[OS X TeX] Printing wrong from Acrobat, right from TeXShop

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 21.06.2005 um 23:46 schrieb Josep M.Font:

> Since some weeks, a strange problem happens to me from time to 
> time--not always: If I try to print from Acrobat Reader a pdf file 
> produced by some TeX variety, some fonts, not all, seem to be missing 
> and are substituted by courier, with wrong spacing, etc. This seems to 
> happen with only some sizes of cmr, since \Large, \textbf, \textsc, 
> maths, etc. print OK. The file is correctly viewed on screen, and 
> moreover if I open it with TeXShop--even when it was produced in 
> another computer with another TeX--then it prints correctly!
>

Hello!

At the end you mention some details about your system, but nothing 
about the Acrobat or Adobe Reader's version.

The things you describe shouldn't happen because the CM fonts are 
embedded as PostScript fonts (I assume that you're not using the PK 
bitmaps). A failure can happen when you're already viewing the PDF 
output of your TeX source, correct a little mistake, and invoke pdfTeX 
again. The Adobe products are not reliably handling this! It helps to 
close this file and re-open it from the list of recent documents.

There too is a chance that Adobe adds something to the data stream sent 
to the printer, particularly when it's an HP LaserJet. These have a 
'pre-processor' that tries to guess what kind of data it is that 
arrives now, in case it's not marked being of any kind. It can be ASCII 
data, it can be PCL, it can be PostScript -- and it can be PDF. You 
should make some experiments with other printers, EPSON EPL-5800/5900 
are quite reliable and exact. You too could install an HP software, HP 
WebJetAdmin, to control, serve (firmware updates), and survey the 
printer. Maybe it produces some error report that can be sent to you by 
eMail.

There too is cmap.sty from Vladimir Volovich (with help from Han The 
Thanh, Werner Lemberg et al). This package manipulates the embedded 
fonts in the PDF file by adding a cmap property, that translates the 
code points to Unicode. It makes pdfTeX output searchable, and 
cut&paste pastes the right characters into the target document. It's 
usage is easy:

	\usepackage{cmap}

just after the \documentclass line.

--
Greetings

   Pete

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that
  you do it."  Mahatma Ghandi

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