Re: converting XFA PDFs using ghostscript - problem with encoding?

Hello Ken,

On Thu, Sep 07, 2017 at 11:27:41AM +0100, Ken Sharp wrote:
> At 12:10 07/09/2017 +0200, Nikola Ciprich wrote:
> 
> That's because, as I said, AcroForms are not XFA, and not XML. Your
> file is both an XFA *and* an AcroForm. This is highly unusual (in
> fact I've never see it before, probably because of the risk of
> confusion), most XFA forms only contain enough PDF to draw a page
> saying 'go and get Acrobat'. By having both present you run the risk
> of the form data only being stored in one of the two forms.
> 
> You aren't dealing with the XFA here, because (as I said)
> Ghostscript doesn't handle XML, and therefore cannot read an XFA.
> Only the AcroForm is rendered, if the values stored in the AcroForm
> fields differ from those in the XFA dfields, then it will give
> different results.
> 
> Potentially you may receive a Form which is filled in using (eg)
> Acrobat, which looks correct when viewed with Acrobat, and prints
> completely differently when run through Ghostscript.
> 
> 
> >in the meantime, I installed pdf  editor and examined source and produced
> >file in more detail (as well as with pdffont) and seems that after
> >all, problem
> >can be in fonts:
> 
> And the problem is what, exactly ? By the way, this is not a general
> support forum, and this question is off-topic. This mailing list is
> for development using Ghostscript, not usage.

I'm sorry, I wasn't aware of that.

> 
> Free users don't get support, here's my usual boolerplate on the subject:
> 
> 8<-------------------8<------------------8<-----------------8<-------------------8<----
> Thank you for your interest in Ghostscript. Ghostscript is supplied
> in two ways, as open-source software under the Affero General Public
> Licence Version 3
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License) and as
> commercial software under licence from Artifex Software.
> 
> Please note that the '[email protected]' mail address is only for
> customers using Ghostscript or other software licenced commercially
> from Artifex. The AGPL version of Ghostscript is provided 'as is',
> without warranty or support.
> 
> We do value input from our free user community and we will fix bugs
> reported to us as well as considering enhancement requests. However,
> this is entirely at our own discretion and, as you would expect, our
> commercial customers are given priority over free users.
> 
> Bugs can be reported (and enhancement requests raised) at
> http://bugs.ghostscript.com there are a number of other avenues open
> to free users:
> 
> 1) The stack overflow web site has a small but active community
> involved with Ghostscript, as well as PostScript and PDF. Questions
> raised here will often get a good response.
> 
> 2) The Ghostscript developers can be found on the #Ghostscript IRC
> channel on irc.freenode.net. Questions asked here will usually get a
> response though time zone differences can mean there are periods
> when nobody is available. The channel is logged, the developers read
> the logs and will respond, so even if nobody answers immediately
> hang around, someone will eventually. Alternatively check back in
> the logs later.
> 
> Artifex does offer commercial distribution licences for Ghostscript
> , and in cases where this is not appropriate also offers support
> contracts. If you are interested in pursuing either of these please
> contact [email protected]
> 
> 8<-------------------8<------------------8<-----------------8<-------------------8<----
> 
> 
> 
> >this is the gs produced pdf. examining file in pdf editor shows
> >that problematic part is the one
> >with Helvetica font, with "Custom" encoding.. however how to
> >proceed with this information,
> >I don't know yet :)
> 
> There are multiple problems.
> 
> The Annotations in the PDF do not contain Appearance streams. In the
> absence of an Appearance stream a PDF consumer may do anything,
> including nothing. For most annotations we choose to create an
> Appearance when one is missing.
> 
> But already you are into heuristics, because the way we create an
> Apperance is not the same as the way Acrobat does.
> 
> In order to create the Appearance we look at the properties of the
> annotation, in this particular case the annotations are drawn (/DA
> the default Appearance key)  using ArialMT. But we don't have a copy
> of ArialMT available. If you look at the transcript, you will see
> Ghostscript telling you this, and that it is substituting Helvetica
> for ArialMT:
> 
> GPL Ghostscript GIT PRERELEASE 9.22 (2017-03-16)
> Copyright (C) 2017 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
> This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
> Processing pages 1 through 1.
> Page 1
> Querying operating system for font files...
> Substituting font Helvetica for MyriadPro-Regular.
> Loading NimbusSans-Regular font from
> %rom%Resource/Font/NimbusSans-Regular... 39
> 73452 2485749 4730328 3370090 3 done.
> Substituting font Helvetica for ArialMT.
> >>showpage, press <return> to continue<<
> 
> 
> Perhaps unsurprisingly Helvetica does not (generally) have the
> accented characters you are using, our copy certainly does not, with
> the result that the text is incorrect.
> 
> If you supplied a reasonable substitute for ArialMT then its
> 'possible' you might get better results, but since that's is a
> TrueType font the results are likely to be variable. Getting the
> encoding correct is likely to be challenging.
> 
> However, nothing else is going to help you, you need to provide a
> substitute for the missing font, and it needs to have the glyphs
> available, and it needs to have them encoded in the right place for
> the text strings in the annotation.
> 
> If you do that, then it will work.

I tried shipping multiple variants of the font so far, but none of them worked.
we'll keep examining it and I'll report if I find some solution which might
be usable for others.

thanks a lot for your time

BR

nik



> 
> 
>                 Ken
> 

-- 
-------------------------------------
Ing. Nikola CIPRICH
LinuxBox.cz, s.r.o.
28. rijna 168, 709 00 Ostrava

tel.:   +420 591 166 214
fax:    +420 596 621 273
mobil:  +420 777 093 799

www.linuxbox.cz

mobil servis: +420 737 238 656
email servis: [email protected]
-------------------------------------

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAlmyM70ACgkQ3xdJJrLygV5NcgCgxRj/soCIpDx+8oVvkvvmkboK
Re8AoOuVbvO8+64N9rXwxOO8tiZZWyQK
=qY8q
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----