[pdftex] preflight

[Siep Kroonenberg]

We ran into the following unpleasant surprise:

we had prepared a publication with pdftex. It contained several
typesetting samples in pdf format supplied by authors.

Everything looked fine in Acrobat Reader 5. Preflighting with
Acrobat 6 Professional and with pdffonts from the xpdf suite
revealed no font issues: every font was embedded.

After the pdf had been sent to the printshop we discovered belatedly
a sample printed in Courier on our paper printout. When the sample
was printed separately, it was also printed in Courier.

The `producer' of the offending pdf was `Mac OS X 10.3.3 Quartz
PDFContext', i.e. OS X's built-in pdf engine.

At the printshop they also ran into trouble. The pdf made it through
PitStop and their imposition software but stranded in the RIP.

It seems that converting the pdf to eps with pdftops from the xpdf
suite and back with OS X Panther's pstopdf has fixed the problem.

Does this ring a bell anywhere? Any suggestions for additional
preflight checks? More bad font-related experiences with `Quartz
PDFContext'?

--
Siep Kroonenberg
siepo at cybercomm.nl