if I can run the font through
Google's validator, but with all the unknowns it's probably an
exercise in futility.

The thing to be aware of is that font embedding is not a magic trick.
It entails copying the font after removing the unneeded glyphs and
unneeded tables, but the basic "garbage in, garbage out" rule still
applies. Many fonts, including commercial fonts, and even including
Adobe fonts, do contain encoding errors.

Tools exist to extract fonts from a PDF. The first step in further
analyzing this issue is extracting the offending font from the PDF,
and running a number of font validations on it. If I can get a copy of
the troublesome PDF I'll be happy to take a look at it, but I'm not
promising a turnaround time.

To the original reporter I'd say, "Embedding fonts is a black art
which exposes you to all the vagaries of font coding. Outlining is
always a safe choice, because it moves the font interpretation to your
computer, where you have full control and visibility on the end
result".

With kind regards,

Bert Driehuis

On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 10:26 PM David Burleigh
<david.burleigh at saphar.net> wrote:
>
> What do you think about this? (sorry, you have to read from the bottom
> up)
>
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> From: PDF Studio Support <studiosupport at qoppa.com>
> To: 'David Burleigh' <david.burleigh at saphar.net>
> Subject: RE: PDF Studio Support Question
> Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2019 14:37:48 -0500
>
> Hi David These kind of font issues can be tricky to resolve. We have
> a task open and will get to it when we can.  My guess is that Scribus
> is not embedding the font correctly because our font renderer is pretty
> solid. NitroPDF is another viewer that has issues rendering these
> embedded fonts.  I see the characters are there and if I change the
> font from BakerSignet to Courier, they render fine.  Other PDF readers
> might have added some workaround code to handle this embedded
> font. Have you tried contacted Scribus so they can correct the way they
> embed that font? Have you tried using a more common font? --Leila


>
>  From: David Burleigh [mailto:david.burleigh at saphar.net]
> Sent: Monday, December 23, 2019 8:29 PM
> To: Studio Support
> Subject: Re: PDF Studio Support Question It's been a month now and I
> haven't heard any more about this. Is there any fix on the horizon? On
> Fri, 2019-11-22 at 10:01 -0500, Studio Support wrote:
> > Hello, Thanks for sending the documents, we're able to reproduce this
> > issue and we've submitted it to our development team. Thanks,Tsan
> > Sam Technical SupportPDF Studio Support Got More Questions? Try PDF
> > Studio Knowledge Base  -----Original Message-----From:
> > david.burleigh at saphar.net
> >  [mailto:
> > david.burleigh at saphar.net
> > ] Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2019 6:07 PMTo:
> > studiosupport at qoppa.com
> >  Subject: PDF Studio Support Question Email:
> > david.burleigh at saphar.net
> >  Subject: Report a problemProduct: Question: Fonts are not displayed
> > in PDF Studio in pdf files exported from Scribus. Every other pdf
> > viewer that I have displays these same pdf files perfectly. But for
> > PDF Studio I have to export them as outlines rather than embedded
> > fonts. I'm attaching a very simple example, both with the font
> > embedded and outlined.