[pdftex] Acrobat 6.0, pdfTeX, and CJK/Unicode incompatibility?

[Ross Moore]

Hello Roger,

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, Roger Hart wrote:

> I'm encountering a problem with Unicode characters (Chinese and
> Japanese in particular) in PDF files produced by pdftex.
>
> I'm running Mac OS X 10.3.2, and have installed TeX (TeX Live and
> teTeX) using i-Installer.  And then (following very detailed
> instructions kindly provided by Olivier Delloye) I installed the
> following: (1)  the ucs package, (2) the CJK package, and (3) a Unicode
> True Type font (Bitstream Cyberbit).  I use TeXShop 1.34 as the front
> end, and typeset using LaTeX and  pdfTeX (which is version 1.11a). My
> LaTeX preamble includes: \usepackage[encapsulated]{CJK};
> \usepackage{ucs}; and \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}.
>
> As someone on the OS X TeX list noted earlier, the CJK/Unicode
> characters sometimes do not display properly in Apple's Preview, and
> thus the same problem occurs in TeXShop's Preview. The suggestion was
> to instead view the output PDF file in Adobe Reader or Acrobat.


> However, Acrobat Professional thinks there is something wrong in the
> encoding. While the characters are displayed correctly, and print
> correctly, there still seems to be a problem.  When I run the
> accessibility checker in Adobe Acrobat Professional 6.01
> (Advanced->Accessibility->Full Check), I get the following result:
>
> 	All of the text in this document lacks a language specification.
>
> 	723 words(s) inaccessible because they contain characters with no
> reliable mapping to Unicode.
>
> 	This document is not structured; the reading order of the contents may
> be incorrect.

Please have a look at a document that I created recently, using CJK:

  http://www.tug.org/tug2003/preprints/Yiu/yiu.pdf

Using Acrobat Reader 6.0, and checking the Accessibility there, I get
just the 3rd message above.

Of course the Reader will not have all the features of your Professional
version. It *does* have an option "Use Local Fonts" --- which makes no
difference for me as I've not installed anything special other than
what comes with  MacOS X v10.2.8.  Should this affect anything ?


However, I then ran it through the Accessibility checker of Acrobat 5.0,
and it produced:

The checker found problems which may prevent the document from being
fully accessible.
    + All of the text in this document lacks a language specification.
    138 element(s) with no alternate text.
    565 words(s) inaccessible because they contain characters with no
reliable mapping to Unicode.
    + This document is not structured; the reading order of the contents
may be incorrect.

 ... along with a log-file that listed exactly where each 'bad' character
occurs: page number + (x,y) coords.


Just for fun, I also tried opening pages in  Illustrator 10.
Here all the Type 3 font characters were simply omitted
 --- there was a message saying that this was happening.


> If I then try to add tags (Advanced->Accessibility->Add tags to
> documents), Acrobat substitutes incorrect characters in some instances.
> Or sometimes Acrobat just crashes.  This add tags feature seems to work
> properly on documents without Chinese, and also works with PDF files
> created from MS Word, even with Chinese in the documents.

I don't have the software to try this.


> I have called Adobe support, and of course they state that the problem
> is not with Acrobat, but with pdfTeX, since it produced the PDF file.
>
> I am not an expert in TeX and I have tried a number of admittedly
> simple-minded workarounds, such as attempting to print out as
> Postscript file and run Distiller, etc. I've also tried running the
> LaTeX files through other front ends, such as iTeXMac.  I've spent
> quite a bit of time trying to find a solution, without any success.
> Any suggestions?

No suggestions.
Clearly the Adobe stuff expects a stricter set of rules for encoding
fonts and/or providing alternative descriptions, than what pdfTeX
currently provides.

It would be nice if someone with the knowledge could determine
what is needed in pdfTeX to satisfy the Adobe software.


>
> Thanks very much for your help,

No help -- just further observations.


Best wishes, in the New Year,

	Ross Moore

>
> Roger
>
>
> ********************************
>
> Roger Hart
> Assistant Professor, Departments of History and Asian Studies
> University of Texas at Austin
>
> office: Room 405, Garrison Hall
> office phone: 512-475-7258
> department fax: 512-475-7222
> email: rhart at mail.utexas.edu
> http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rhart
>
> *********************************
>
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