[pdftex] question on displaying brackets in pdf

[Robin Fairbairns]

> I work on Windows 2000 professional and I've installed Miktex 2.1 I think (I 
> don't know where to see the version of pdflatex).

the incredibly ancient version on my laptop starts up

This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159-14f-released-20000525 (Web2C 7.3.1)

anything after the initial sequence of \pi is the pdftex version,
which is what people were after.

> When I compile into a pdf 
> file for example the following lines
> 
> x=\left( {y\over z} \right)^2
> 
> I can see correctly the brackets with the acrobat reader 4.0 but if I print 
> them with a laser EPSON they appears like this 'x/y', they are not complete, 
> only the upper part is visible. I tried a lot of times with the same effect 
> even with square brackets.

this sounds ever so much like an early-acrobat-reader problem.  istr
there was a problem of this sort that plagued acrobat reader 3, and
was still present on 4.00; mended in 4.05

the trouble is that adobe don't tell you whether you've got 4.00 or
4.05; and last i looked on adobe's site there wasn't a 4.05 to be had,
which didn't bother me because i wanted 5.05 at the time.

in the environments i have to hand (linux, 4.05 or 5.<something>) your
example gives no problem (at 10pt -- what size are you using?).

is the problem resolved by grabbing a more recent acrobat reader?

> In atachment I send a scan of the worst page I got printed (even \sqrt are 
> cut!) someone knows what the matter is??? The printer? acrobat? miktex ?

this was a bad idea, but the mailing list destroyed your attachment
anyway.  if the problem's not already resolved by upgrading acrobat,
try putting a copy on a web site somewhere, together with the pdf that
it comes from.

robin