[pdftex] multiple embedded pdf figures

[ivo welch]

dear pdftex wizards:

here is a verbatim email from my printer:

"I see that your pdf was created with pdfeTeX-1.21a.  You can view this by opening your pdf, going to File.. Document Properties.. Description.  If you also go to the Font section you can see that there are duplicate fonts embedded.  This is most likely the cause of the font substitution error you are witnessing.  When the printer rips your pdf, it looks at the embedded font subset to obtain the character to print.  When you have mulitple subsets with the same name, many times it will choose the wrong one.  It seems that merging multiple pdf's usually is the culprit for duplicate embedded fonts.  I can't guarantee you that any following orders will come out correctly.  My suggestion to you is that you re-create your pdf to exclude the duplicate fonts.  Merging all of your source documents (not pdfs) is the best option that I can think of.  You might also want to try a different pdf producer such as Adobe Distiller or InDesign."


# pdffonts book.pdf
<many lines, incl>
TCFXGM+LucidaBright                  Type 1       yes yes no      25  0
...
TCFXGM+LucidaBright                  Type 1       yes yes no    5081  0
TCFXGM+LucidaBright                  Type 1       yes yes no    5294  0

the latter come from pdf figure files that have been created by R (a
statistical package), which (because R is incapable of embedding fonts
themselves) receive their embedded font through one run through ps2pdf14
(gs 7.07.1).  finally, these ghostscript-distilled graphics are embedded
by \includegraphics.  naturally, they can come out with the same names.

it appears that pdftex does not use own font namespaces in
includegraphics.  R cannot do it, because it creates only one figure at
a time (it has no history of what other font names earlier runs
elsewhere have created).

an additional run of my big pdftex-created book.pdf file through
ps2pdf14 7.0.7.1 results in a /typecheck in --lt-- error, so this is not
a solution, either.

I hope I am not the first person to have run into this problem.  how can
I solve this problem?

sincerely,

/ivo welch