[pdftex] Strange problems with graphics inclusion

[George N. White III]

On 6/19/07, Ulrich Dirr <ud at art-satz.de> wrote:

> Jan Anderssen wrote:
> > On Jun 19, 2007, at 6:59 AM, Ulrich Dirr wrote:
> >
> >> Martin Schröder wrote:
> >>> Am 19.06.07 schrieb Ulrich Dirr <ud at art-satz.de>:
> >>>> When including some Illustrator graphic as pdf (I've tried several
> >>>> different methods from the original eps) I cannot select any text
> >>>> in the pdf with tools like PitStop, all pages seem to be 'frozen'
> >>>> ... When I omit the graphic everything is selectable. When I'm
> >>>> running a preflight I got an error saying that the file has a
> >>>> fatal error.
> >>>
> >>> Seems like an error in PitStop. Does it tell you the reason for the
> >>> fatal error?
> >>>
> >>> It opens fine here in AR7 on Linux.
> >
> > I can open the file test.pdf without problems in Acrobat 6.0
> > Professional on OS X, however when I tried to preflight it, I
> > get "An
> > error ocurred while parsing a content stream. Unable to analyze the
> > PDF file."
> >
> > The file dia1d.pdf by itself preflight without problems, and so does
> > test2.pdf.
> >
> > I don't speak pdf, so I can't be of any help actually solving the
> > problem. In the short term though, the usual "Save as
> > PostScript" and re-distill takes care of the problem here.

Have you tried this with just the image?   That would confirm that
some \includegraphics "feature" is to blame.

> thanks, yes I'd tried this too. But I'm still wondering why a standard
> process -- taking an eps/pdf file from Illustrator and include it in my
> tex document via \includegraphics -- suddenly stops working ...

There are some limitations with \includegraphics -- look for the thread
on the 3D extensions.

There are many ways to save pdf from Illustrator -- have you experimented
with different options?    This might help track down the problem, especially
if it leads you to a minimal example so we can eyeball uncompressed
pdf content.  Even if is hard to fix the bug a warning might be appropriate:
"indigestible pdf image -- please convert to PS and redistill before viewing".

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia