[pdftex] pdftex graphics primitives and weird font error?!

[Robin Fairbairns]

ivowel at gmail.com wrote:

> thank you everybody (reinhard, ross, thanh). this was very helpful. I wish I  
> did not have to argue with this gentleman. I think he is silly holding onto  
> a TeX package that is dead and old, but he runs his own typesetting shop,  
> my book publisher used him, and I am stuck now with refereeing between his  
> views and my views. (He also likes to call fonts by their native names, not  
> the karl berry names. so, I had to install them with this naming.) Just in  
> case you are wondering why I have been asking so many questions lately, it  
> is because I am stuck in this netherworld.
> 
> 
> My font is in my main document, not embedded. the test file is short:
> 
> \font\testf = op.tfm at 12 pt
> \testf this is op.tfm at 12 pt, fails with weird acrobat error.
> 
> \font\testf = tjb.tfm at 12 pt
> \testf this is tjb.tfm at 12 pt, works.
> 
> \bye

you know, i've never seen the .tfm part of the name in a \font command.
stands to reason it _would_ work, just looks odd.

> Now, I tried one tfm file for this font generated here, one .tfm generated  
> elsewhere. the .pfb file itself displays just fine in konqueror.

but does kpsewhich find it?

> However,  
> ghostscript cannot handle the output file, either, when I try  
> the .tex->.dvi->.ps->.pdf route (where gs does the last part). I do not  
> know of a native way to skip tex to view a .pfb font via ghostscript, or I  
> would have tried it, too.
> 
> I guess there is no easy "checkfontinstall.pl" script... :-(.

no.  and what's more, you give us essentially no information to go on.
i would guess broken map files (from the fact that dvips works but not
pdftex), with a side bet on broken tds structure.

where are the (pdf)tex file search traces, details of the "weird error"
in acrobat, etc?

r