[pdftex] strange hyphen quirk

[Martin Jansche]

Hi,

I noticed the following problem with Ghostscript when viewing certain
PDF files produced by pdfTeX.  The problem is that the hyphen is
rendered as if it had zero width: it is displayed on top of other
glyphs, and subsequent text is moved leftwards.  At the moment, I'm
convinced that this problem isn't solely due to Ghostscript.

My pdfTeX version is "pdfTeX (Web2C 7.3.9) 3.14159-1.10a-devel" and
I'm running GNU gs 7.05 (everything from Debian unstable/testing).
The problem arises with the following input file:


\documentclass{report}

%% Use either this:
\usepackage{mathptmx}

%% Or this:
%\usepackage{mathpazo}

%% Or this:
%\usepackage{charter}

%% Or this:
%\usepackage{helvet}
%\renewcommand{\familydefault}{\sfdefault}

%% Or possibly some other combinations.

\begin{document}

\tableofcontents

\chapter{Lorem-Ipsum and Foo-Bar}
\section{Introduction}
A-b-C-D-e-f-G
\section{Lorem-ipsum}
\section{Foo-Bar}
\section{Conclusion}

%% This is crucial:
\'Eric

\end{document}


The problem arises only with certain embedded Type 1 fonts, including
those listed above (as you might have guessed, I configured updmap so
that pdfTeX always embeds the Base 14 fonts).  However, the problem
does NOT arise with embedded CM Type 1 fonts.  The problem arises when
producing PDF directly via pdfTeX; going the indirect route DVI
(dvips) PS (ps2pdf) PDF yields correct results, regardless of
whether I'm embedding Base 35 fonts into the intermediate PS file.

Also note that only Ghostscript seems to be affected (so it's
conceivable that pdfTeX is not involved at all), whereas Acrobat 4.05
and Acrobat 5.0.5 display the PDF file as intended.

Finally, the problem does not arise when I use "Eric" instead of
"\'Eric".  Also, the choice of OT1 vs. T1 encoding seems to be
immaterial.  Further note that only the hyphen in the medium series
seems to be affected; boldface is unaffected, unless the file contains
"\textbf{\'Eric}".

So, does anyone know what's going on here?  Can anyone reproduce this?
My guess is that something goes wrong with embedded fonts and
composite glyphs, but I can't tell where it goes wrong (in pdfTeX or
in Ghostscript), and I don't understand why it would result in
horizontally squished hyphens.

Thanks for any help,

- martin