[XeTeX] Don't update to Mac OS X 10.6.7

[Ivan]

Hello,

If you find yourself scratching your head over jumbled text in (commonly) PDF files after the 10.6.7 update, it’s an issue that’s cropped up and found its way on Apple’s Discussion boards according to the folks over at Macworld. The text bug occurs with OpenType Postscript fonts, which aren’t included by default with your new Mac but can be later added with the installation of third party software (Adobe is noted). The problem seems to only occur in apps utilizing OS X’s rendering engine outside of the Preview application, displaying jumbled text that’s impossible to read. Upon printing, you may encounter an “invalid font error” in rare cases. The bug only crops up if you’re using software such as Adobe Reader, and the PDF you’re reading utilizes the aforementioned fonts. By using Preview or opening documents that use a common font such as Helvetica for example, it’s possible you’ll never see the word scramble in action.

[via Macworld:] http://www.macworld.com/article/158968/2011/04/bugsandfixes_font_problems.html#lsrc.rss_main

Ivan

On 01.04.2011, at 22:00, Mojca Miklavec wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I'm sorry for cross-posting, but this issue is a really nasty one (and
> might come too late for some). If you use OpenType fonts in your TeX
> documents, don't update your Mac OS X unless you want to have some
> serious fun with printing ...
> 
> http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20048314-263.html
> http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2792142
> http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2791830
> 
> ... a workaround that worked for me (for PostScript printers only) was
> the following: I used
>      http://localhost:631/help
> for help and ended up doing
>   lpstat -p
> to get printer name and then
>   lp -d some_very_weird_printer_name_ myfile.pdf
> to send the file to a PostScript printer.
> 
> I wasn't sure whether it was an OS issue or LuaTeX issue (I updated
> both), but Florian on ntg-context mailing list posted the above links
> which most probably makes XeTeX users vulnerable as well.
> 
> Mojca
> 
> 
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