font problem between 1.8.29 and 1.9.12 keeping me from updating my production work

Question

font problem between 1.8.29 and 1.9.12 keeping me from updating my production work

Closed this issue 3 years ago · 16 comments

I am trying to move my production PDF generation to a new server running 1.9.12 and one document type comes out looking different. I think it has something to do with mono-space fonts. Examples of source .html files and resulting .pdf files can be found on "www.pekarske.name/docs/obtuse".

Command is:
CHARTARGS="--webpage --quiet --linkstyle plain --no-links --bodyfont Monospace --embedfonts --fontsize 10 --bottom 5 --top 5 --header "..." --footer "..." --left 36"
htmldoc $CHARTARGS -f CLAN${ROOTBID}.pdf ${CPAG}-*.html >> $PDIR/upd.log

Please note the spacing of the centered text in the two PDFs. files tagged _fax are from 1.8.29 and files tagged _beso3 are from 1.9.12.
I am not very good with fonts, so I hope this is not something trivial, but solving it will be much appreciated by me in any event.

Answer 1 · 2021-07-22T02:09:30.000Z

Just found this note in a log file - I suspect it is the problem, but I do not know how to fix it:
**** Error: can't process embedded font stream,
attempting to load the font using its name.
Output may be incorrect.

Answer 2 · 2021-07-22T18:48:47.000Z

@BobPekarske What software is producing that error message? The only real changes to the font embedding code between 1.8.x and 1.9.x was the addition of support for UTF-8 (which yields a dynamic 8-bit character encoding in the PDF file vs. one of the canned ISO/Windows charsets).

Answer 3 · 2021-07-22T20:30:48.000Z

I assumed that it was an error message from HTMLDOC. Is that not the case? The htmldoc command, as given in my case report, was called by a bash shell script.

On 7/22/21 11:48 AM, Michael R Sweet wrote: @BobPekarske <https://github.com/BobPekarske> What software is producing that error message? The only real changes to the font embedding code between 1.8.x and 1.9.x was the addition of support for UTF-8 (which yields a dynamic 8-bit character encoding in the PDF file vs. one of the canned ISO/Windows charsets). — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#442 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AUP2HMWK3LS47XXVU6JMFUTTZBRZVANCNFSM5AZCFM4A>.

-- "Every day above ground is a good day!" "Any day on the Arizona Trail is a great day!" www.azpotlatch.org

Answer 4 · 2021-07-22T20:49:13.000Z

@BobPekarske No, any HTMLDOC errors will be prefixed with "ERR".

Answer 5 · 2021-07-22T20:52:58.000Z

OK. Perhaps it is from ghostscript trying to stitch together several PDF files into a longer book. HOWEVER, is it not strange that the new PDF is so much smaller than the earlier? Is it possible that the font was not properly "embedded"?

On 7/22/21 1:49 PM, Michael R Sweet wrote: @BobPekarske <https://github.com/BobPekarske> No, any HTMLDOC errors will be prefixed with "ERR". — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#442 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AUP2HMQMSGUOO6RLMGKYWWLTZB75LANCNFSM5AZCFM4A>.

-- "Every day above ground is a good day!" "Any day on the Arizona Trail is a great day!" www.azpotlatch.org

Answer 6 · 2021-07-23T11:33:50.000Z

@BobPekarske Can you attach sample PDFs from before and after? 1.9.x does have updated font files (more glyphs) so I’d expect the new PDF to be slightly larger, not smaller.

Answer 7 · 2021-07-23T15:07:02.000Z

Can you not access those files on my website - link in report? "www.pekarske.name/docs/obtuse"

On 7/23/21 4:34 AM, Michael R Sweet wrote: @BobPekarske <https://github.com/BobPekarske> Can you attach sample PDFs from before and after? 1.9.x does have updated font files (more glyphs) so I’d expect the new PDF to be slightly larger, not smaller. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#442 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AUP2HMTPIZIQZDIGOWYMUTLTZFHSRANCNFSM5AZCFM4A>.

-- "Every day above ground is a good day!" "Any day on the Arizona Trail is a great day!" www.azpotlatch.org

Answer 8 · 2021-07-23T20:30:26.000Z

On 7/23/21 4:34 AM, Michael R Sweet wrote: @BobPekarske <https://github.com/BobPekarske> Can you attach sample PDFs from before and after? 1.9.x does have updated font files (more glyphs) so I’d expect the new PDF to be slightly larger, not smaller. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#442 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AUP2HMTPIZIQZDIGOWYMUTLTZFHSRANCNFSM5AZCFM4A>.

-- "Every day above ground is a good day!" "Any day on the Arizona Trail is a great day!" www.azpotlatch.org

Answer 9 · 2021-07-26T13:30:01.000Z

@BobPekarske OK, I'm able to access those files and am looking at why the 1.9.x output is missing the font data.

Just for completeness - what OS are you using on your server and how did you install HTMLDOC?

Answer 10 · 2021-07-26T14:27:35.000Z

The server was purchased this year and is running Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS. Could I be missing some font file that htmldoc uses as the default mono-spaced font? I am not very good at recent font management methods. Thank you for taking your valuable time to explore this issue. [I installed htmldoc by downloading the tar file, unpacking, configure, make, and then linked to the new executable (rather than make install).]

On 7/26/21 6:30 AM, Michael R Sweet wrote: @BobPekarske <https://github.com/BobPekarske> OK, I'm able to access those files and am looking at why the 1.9.x output is missing the font data. Just for completeness - what OS are you using on your server and how did you install HTMLDOC? — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#442 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AUP2HMUBOFLZ3XHSKKDSE5LTZVPOXANCNFSM5AZCFM4A>.

-- "Every day above ground is a good day!" "Any day on the Arizona Trail is a great day!" www.azpotlatch.org

Answer 11 · 2021-07-26T16:02:36.000Z

@BobPekarske If you don't install, you need to set the HTMLDOC_DATA environment variable to point to the source directory, otherwise it won't be able to find its font files...

Answer 12 · 2021-07-26T17:51:03.000Z

O, wow! I see that now in the man page. Should the variable point to the "data" subdirctory at the build location?

On 7/26/21 9:02 AM, Michael R Sweet wrote: @BobPekarske <https://github.com/BobPekarske> If you don't install, you need to set the HTMLDOC_DATA environment variable to point to the source directory, otherwise it won't be able to find its font files... — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#442 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AUP2HMQS4Y2EBSV4KBU2HI3TZWBKRANCNFSM5AZCFM4A>.

-- "Every day above ground is a good day!" "Any day on the Arizona Trail is a great day!" www.azpotlatch.org

Answer 13 · 2021-07-26T18:53:50.000Z

@BobPekarske Point it at the main source directory - when installed HTMLDOC will look for files in both the "data" and "font" subdirectories.

Answer 14 · 2021-07-26T20:44:55.000Z

I tried to address this issue two different ways, and neither changed the size of the PDF file or the unacceptable layout of the charts. 1. I set /usr/share/htmldoc as a symbolic link to my build directory. No change. 2. I added "export HTMLDOC_DATA=/home/bob/htmldoc-1.9.12" to the script. No change. Then I thought I would try using the debug option and set "export HTMLDOC_DEBUG=all" in the script. I got NO DEBUG OUTPUT!

On 7/26/21 11:54 AM, Michael R Sweet wrote: @BobPekarske <https://github.com/BobPekarske> Point it at the main source directory - when installed HTMLDOC will look for files in both the "data" and "font" subdirectories. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#442 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AUP2HMT3LCJNTDHLHVYX7R3TZWVMTANCNFSM5AZCFM4A>.

-- "Every day above ground is a good day!" "Any day on the Arizona Trail is a great day!" www.azpotlatch.org

Answer 15 · 2021-07-26T21:34:57.000Z

@BobPekarske If I run HTMLDOC on my local system (also Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) I get the expected output (with embedded fonts). Try running without the --quiet option - then you'll see any errors and debug output.

Answer 16 · 2021-07-26T22:20:37.000Z

I am incredibly grateful to you for persevering with me in this resolution. I report these two findings that you might chose to incorporate: 1. The setting of the environmental variables does not seem to affect the program. 2. The man page shows /usr/share/htmldoc as the default DATA path (and 1.8.29 was installed there), however, after removing the --quiet option, the ERR messages showed it was trying to load from /usr/local/share! (note that the environment variable was set during this execution.) In any event, I now have a PDF with properly embedded fonts and the PDF displays as expected/desired. Thank You! Live Long and Prosper, Bob Pekarske

On 7/26/21 2:35 PM, Michael R Sweet wrote: @BobPekarske <https://github.com/BobPekarske> If I run HTMLDOC on my local system (also Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) I get the expected output (with embedded fonts). Try running without the |--quiet| option - then you'll see any errors and debug output. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#442 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AUP2HMRPQO74ERCYWEDDS43TZXIIZANCNFSM5AZCFM4A>.

-- "Every day above ground is a good day!" "Any day on the Arizona Trail is a great day!" www.azpotlatch.org