pdfs with boxes instead of letters

pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Michael Green]

When I open the pdfs that I make with ConTeXt (II or IV), I often see  
x'd out boxes instead of letters. I'm writing in the hopes that  
someone has some ideas about what I might do.

Here is some more specific information about what happens

1. I have posted a jpeg of a representative page: http://carneades.pomona.edu/test/badpdf.jpg

2. The problem comes up when the pdf viewer is either Apple's Preview  
or Skim (which, as I understand it, uses the same basic code). This  
happens on machines with both OSX 10.4 PPC and 10.5 Intel.

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.

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.

6. It started happening in the spring. (I've been hoping it would go  
away in the normal course of ConTeXt changes.)

One obvious answer is just to use Adobe's software. That won't work  
for me because those programs cannot successfully send a file to  
either of the printers I have available here. (They also don't  
automatically update when a file changes, which is a nuisance.)

So I have a dilemma. If I want to print, I have to use the Apple and  
Apple-derived software. If I want to see letters, I have to use the  
Adobe software. But I cannot do both.

I doubt this is a ConTeXt specific problem, but hope there might be a  
solution through ConTeXt. More generally, I would be terrifically  
grateful for any ideas about what to do. Thank you for your time.

Michael
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Arthur Reutenauer]

	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
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[luigi scarso]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2075 bytes --]

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 12:38 AM, Michael Green <merely.ridiculous@gmail.com
> wrote:

> When I open the pdfs that I make with ConTeXt (II or IV), I often see x'd
> out boxes instead of letters. I'm writing in the hopes that someone has some
> ideas about what I might do.
>
> Here is some more specific information about what happens
>
> 1. I have posted a jpeg of a representative page:
> http://carneades.pomona.edu/test/badpdf.jpg
>
> 2. The problem comes up when the pdf viewer is either Apple's Preview or
> Skim (which, as I understand it, uses the same basic code). This happens on
> machines with both OSX 10.4 PPC and 10.5 Intel.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 6. It started happening in the spring. (I've been hoping it would go away
> in the normal course of ConTeXt changes.)
>
> One obvious answer is just to use Adobe's software. That won't work for me
> because those programs cannot successfully send a file to either of the
> printers I have available here. (They also don't automatically update when a
> file changes, which is a nuisance.)
>
> So I have a dilemma. If I want to print, I have to use the Apple and
> Apple-derived software. If I want to see letters, I have to use the Adobe
> software. But I cannot do both.
>
> I doubt this is a ConTeXt specific problem, but hope there might be a
> solution through ConTeXt. More generally, I would be terrifically grateful
> for any ideas about what to do. Thank you for your time.
>
> I don't  know, and I have not a Mac either.
But you can try with
\pdfminorversion=4
\pdfobjcompresslevel=0
\pdfcompresslevel=0
at the beginnig of your tex source

-- 
luigi

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 2535 bytes --]

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 486 bytes --]

___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Hans Hagen]

Taco Hoekwater wrote:
> Michael Green wrote:
>>
>> Question: is this still a problem for luatex 0.44? (Please say no).
> 
> I applied a patch tagged 'Melissa O'Neill' on March 22 (included as
> of luatex-0.36.0), which I think is the one this is about.

dicks article also mentioned a check/fix for missing returns in 
subroutines i.e. bugged fonts (so the problems are also related to 
bugged fonts); quite interesting summary esp the fact that there were 
bugged fonts on tex live

Hans


-----------------------------------------------------------------
                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
      tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
                                              | www.pragma-pod.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Taco Hoekwater]

Michael Green wrote:
> 
> Question: is this still a problem for luatex 0.44? (Please say no).

I applied a patch tagged 'Melissa O'Neill' on March 22 (included as
of luatex-0.36.0), which I think is the one this is about.

Best wishes,
Taco
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 22:41, Michael Green wrote:
>
> One other question. which pdftex shows that it's in the minimal distribution
>
> They released a patch for this problem in April 2009. Specifically, they
> patched the binary files dvips and pdftex
>
> Have these patches been applied to the versions of dvips and pdftex in the
> minimals?

Not for dvips for a simple reason. It's not in minimals. The sources
for minimals contain the latest stable pdftex branch (that's returning
errors during compilation at the moment).

The exact pdftex version depends on whether some particular maintainer
has already recompiled the binaries or not, but you can check on
http://svn.contextgarden.net/minimals/bin/tex/ if curious. In case of
Mac that's SVN #578, while the version in repository is #581.

> If not, is there any reason why I shouldn't substitute these
> patched versions for the ones in the minimals?

They may be older than the ones in minimals (and they will be
overwritten if you don't put them to the right place). I don't know
any details about LuaTeX. (I would assume that Taco did apply the
patch, but I don't know details.)

> Source for the patch:
> http://www.tug.org/mactex/fontcache/
> http://www.tug.org/mactex/fontcache/patchedbinaries.tar.gz

Mojca

PS: I admire the discovery of the bug, but some PDFs that Mathematica
generates manage to crash even Safari when trying to attach the
document and many of my own (manually generated) EPS images are pure
crap when viewed with Preview ... TeX seems innocent in comparison ...
:)
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Michael Green]

On Oct 30, 2009, Oliver Buerschaper wrote:

> Well, if your engine is pdftex (from an unpatched TeXLive 2008) then
> chances are you're running into the nasty (TM) font cache bug:
>
> http://www.tug.org/mactex/fontcache/
>
> Oliver

One other question. which pdftex shows that it's in the minimal  
distribution

They released a patch for this problem in April 2009. Specifically,  
they patched the binary files dvips and pdftex

Have these patches been applied to the versions of dvips and pdftex in  
the minimals? If not, is there any reason why I shouldn't substitute  
these patched versions for the ones in the minimals?

Thanks.

mjg

Source for the patch:
http://www.tug.org/mactex/fontcache/
http://www.tug.org/mactex/fontcache/patchedbinaries.tar.gz
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Michael Green]

On Oct 30, 2009, Oliver Buerschaper wrote:

> > I seem to have spoken too soon. The very next document I prepared
> > had the same boxes-rather-than-letters problem.
> >
> > That said, I cleared the font caches again and, after restarting,
> > the document looked correct. Perhaps this is a coincidence. Or
> > perhaps there is something amiss with the way my computers are
> > caching fonts. Sigh.
>
> Well, if your engine is pdftex (from an unpatched TeXLive 2008) then
> chances are you're running into the nasty (TM) font cache bug:
>
> http://www.tug.org/mactex/fontcache/
>
> Oliver

The symptoms seem right: strange, unpredictable display problems with  
Apple's pdf software but not Adobe's. And it's not just pdftex,  
apparently. They say that luatex is affected too. That's primarily  
what I use. So we have both known symptoms (sort of - they're vague)  
and an allegedly known cause. Perhaps we have a diagnosis.

Here is Dick Koch, "A Fix for the Corrupt Font Cache Bug"

http://www.tug.org/mactex/fontcache/Font-Cache-Bugfix.pdf

> The “corrupt font cache bug” on OS X has been traced by Melissa  
> O’Neill to a bug in  pdftex, present in that program since 2004.  
> The incorrect code is also used in other  programs, notably dvips,  
> luatex, and metapost.  …
>
> The code containing the pdftex bug was used with little change in  
> modern versions of  dvips, so fixing the bug in dvips was not  
> difficult. However, it wasn’t so easy to find the  corresponding  
> code in luatex and metapost. Instead of waiting for decisive fixes  
> in these  programs, we decided to just release the fixed pdftex and  
> dvips. This should fix the bug  for most users. Notice that pdftex  
> is used when typesetting in “pdftex” mode and dvips  is used when  
> typesetting in “TeX and DVI” mode. XeTeX does not have the bug.

And in another document, "Looking over the Debugger’s Shoulders ",  
Koch summarizes what they discovered this way:

http://www.tug.org/mactex/fontcache/Debugging.pdf

> Two bugs contributed to the problem. First, pdftex, dvips, luatex,  
> and metapost were  not correctly subsetting certain fonts. And  
> second, a large number of fonts contained  subroutines which did not  
> conclude with a RETURN command. Many of these were  created with the  
> utility mmpfb, which has been patched.

Question: is this still a problem for luatex 0.44? (Please say no).

If not, perhaps I should clean my caches and use only MkII/XeTeX.

Even then, I gather that old documents created with luatex will still  
be little time bombs (see Appendix, below). I guess I have to delete  
all pdfs made by luatex and regenerate them as needed. That's a lot of  
documents.

"Nasty" is right. Oy.

mjg

Appendix: Koch's explanation of why the font cache might become  
corrupt seemingly for no reason at all.

http://www.tug.org/mactex/fontcache/Font-Cache-Bugfix.pdf

> When GUI programs display pdf files,  they call Apple’s internal  
> pdf routines. In turn, these routines call Apple’s font routines  
> to  construct bitmaps for the outline fonts. These Apple routines  
> store the bitmaps in a font  cache to speed up future display. For  
> reasons unknown until recently, this font cache can  become corrupt;  
> this is “triggered” by displaying a defective pdf file. After  
> that trigger,  display problems persist for all files. To fix the  
> problem, the font cache needs to be rebuilt,  as happens when the  
> machine is rebooted. Adobe Acrobat does not use Apple’s pdf  
> display  routines, so it is immune to the bug. ...
>
> Once you install the repaired pdftex and dvips binaries, pdf files  
> created by these programs  will not contain damaged fonts and thus  
> won’t trigger the bug. But unfortunately, your old pdf files may  
> still be damaged. In addition, users on other platforms won’t have  
> the  repaired binaries for some time, so pdf files sent by  
> colleagues may still be damaged and  trigger the bug. That is why  
> you may still experience the bug from time to time until the  TeX  
> world catches up.
>
> It isn’t even necessary to display an old damaged pdf file to  
> trigger the bug, because Apple’s  QuickLook software and the  
> software in Finder which gives a miniature version of the first   
> page in the file browser can trigger it. If you keep experiencing  
> the bug after applying the  fix, you may need to retypeset files  
> which you often open.

___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Oliver Buerschaper]

> I seem to have spoken too soon. The very next document I prepared  
> had the same boxes-rather-than-letters problem.
>
> That said, I cleared the font caches again and, after restarting,  
> the document looked correct. Perhaps this is a coincidence. Or  
> perhaps there is something amiss with the way my computers are  
> caching fonts. Sigh.

Well, if your engine is pdftex (from an unpatched TeXLive 2008) then  
chances are you're running into the nasty (TM) font cache bug:

http://www.tug.org/mactex/fontcache/

Oliver 
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Michael Green]

Michael Green wrote:

> On Oct 29, 2009, at 11:56 PM, Mojca Miklavec wrote:
>
>>
>> Message: 3
>> Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:56:05 +0100
>> From: Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com>
>> To: mailing list for ConTeXt users <ntg-context@ntg.nl>
>> Subject: Re: [NTG-context] pdfs with boxes instead of letters
>> Message-ID:
>> 	<6faad9f00910290356j522794fw1326911d8a70b1a8@mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>>
>> The PDFs look OK here with both Preview and Skim. I would try to
>> delete the font cache on your computer and restart it.
>>
>
> That seems to have solved it. I see letters again! My quality of  
> life just went up measurably. Thank you very much!
>
> For the record, I used the simple method Wolfgang pointed to:  
> restarting in "Safe Mode" then restarting again in normal mode.
>
> It's extremely easy with no software or mucking around in unusual  
> directories.
>
> Specifically, I followed these instructions:
>
> http://www.ascendercorp.com/support/

I seem to have spoken too soon. The very next document I prepared had  
the same boxes-rather-than-letters problem.

That said, I cleared the font caches again and, after restarting, the  
document looked correct. Perhaps this is a coincidence. Or perhaps  
there is something amiss with the way my computers are caching fonts.  
Sigh.
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Michael Green]

On Oct 29, 2009, at 11:56 PM, Mojca Miklavec wrote:

>
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:56:05 +0100
> From: Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com>
> To: mailing list for ConTeXt users <ntg-context@ntg.nl>
> Subject: Re: [NTG-context] pdfs with boxes instead of letters
> Message-ID:
> 	<6faad9f00910290356j522794fw1326911d8a70b1a8@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> The PDFs look OK here with both Preview and Skim. I would try to
> delete the font cache on your computer and restart it.
>

That seems to have solved it. I see letters again! My quality of life  
just went up measurably. Thank you very much!

For the record, I used the simple method Wolfgang pointed to:  
restarting in "Safe Mode" then restarting again in normal mode.

It's extremely easy with no software or mucking around in unusual  
directories.

Specifically, I followed these instructions:

http://www.ascendercorp.com/support/
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Arthur Reutenauer]

> The PDFs look OK here with both Preview and Skim. I would try to
> delete the font cache on your computer and restart it.

  That indeed sounds like a reasonable cause.  Well spotted, Mojca!  :-)

	Arthur
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Wolfgang Schuster]

Am 29.10.2009 um 11:56 schrieb Mojca Miklavec:

> The PDFs look OK here with both Preview and Skim. I would try to
> delete the font cache on your computer and restart it.
>
> Use google, I'm not sure that I still remember how this should be
> done. Some untested sample links:
>    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071026081555971
>    http://www.creativetechs.com/iq/garbled_font_fix_corrupt_font_cache.html
>    http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/167/tn_16763.html

Another method that don't require an extra program:
http://email.esm.psu.edu/pipermail/macosx-tex/2009-September/041310.html

Wolfgang

___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Mojca Miklavec]

The PDFs look OK here with both Preview and Skim. I would try to
delete the font cache on your computer and restart it.

Use google, I'm not sure that I still remember how this should be
done. Some untested sample links:
    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071026081555971
    http://www.creativetechs.com/iq/garbled_font_fix_corrupt_font_cache.html
    http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/167/tn_16763.html

Mojca
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[luigi scarso]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 397 bytes --]

>
>
> 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.
>
It looks ok in my lunux box
with xpdf, acroread 9 , evince, kghostview


-- 
luigi

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 710 bytes --]

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 486 bytes --]

___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________

pdfs with boxes instead of letters

[Michael Green]

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.
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________