[pdftex] Patch for longstanding pdftex font subsetting bug

[John Culleton]

On Saturday 21 March 2009 03:45:12 pm Melissa O'Neill wrote:
> The enclosed patch fixes a longstanding bug in font
> subsetting for pdflatex that has existed since 1.20a-rc1
> (March 2004).  This bug has been causing problems for Mac
> users for some time because OS X does not like the subtly
> invalid fonts that pdflatex can output (but it may have
> affected others as well).
>
> The technical details and patch are below...
>
> The issue relates to CharString encryption for Type 1
> fonts.
>
> In particular, the lenIV parameter of a font controls how
> much (encrypted) padding to put in front of the
> (encrypted) data.  The default is four, so four bytes of
> encrypted padding are produced.
>
> In one part of the pdftex font-subsetting code (the part
> that writes out empty subroutines that have been dropped
> in the process of subsetting), pdftex incorrectly treats
> a padding of zero as meaning that it should abandon
> charstring encryption altogether.  Not so. (FWIW, by
> undocumented convention, a padding of -1 does, in fact,
> mean no encryption.)
>
> By not encrypting data that is supposed to be encrypted,
> the subroutine ends up containing operator 0x1b, the
> hhcurveto operator, rather than 0x0b, return.  This is an
> error in two ways, first, subroutines should return, and,
> second, the hhcurveto operator expects some arguments.
>
> Note that the subroutines that are affected by this bug
> are exactly those that are *never called*, so we might
> expect the bug to be harmless.  It would appear, however,
> that Apple's font technology does process these
> "uncalled" subroutines and does not react well to their
> invalid content.
>
> Thus, to have been affected by this bug, you need to
>
>     a) Use a font where lenIV = 0, and
>
>     b) Use a Mac (or anything else that needs uncalled
> subroutines to nevertheless be valid),
>
> which explains why so many people have said, "I see no
> problem; it works for me" in response to the anguished
> cries of Mac users with PDFTeX-generated documents
> everywhere.
>
> FWIW, the buggy code was checked into the repository for
> version 1.20a- rc1.  Prior to that point, this aspect of
> font subsetting worked correctly.
>
> The patch is, thankfully, trivial, changing (t1_lenIV >
> 0) to (t1_lenIV >= 0).
>
> Fonts known to be affected by this bug include cm-super,
> sanskrit, and fonts processed with cfftot1 (i.e.,
> OpenType fonts used with LaTeX), as well as many Adobe
> Type 1 fonts.
>
> To assist Mac users, I have put a precompiled version of
> pdftex-1.40.9 on my website at
> http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~oneill/dist/pdftex-1.40.9-patched.
>zip
>
> If you have enjoyed this patch, share it with your
> friends.  I'm told it goes well with a glass of fine
> Merlot.
>
>      Melissa.
>
> P.S.  Sadly, I don't know if this is the *only* bug in
> fonts and subsetting that causes fonts to be subtly
> invalid, but it is at least *a* bug that's been squished.
>
> Enc.
>
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Is this bug restricted to pdflatex or does it cause  
problems in pdftex as well?

-- 
John Culleton
Able Indexers and Typesetters
http://wexfordpress.com