printing from libreoffice garbles output

[Florian Hars]

If I write a text in libreoffice and then print it, a random subset of the characters in the output are replaced with another character (I have seen ¨ and u in different documents). If I export as PDF, I can print that document without problems.

I print to the IPP service on a Samsung CLP-610ND printer using the recommended foomatic CLP-610 driver (the other CLP-610 and the CLP-610ND driver offered by the config panel do always produce a "use the proper driver" error page).

Other people have seen the same behaviour with a HP LaserJet 1022 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1870870
and a HP Color LaserJet 1600 http://www.ubuntu-forum.de/index.php?page=Thread&postID=337315

This is a regression in 11.10.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: libreoffice-writer 1:3.4.3-3ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Nov 5 15:36:49 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
SourcePackage: libreoffice
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Lars Renström (lars-renstrom)]

I can also confirm garbled output with a Samsung ML-2851ND. It seems to "trash" all Swedish characters in the document. This worked OK in 11.04 version. Workaround is to export as PDF and print that, as described above.

[Age Jan Kuperus (ajk-tt)]

I can confirm the same problem with a HP1020.

 I found another workaround in http://askubuntu.com/questions/68909/im-having-problems-printing-in-libreoffice-writer-adobe-acrobat-reader-and-evo :

" What fixed the problem for me was reverting from pdf to postscript print setting in LibO. File -> Printer Settings -> Properties -> Device -> Printer Language type was set to PDF so I changed it to PostScript. Had to update the normal template to make it stick."

[Age Jan Kuperus (ajk-tt)]

and yes, 11.10 on x86_64

[Age Jan Kuperus (ajk-tt)]

another observation that might be helpful: the pdf files that are generated in /var/spool/cups/tmp (and then printed with the errors) seem to be correct (evince can read, display and print them correctly).

[Björn Michaelsen (bjoern-michaelsen)]

So it is either:
a) Libreoffice creating invalid pdf, that evince still renders without problems
b) Libreoffice creating valid pdf, and cups choking on it.

@Age: Could you upload one of problematic to print odf and generated pdf files?

[Age Jan Kuperus (ajk-tt)]

attached file contains both the odt file and the generated foomatic pdf

[Age Jan Kuperus (ajk-tt)]

following bug#879977 I looked at #879365. There I found:

Дмитрий (dmitrix) wrote on 2011-10-24: #37

solution to this problem
wget http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/f/foomatic-filters/foomatic-filters_4.0.7-0ubuntu1.1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i foomatic-filters_4.0.7-0ubuntu1.1_i386.deb

p.s. do not update this package in update-manager

After doing this (with the corresponding amd64 package, of course) the file printed correctly.

[Claude Krantz (puma)]

This bug hits me as well.

Running fully-updated Oneiric (Kubuntu, x86_64) and printing to two different HP printers (Deskjet 5550 and Laserjet 1320) via a CUPS 1.5.0 server running on FreeBSD 8.2.

The problem is reproducible on two independent machines. Using PDF as a printing language in Libreoffice Writer causes two problems:

- Page margins are not correct (usually the text body is shifted towards the right, I print to DIN A4 paper). This seems to happen regardless of the content of the document.

- For texts involving German (umlauts ä, ö, ü) or French (accents é, è, ...) special characters, the text is printed as garbadge, with ' or " characters replacing ca. 50% of the letters. For documents involving only English characters this does not seem to happen, however a single non-English character occurring in the document is sufficient to trash the entire printout.

Switching to Postscript as a printer language in Libreoffice solves both problems completely. PDF printing from other applications (okular) on the Linux clients as well as on the BSD server itself works flawlessly.

Downgrading "foomatic-filters" to 4.0.7 as recommended by Age did not resolve the issue in my case.

[Claude Krantz (puma)]

I should say that I do not believe this is duplicate of

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ghostscript/+bug/879977

I upgraded ghostscript to the version accepted to oneiric-proposed on 15 Nov 2011: Did not resolve the issues described above.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Perhaps this one is duplicate of bug 891074. An Oneiric update for this bug will be proposed soon.