[reportlab-users] pdf-with-embedded-ttf-font-does-not-print

[Dinu Gherman]

Am 07.03.2018 um 09:50 schrieb Massa, Harald Armin <chef at ghum.de>:
> 
> 
> 2018-03-07 9:41 GMT+01:00 Henning von Bargen <H.vonBargen at t-p.com>:
>> Probably this is not a Reportlab issue at all.
>> I suspect an error in the MS Windows printing system or in the printer driver or in the way the applications print.
>> 
>> The library vendor told me that the library works in such a way that the subsetted TrueType fonts (contained in the PDF) are extracted and temporarily installed on windows, then they are used to print the document using the windows APIs, then they are uninstalled again.
>> When printing on a network printer, one has to tell the library to wait until the printer has actually finished printing before uninstalling the TTFs again - it is NOT sufficient to wait until the print job has successfully been submitted.
> trusting to wait the right time for asynchronous network events is daring. And trusting that the notifications from network printers stay constant over versions is even more daring :)
> 
> Anyhow: a solution would be the "convert glyphes to curves", which is one of the common workarounds in printing to not be required to embed the fonts. The letters are converted into curves.  That may or may not increase the PDF size; it makes it much more challenging to index the text inside; but it makes it easier to print.
> 
> Could there be an operation to do this in the canvas.save() of reportlab? Hard thing to program, but must likely more joyfull than hunting down timing issues in a multi-version and multiple-printers windows network.

I remember I did something like that maybe 10 years ago, when experimenting with customized kerning effects and had extracted and drawn glyph outlines from some TTF. I might be able to dig up that code, again, but it can take some time.

It would certainly be a funny feature for RL, but, as you say, it would make the output less accessible, especially if you care about PDF/A or what it is named.

Cheers,

Dinu
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