Garbled text displayed for PDF document
Bob Kline
out the flyer it contains. Some of the individuals who have pulled down
the file reported that a portion of the text was garbled. The text in
question is "Unique Voices, One Voice" but on some computers it comes
out as "ÂhÇ|Öâx iÉ|vxá?bÇx iÉ|vxÊ ." At least one of the users who
reported the problem discovered later that subsequent attempts to
display the document succeeded in showing the correct text, using the
same software (Internet Explorer). For other users, the problem persists.
Could someone who knows how PDFs work take a look at this document and
tell me what could be going on here? The file can be retrieved from
http://www.uuca-music.org/ChoirFlyer_041909.pdf
Thanks!
ken
bkl...@rksystems.com says...
> the file reported that a portion of the text was garbled. The text in
> question is "Unique Voices, One Voice" but on some computers it comes
> out as "ÂhÇ|Öâx iÉ|vxá?bÇx iÉ|vxÊ ." At least one of the users who
> reported the problem discovered later that subsequent attempts to
> display the document succeeded in showing the correct text, using the
> same software (Internet Explorer). For other users, the problem persists.
>
> Could someone who knows how PDFs work take a look at this document and
> tell me what could be going on here?
Looks like a problem with the plug-in. Web browsers can't display PDF
natively, they need a plug-in to do so. When I initially opened the PDF
file it displayed the garbled text, but crucially it was also in the
wrong font. Saving the PDF locally displayed the correct font and text
*in the browser*.
It could be that the plug-in just takes time to catch up to the font and
initially displays it using a synthetic font. The incorrect display uses
a bold, upright font, rather than the bold highly stylised script font.
This is probably due to the order that objects are embedded in the PDF
file. The content stream (page description) is encountered before any of
the fonts which are used by the page description.
I would guess that the plug-in initialy uses the Adobe Sans MM font to
synthesise a font for display, later it encounters the correct embedded
font and subsequently uses that.
Probably the users who complained about the text would eventually have
seen the correct text displayed, if they had waited until the entire
file was downloaded. (possibly these users are on a slow connection ?) A
refresh might have been required as well.
To avoid this you should create your PDf files as 'optimized for fast
web view' or similar depending on your PDF creation software (I notice
this was created using Adobe Distiller 9, ). This ensures that resources
needed by a page are downloaded before they are used. It also defers
downloading of resources used on subsequent pages untlil they are
needed, which means the display starts immediately.
To enable this for Distiller:
1) Start up Acrtobat Distiller
2) Select from the 'Default Settings' drop down the named job options
you want to use.
3) From the 'Settings' menu select 'Edit Adobe PDF Settings'
4) A dialog should open to the 'General' page, if it doesn't select
'General' from the list on the left.
5) About three quarters of the way down the dialog is a check box
labelled 'Optimize for fast web view', check the box.
6) OK out and if required give the job options file a new name.
Ken
Bob Kline
> Looks like a problem with the plug-in. ....
Thanks, Ken. Very useful information. Is there a tool I could use to
determine in which order resources are stored in the document?
Bob
ken
bkl...@rksystems.com says...
Hmm, well you can use pdftk to uncompress the file, and then look with a
text editor, but I don't know of something easy to use, no. I'd still
suggest you optimise the files for web viewing, it should be fine that
way.
Ken
Engineer@pnb.retired_1987 Don Schmidt
The "Unique Voices One Voice" invades the images on each side, but in all
the display is very nice.
My reader shows you used six fonts, embedded.
I brought the file up in IE 7 using PDF-Viewer, a Tracker Software program.
--
Don - PDF-XChange Pro®/PDF-XChange Viewer Pro®
Vancouver, USA
"Bob Kline" <bkl...@rksystems.com> wrote in message
news:wIOdncgI-om77k3U...@speakeasy.net...
PDFrank
> Could someone who knows how PDFs work take a look at this document and
> tell me what could be going on here? The file can be retrieved from
>
> http://www.uuca-music.org/ChoirFlyer_041909.pdf
Some of my PDF readers won't open this file at all. Two complain of a
"bad trailer section."
Adobe Acrobat 5 says the file is damaged and cannot be repaired.
But I'm not having a "garbled text" problem.
Bob Kline
> Hmm, well you can use pdftk to uncompress the file, and then look with a
> text editor, ....
Perfect! Just what I was looking for. Thanks!
Bob
Peter Flynn
This displays fine using the Adobe plugin for Firefox under Ubuntu.
I downloaded it and ran pdf2ps and it gave me the warning:
> **** Warning: Fonts with Subtype = /TrueType should be embedded.
> The following fonts were not embedded:
> CenturyGothic
> TimesNewRomanPSMT
>
> **** This file had errors that were repaired or ignored.
> **** The file was produced by:
> **** >>>> Acrobat Distiller 9.0.0 (Windows) <<<<
> **** Please notify the author of the software that produced this
> **** file that it does not conform to Adobe's published PDF
> **** specification.
So you need to go back to whoever produced it and ask them to turn on
font embedding.
///Peter