Font previewed but not imported

[LucaDC]

I've searched for something similar already reported, but couldn't find. Sorry if it already exists.
I've tried importing various PDFs generated by Finale (it's a music notation program). In the preview (where you select the page you want to import) the score is correctly displayed. After importing, all the music symbols are gone.
The "Text handling" combo has only the "Import text as text" element: either something is missing or that option is completely useless. Importing text as graphics would be enough for me, as what I usually need to do is cut away some staves and reimpaginate the whole in a single page. Now I need to do a copy from Acrobat Reader, paste in Paint then work with bitmaps (ugly).
Also the "Replace PDF fonts by closest-named installed font" option does not affect the result (and, by the way, what's about? What is it supposed to do when not checked?).
Anyway, if the preview is there just give it to me! Is it a bitmap? Ok, give me a bitmap (maybe let me specify the DPI) so at least I don't have to go through Paint slice by slice. Otherwise, what's the preview for if you eventually get something so much different?
Windows XP, quite a large number of last revisions but couldn't say since when (I can't remember being able to import music so maybe it has never worked).
Thanks.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Note: Inkscape cannot (nor claims to be be able to) reuse (subset) fonts embedded in PDF documents.

> I've tried importing various PDFs generated by Finale (it's a music notation program).
> In the preview (where you select the page you want to import) the score is correctly
> displayed. After importing, all the music symbols are gone.

If you have the special musical font installed on your system, it's probably the same issue as reported e.g. in bug #239631 and bug #395695.

> The "Text handling" combo has only the "Import text as text" element:
> either something is missing or that option is completely useless.

Known missing feature (see Bug #295564 “import PDF text also as path”).

You are welcome to provide the patches to implement the planned but still missing feature (import text as path). If instead you are more interested in existing workarounds:
With recent development builds, open the PDF file from within Inkscape using the (still experimental) file type 'Adobe PDF via poppler-cairo (*.pdf)': this will outline the glyphs used in the PDF document, and reference them as clones in the SVG document (the original paths are hidden in the <defs> section.

Proposing to link as duplicate to bug #295564 (or to bug #1000507 until the status of that report has been decided on).

[su_v (suv-lp)]

If my previous comment does not answer your questions: please attach a sample PDF file so that the import results can be further investigated (on various systems with different fonts installed).

[LucaDC (lucadc)]

~suv wrote:
>Inkscape cannot (nor claims to be be able to) reuse (subset) fonts embedded in PDF documents.
I understand what you mean, but this is exactly the point: actually Inkscape claims this when showing me the preview!
Either you show in the preview what the (bad) result of the import will be, or you import correctly the page; the two should be coherent and today they are not.

>If you have the special musical font installed on your system...
I agree, this is a different issue (and still exists). Anyway, the real font is not needed to see and print the document, so I wouldn't stress too much on this.

>Proposing to link as duplicate to...
Thanks for pointing all other related reports. I can see that there are different complaints about this issue, but they are all spread into different reports making them weight a bit less, in my opinion.
I feel this is a severe limitation of Inkscape related to managing PDFs and should be seriously considered and addressed.
Sorry but I can't accept your invitation of providing patches but trust me, I'd be glad to be able (and to have time) to.
Thanks for the proposed workaround: I'll soon try it.

In any case, I'd keep this report for the problem that the preview is not consistent with what is eventually imported, so I wouldn't link as duplicate to any other. I see that the problem has already been reported but not on its own. If there already is such a report then feel free to link this one.

Again: let me have that fantastic preview in the document or don't show it at all because it just makes me get frustrated! ;)

If you think it could be useful, I can provide a simple PDF with few notes. Just let me know.
Thanks

[su_v (suv-lp)]

None of your arguments IMHO make this report so important and unique that it needs to be kept as separate report repeating multiple issues already tracked in specific reports. However, I won't argue with you about this - I'll simply retract from further triage here and let others decide (I did state my opinion above).

> If you think it could be useful, I can provide a
> simple PDF with few notes. Just let me know.

I already asked for it. Why do you want me to repeat my request?

[LucaDC (lucadc)]

I was focusing on the preview but I understand it's considered a minimal issue. I don't because if the preview had presented the broken document, I would have never expected it to be correctly imported nor considered it a bug but simply a missing feature.

For the file, I asked because your previous comment _did_ answer my question: the reports you linked are surely relevant and they explained me that the problem is not caused by music documents only, but by every PDF that uses fonts not correctly managed by Inkscape yet (but by the preview module). The problem is well known and generating such a document is fairly easy so I thought that there was no need for me to post one here. Anyway, after your reply I link a file downloaded from internet (I don't know which font is used).

About marking as duplicate, I don't mind repeating myself: feel free do it if you find a report that specifically deals with PDF preview being broken (I haven't noticed one in the link chain).

And many many thanks for the workaround: it does what I need!
I think that this is what also many others just need: why not adding a simple option in the PDF open dialog like "using poppler-cairo"? It would give a great visibility to this solution.
The right thing would be that the preview showed the real result depending on this option being set or not.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> with PDF preview being broken

In my understanding the PDF preview is _not_ broken: it shows the preview of the PDF file (for example to allow you to choose an individual page from a multipage document) and is not a live-preview of the resulting conversion of the PDF into an SVG structure (else it would be really slow and unusuable - as you certainly have experienced yourself, a single large or complex page of a PDF files can take minutes to convert and load in the main document window after having closed the import options dialog).

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> (…) the PDF preview is _not_ broken: it shows the preview of the PDF file (…)
See also:
«PDF import settings: After opening a PDF or AI document, the PDF Import Settings dialog shows up. Here you can select:
- (…)
- a preview of the selected page (shown if poppler-cairo is present on the system or if the selected page has a thumbnail embedded into the PDF document). »
<http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.46#PDF_and_AI_import>

[LucaDC (lucadc)]

Ok, you convinced me: if the preview is not to be considered a view of the final result, I do agree it's not broken and this report is either invalid or a duplicate of the others.

[LucaDC (lucadc)]

Now I think we can finally close this report: the "import via Poppler" has been added to the main PDF import menu so now the user has different choices to try until getting the desired result (hence before complaining) and no need to know other menu options as workarounds.
I could successfully and easily import the previously attached file from the "Open..." menu.
Thanks.