pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Michael Green <merely.ridiculous@gmail.com>]

On Oct 28, 2009, at 4:38 PM, Arthur Reutenauer wrote:

>     Hello,
>
> > 3. It happens with a wide variety of fonts.
> >
> > 4. When opened with one of Adobe's pdf readers (Adobe Reader,  
> Acrobat
> > Pro), the file always looks fine.
>
> That's extremely odd. Can you send a sample PDF file (along with the  
> source
> code) for us to inspect it? I'm using Mac OS 10.5 on Intel, so I'd  
> like to
> confirm the behaviour you report.
>
> > 5. Opening and closing the file can make the problem parts change.  
> So,
> > for instance, opening and closing the file can make it so that roman
> > letters show while italic letters are crossed boxes or vice versa.
> > Usually, if I do this enough, I can get to a normal view with all
> > letters looking like letters.
>
> That really doesn't make sense at all. Sounds like a problem with  
> the Apple
> code analyzing the PDF file, but I've never observed such a bizarre  
> behaviour
> myself, and I use mostly Preview on the Mac to view PDFs.
>
>     Arthur

Extremely odd, doesn't make any sense, bizarre ... that's pretty much  
what I think.

The pdf that I took a picture of and the source that produced it are  
in a zip file at this address:

http://carneades.pomona.edu/test/badpdf-source.zip

If you're willing to have a look, that would be great.

You may not see what I do. I walked down the hall and had someone else  
print this file earlier today. It looked fine using his copy of  
Preview (though he said he has seen something like what I reported in  
other cases). I'm mystified.
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