[tex-live] PK fonts characters left blank by "dvips -P pdf" on windows

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 17 November 2010 Uwe Siart wrote:

 > Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns at cl.cam.ac.uk> writes:
 > 
 > > i wouldn't use -Ppdf on a modern system (except in really strange
 > > circumstances).
 > 
 > But loading tex.pro and alt-rule.pro still makes sense even on modern
 > systems, doesn't it?
 > 
 > At least I see rendering of radical signs and fraction bars is much
 > better in AR when built with latex -> dvips -Ppdf -> ps2pdf.

Interesting.  Does dvips *always* produce better results in AR, also
on different platforms, than pdftex?

I suppose that the problem is the implementation of TeX's primitive
\rule in pdftex.  There are two possible ways to implement it:

 1. draw a line with a particular length and width,

 2. draw a rectangle.

In both, PostScript and PDF, lines and rectangles are distinct
primitives.  Former versions of AR rendered them differently and AFAIR
pdftex uses either of of them, dependent on the aspect ratio.

Maybe it makes sense to investigate whether this workaround is still
needed today.

Regards,
  Reinhard 

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