[pdftex] Linux AR5.0.10 bug?: "Expected a name object" - Radio Buttons

[Hans Hagen]

Marco Loskamp wrote:
> Dear list,
> 
> Believing this isn't a pdfTeX issue, I've been trying for many days
> now to generate radio buttons under pdfTeX, and it all runs fine
> ... until I try to print from Linux Acrobat Reader version 5.0.10
> (also 5.0.9, and probably, but not tested, any earlier version).
> 
> When I print from the Linux AR 5.0.9/10 menu, AR just crashes. When
> I print from a browser (--version "Mozilla Firefox 1.0, Copyright (c)
> 2004 mozilla.org") with the nppdf.so plugin shipped with AR, the browser
> survives, but the pluging freezes, leaving a blank white page in AR 5.0.9.
> No error messages whatsoever in both cases.
> 
> Using "acroread -toPostScript FormBug.pdf", I get the message
> "<file>: Expected a name object."
> 
> I have read through the PDFReference15.pdf over and over, and also
> looked at the PDF code of many files on the web that had radio buttons.
> But I couldn't find the mistake, as described in
> 
>   http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/pdf2k/02E/mgavin_corruptpdfs.pdf
> 
> , namely that there might be a construct like /Key(Value), where /Key/Value
> was expected.
> 
> My pdfTeX source and the resulting .pdf/.log file can be found at
> 
>   http://www.math.wisc.edu/~loskamp/FormBug.tex
>   http://www.math.wisc.edu/~loskamp/FormBug.pdf
>   http://www.math.wisc.edu/~loskamp/FormBug.log
> 
> I have made a sincere attempt to keep the .pdf file human readable. It
> contains no fonts, just two radio buttons, everything is plain ASCII,
> no binary junk.

no problems with the file here (you can also try pdftops from the xpdf suite);

> When I construct a file with nothing but two radio buttons from
> Acrobat professional (6.0), everything works fine under Linux. So
> my guess is that this may be a pdfTeX issue...(?)  Maybe pdfTeX
> [would have to/should] generate the /AcroForm entry in the /Catalog?

adding the AcroForm entry is not a pdftex issue, your macro package can/should 
do that; it is true that some versions of acrobat will generate that on the fly; 
  btw, the viewer also generates appearance streams for forms on the fly when 
the document is opened;

another reason for problems may be the missing font encoding vector

Hans

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