Re: typesetting.{mom,pdf} and the groff build system (was: proposed "headline" items for groff 1.24.0)

On Tuesday, 3 February 2026 17:21:28 GMT G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> A more salient point is that we see only font descriptions for the PDF
> Base 14 fonts.  That seems okay to me.  (I'd be okay with installing
> font descriptions for all PostScript level 2 Base 35 fonts at this
> "basic" support level, too, supposing that with Free Software versions
> of these being widely available, PDF readers may have them "built-in"
> even if the standard doesn't require them to do so.)
> 
> Further, since that's what my working copy is doing, so I'd rather not
> perturb it unless someone feels strongly that we need to change it for
> "correctness".

I believe readers look for the urw fonts on your system and may supply them if 
they are not embedded, they definitely do not come with their own private 
copies. So in the case where gropdf is in basic mode and has not found the urw 
fonts, it follows that any pdf reader is also unlikely to find the font 
requested. The attached pdf is produced with current master with the unwanted 
extra fonts that do not have real fonts to embed. Also a png showing how it 
looks on my system in okular, (xpdf refused to show anything at all).

Looking at the pdf on your system, it may look different, if you have urw 
fonts installed, but we are talking about the user who is using a basic mode 
groff without any urw fonts installed. 

You have said you wish to show off groff's typographical abilities so allowing 
a user to produce pdfs like this may well put them off using groff. 

This behaviour has only been changed in the last few weeks, it was not done in 
rc1.

So this change (munging the build devpdf directory during install) is very 
recent, typographically it is hit and miss for the user, and the pdf produced 
does not conform to pdf standards. I hope these are reasons enough to restore 
the behaviour seen in 1.23.0 for basic users.

Cheers

Deri