[OS X TeX] OT: PDF display problems

[Bruno Voisin]

Le 15 août 05 à 10:25, Christian Heine a écrit :

> does anyone encounter problems displaying/printing PDFs in Tiger?  
> Since upgrading I have massive troubles in Preview, TeXShop,  
> BibDesk's preview and with the PDF Browser Plug-In when I open and  
> print PDF files. Sometimes just images are displayed, sometimes  
> just cryptic characters, sometimes just section titles, sometimes  
> just text paragraphs without headings, sometimes just one specific  
> font in a document is displayed, sometimes everything is fine. I  
> can't reproduce it, seems to happen randomly. I have various  
> screenshots on my public ftp at ftp://ftp.geosci.usyd.edu.au/pub/ 
> users/christian/PDFproblems in case someone wants to have a closer  
> look. I have googled for this and also searched the Apple  
> Discussion pages but haven't found a solution nor anyone else  
> experiencing this kind of problem.
> Everything is perfectly fine using Acrobat, so it appears to have  
> something to do with the native OS X pdf kit. Furthermore, this  
> only happens on my G5 not on the Powerbook (also running the same  
> version of Tiger).
> Any clues?

BTW, the URL seems to be <ftp://ftp.geosci.usyd.edu.au/pub/christian/ 
PDFproblems/>. It doesn't open in the Finder (using Connect to Server  
Cmd-K), only in Fetch; moreover, the presence of the OS X  
file .DS_Store in the directory confuses Fetch, so that the files  
inside the directory have to be downloaded one by one.

What I got finally was:

TeXShop_Prev1.png
TeXShop_Prev2.png
TeXShop_Prev3.png
preview_errors.tiff
webpdf.tiff
webpdf_local.tiff

According to these files, it seems you see missing characters: all  
the characters from CMR are shown, but not those from CMTT; the other  
way round, too; or hyperlinked text isn't shown.

I haven't seen the same in Tiger, but still I experienced PDF  
rendering problems with it. These appeared in Preview, TeXShop,  
Safari (with the built-in PDF previewing function), and also in  
printed output; seems to be linked with the Cocoa PDF rendering  
classes, then.

The problem I experience is all spaces replaced by another character:  
sometimes "&", sometimes "(", etc. This is still happening now, and  
apparently randomly. Vanishes when you refresh the preview (or close  
the previewing window, then re-open it).

I can't see what can be done, really. Maybe reporting to Apple, and  
hoping they consider it significant enough to finally fix it. But  
given the bug seems random, I'm feeling pessimistic.

My only clue would be that it seems the bug shows up when I'm doing  
things very fast: switching windows, entering a command, opening a  
file, etc. Maybe a bad interaction with Spotlight (running in the  
background every time output is produced), which would take over and  
interrupt the PDF previewing flow.

Bruno Voisin--------------------- Info ---------------------
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