[tex-live] gs reports error: "Embedded font uses undefined procedure(s)"

[George N. White III]

On 7/1/07, George N. White III <gnwiii at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/30/07, Thanh Han The <hanthethanh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > thanks for the translation.
>
> ditto here -- it is good to have an authoritative translation in the
> record
>
> > another thing to notice is that the ps file created by dvips
> > is ok, although the embedded fonts in pdf and ps are almost
> > identical (apart from the subset tag). Looks likely a gs
> > problem.
>
> I've peeked at the changes in gs pdf font handling -- there are major
> differences between 8.60 and 8.14 versions of pdf_fonts.ps
> and pdf_main.ps.  The current version will only issue one warning
> for each undefined procedure, but I still don't know why gs ever thought
> the test file had undefined procedures.  Pdf font handing is quite a bit
> different from the underlying postscript, so it is not surprising that
> .ps works where .pdf fails.  Consider the target audience for desktop
> linux -- e.g.,
> refugees fleeing from Win32, where pdf is not widely used.  Most linux
> distros use ESP gs 8.14 or 8.15 to support printing .ps files to non-ps
> printers.  For rendering .pdf files reliably a more recent gs, apparition,
> xpdf, etc. are probably more reliable.

http://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=688464 provides the explanation:

   ---------------------------------------------------------------
Additional Comment #11 From Alex Cherepanov 2006-01-11 05:23 -------

The patch is committed to the trunk, rev. 6445

Move back-up CharString construction procedures (RD, ND, ...) to a special
dictionary and put it below userdict to avoid warnings when the font
defines them in userdict.

Some broken fonts forget to define CharString construction procedures because
non-PostScript font rasterizers don't detect this error. Ghostscript has
a back-up definitions of the procedures that do their job and issue a warning.

Other correct but old-fashioned fonts define CharString construction procedures
in userdict. We had the back-up procedures defined above userdict, where they
preempted the userdict definitions and issued a bogus warning. This patch moves
the definitions below userdict.
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
> --
> George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
> Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia
>


-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia