Text in PDF created by cups-pdf not visible when open in LIbreOffice Draw

[marcus aurelius]

Binary package hint: cups-pdf

this problem could be with either cups-pdf or libreoffice draw.

i printed a webpage to pdf via cups-pdf. when i open the document in libreoffice draw, the text does not appear, but rather, there seems to be invisible boxes in place of the text. selecting what should be text and changing it's color reveals that it is a box and not text.

the pdf seems to view properly with evince and adobe reader.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: cups-pdf 2.5.0-12
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-32.62-generic 2.6.32.38+drm33.16
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-32-generic i686
Architecture: i386
CupsErrorLog:
 E [03/Jun/2011:10:33:20 -0600] Unable to remove temporary file "/var/spool/cups/tmp/.hplip" - Is a directory
 E [03/Jun/2011:15:31:25 -0600] Unable to remove temporary file "/var/spool/cups/tmp/.hplip" - Is a directory
 E [04/Jun/2011:10:44:16 -0600] Unable to remove temporary file "/var/spool/cups/tmp/.hplip" - Is a directory
 E [05/Jun/2011:21:15:46 -0600] Unable to remove temporary file "/var/spool/cups/tmp/.hplip" - Is a directory
Date: Sun Jun 5 22:48:11 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Netbook 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429.4)
Lpstat:
 device for PDF: cups-pdf:/
 device for Photosmart-C3100-series: hp:/usb/Photosmart_C3100_series?serial=MY66UC514104KV
Papersize: letter
PpdFiles:
 Photosmart-C3100-series: HP Photosmart c3100 Series hpijs, 3.10.2
 PDF: Generic CUPS-PDF Printer
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: cups-pdf

[marcus aurelius (adbiz)]

cutting and pasting the text from the pdf into writer or a text editor results in random characters being pasted.

[Ewald Strohmar-Mauler (ewald-strohmar)]

seems to be a bug in cups-pdf - I've got the same.
(11.04 xubuntu 64 bit)
any web page I print via cups-pdf (either from chromium or firefox) becomes malformed: no text at all and the images of pull-down-buttons become black solid boxes.
dpkg-reconfigured and apt-get purged and reinstalled, nothing works.
interesting though, on my 32-bit netbook with nearly the same config, it works

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Can anyone else verify whether this might indeed be a 64-bit specific issue?

[Ewald Strohmar-Mauler (ewald-strohmar)]

did some additional testing:

I tried to find an older package (instead of the actual 2.5.1-2)
when installing vers. 2.5.0. 1g from http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/i386/cups-pdf/download and using the pdf.ppd instead of the cups-pdf.ppd, it works as it should...
although this seems to be a i386 package, not an amd64 (which I couldn't install. but perhaps this is differnt in debian?)

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

We don't ship any pdf.ppd with CUPS-PDF.

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

After careful examination, it appears that 3 superfluous lines in the PPD were added by the "PDF Workflow" patch that was used for 2.5.0 releases, but has been removed since CUPS-PDF 2.5.1. However, the PPD was not automatically upgraded by our package's maintainer script, which is probably what broke things for people upgrading to a 2.5.1 release. This has been fixed as of CUPS-PDF 2.5.1-4 which entered Oneiric today, by utilizing a feature of CUPS 1.5.0-3 and more recent to auto-update PPD files whenever a new version gets installed.

As a crude test, for older releases, could you try purging and re-installing the package and see if it fixes it?

sudo dpkg -P cups-pdf && sudo apt-get install cups-pdf

[Ewald Strohmar-Mauler (ewald-strohmar)]

No, I'm afraid the error still exists on my machine.
But I'll check the ppd and conf files when I've got some more time these
days.

Am 2011-08-30 19:37, schrieb Martin-Éric Racine:
> After careful examination, it appears that 3 superfluous lines in the
> PPD were added by the "PDF Workflow" patch that was used for 2.5.0
> releases, but has been removed since CUPS-PDF 2.5.1. However, the PPD
> was not automatically upgraded by our package's maintainer script, which
> is probably what broke things for people upgrading to a 2.5.1 release.
> This has been fixed as of CUPS-PDF 2.5.1-4 which entered Oneiric today,
> by utilizing a feature of CUPS 1.5.0-3 and more recent to auto-update
> PPD files whenever a new version gets installed.
>
> As a crude test, for older releases, could you try purging and re-
> installing the package and see if it fixes it?
>
> sudo dpkg -P cups-pdf&& sudo apt-get install cups-pdf
>
>
> ** Changed in: cups-pdf (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Accepted cups-pdf into natty-proposed. The package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Accepted cups-pdf into lucid-proposed, maverick-proposed and natty-proposed. The package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Released cups-pdf into lucid-updates, maverick-updates and natty-updates.

[George Kappel (george-kappel)]

This problem still exists in oneiric with proposed enabled and all updates installed

[NoOp (glgxg)]

George Kappel is correct; this problem still exists on Oneiric. Tried all versions at Oneiric to Precise & all failed to copy & paste from a cups-pdf generated file. The only exception are cups-pdf test files printed from the print manager. Backing down to the lucid version of cups-pdf resolves the issue for me.

$ apt-cache policy cups-pdf
cups-pdf:
  Installed: 2.5.0-17ubuntu1~lucid1
  Candidate: 2.5.1-3~natty2
  Version table:
     2.5.1-3~natty2 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty-updates/universe i386 Packages
     2.5.1-2 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty/universe i386 Packages
 *** 2.5.0-17ubuntu1~lucid1 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Fonts in are blurry (anyone know where to find the maverick 10.10 version of cups-pdf), but at least the copy & paste now works.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

Sorry; should be 'still exists on Natty'.