[pdftex] Linux AR5.0.10 bug?: "Expected a name object" - Radio Buttons

Marco Loskamp loskamp at math.wisc.edu
Wed Jan 5 01:41:38 CET 2005


Dear list,

Believing this isn't a pdfTeX issue, I've been trying for many days
now to generate radio buttons under pdfTeX, and it all runs fine
... until I try to print from Linux Acrobat Reader version 5.0.10
(also 5.0.9, and probably, but not tested, any earlier version).

When I print from the Linux AR 5.0.9/10 menu, AR just crashes. When
I print from a browser (--version "Mozilla Firefox 1.0, Copyright (c)
2004 mozilla.org") with the nppdf.so plugin shipped with AR, the browser
survives, but the pluging freezes, leaving a blank white page in AR 5.0.9.
No error messages whatsoever in both cases.

Using "acroread -toPostScript FormBug.pdf", I get the message
"<file>: Expected a name object."

I have read through the PDFReference15.pdf over and over, and also
looked at the PDF code of many files on the web that had radio buttons.
But I couldn't find the mistake, as described in

  http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/pdf2k/02E/mgavin_corruptpdfs.pdf

, namely that there might be a construct like /Key(Value), where /Key/Value
was expected.

My pdfTeX source and the resulting .pdf/.log file can be found at

  http://www.math.wisc.edu/~loskamp/FormBug.tex
  http://www.math.wisc.edu/~loskamp/FormBug.pdf
  http://www.math.wisc.edu/~loskamp/FormBug.log

I have made a sincere attempt to keep the .pdf file human readable. It
contains no fonts, just two radio buttons, everything is plain ASCII,
no binary junk.

When I construct a file with nothing but two radio buttons from
Acrobat professional (6.0), everything works fine under Linux. So
my guess is that this may be a pdfTeX issue...(?)  Maybe pdfTeX
[would have to/should] generate the /AcroForm entry in the /Catalog?

Thank you deeply in advance for any input you may have!

Marco Loskamp



More information about the pdftex mailing list