[XeTeX] Text output garbled after system update -- your ideas?

[Ulrike Fischer]

Am Thu, 14 Apr 2011 08:43:11 +0000 schrieb Kārlis Repsons:

> Hi all,
> 
> Did anyone have this problem:
> after a system update (actually a rebuild..) the old TeXLive installation 
> (2009) produces output of known-to work sources with no errors and no 
> warnings, but all text is garbled! You can see an example of work main 
> headlines in attach...
> As I've experimented with switching on and off system fonts, it appears that 
> the issue comes out of problems with those... Also it happened for a newer 
> version (2010) that update from Linux Libertine font 4.4.1 to 4.7.5 brings 
> most portions of text readable (but they are then again not readable with the 
> 2009 TeXLive).

You description is a bit vage and it is not very clear which
combination of TeXLive and font works and which not. 

I would say they are two possible causes for your problem:

1. The old xetex from TeXlive 2009 can't handle newer version of
libertine e.g. because of some old bug. In this case you will
probably have to update your texlive.

2. There exists more than one version of libertine in your system.
This can confuse the combo xetex/xdvipdfmx. 

Add \XeTeXtracingfonts= 1 to your document (I don't know if your
xetex version already knows this command) and compile on the command
line with

xelatex --output-driver="xdvipdfmx -vv" file

Then compare the pathes of the fonts used by xetex and xdvipdfmx in
the log and on the screen. 


-- 
Ulrike Fischer