Document viewer does not support OpenType features

[Alessandro Ceschini]

Document viewer does display alternative glyphs activated through the OpenType tables but when I try to copy/paste outside of it, instead of the glyphs I only see a blank space. Most probably, that means that Document Viewer isn't able to "connect" the glyph with the underlying character code. Example: in a Serbian text U+0431 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER BE has a Serbian localized glyph, which is different from the standard glyph, but when I copy that text, in the worst case scenario I should still be able to see a standard BE, leaving to the receiving program (Text Editor, Writer etc...) the capability (or incapability) to process OpenType features. But I only get a blank space instead.

The right panel (with indexes etc...) doesn't even display the "weird" glyphs, only standard ones, and this is an additional nuisance, as the appearance turns out to be different from the main text.

Another example: ligatures ct, ff, fi, etc... I get the same problem, they disappear, not just the ligatures, but the characters themselves, when I copy/paste.

This is a very complicated issue, but I hope I've been able to make my point reasonably clear.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: evince 3.2.0-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Oct 21 16:27:46 2011
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/evince
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: evince
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue you are reporting is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug to the developers of the software by following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. If you have done so, please tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.

[Alessandro Ceschini (alessandroceschini-it)]

Hi Sebastien

How do I do that? The links you provided me with isn't that clear about that, I mean reporting it upstream.

Greetings

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you give details on what part of the wiki page you found confusing so I can explain what you didn't understand and we can use that feedback to improve the documentation?

[Alessandro Ceschini (alessandroceschini-it)]

Hi Sebastien

OK, I found the way, upstreamed to: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=665821

Bye

[madbiologist (me-again)]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44412 seems related to this. It has been fixed upstream in poppler git master and the poppler 0.18 branch. I should be available in the upcoming poppler 0.18.3.

[madbiologist (me-again)]

I=It

[Adrian Johnson (ajohnson-redneon)]

Can you provide the PDF to reproduce the problem. I expect the bug is probably in the PDF file. Text in PDF files is glyphs, not characters. Text extraction only works correctly if the PDF file provides the glyph to unicode mapping.

[Alessandro Ceschini (alessandroceschini-it)]

Hi Adrian.

I attached the pdf but mind it's Serbian so, it's written in Cyrillic script. However even if you're an ignoramus of Slavic / Cyrillic stuff, you can casually select portions of text and notice random blank spaces, and when you paste this selection to an external text editor, you'll see either random black spaces or weird characters.

About the glyph mapping, I concur with your explanation as far as the main text is concerned, but why do glyphs don't change at all (according to the substitution table) in the right panel? This has nothing to do with mapping, it's just that those glyphs are ignored by the program.

Greetings

[Alessandro Ceschini (alessandroceschini-it)]

Bump! So, is it a problem of Document viewer or rather is it a problem of the pdf creator? In the latter case, just close the bug report, otherwise do something about it.
Thanks,

[madbiologist (me-again)]

Is this still occurring on Ubuntu 12.04 "Precise Pangolin"? What about on Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail"?

[Alessandro Ceschini (alessandroceschini-it)]

Yes and yes, I'm using Raring and I see no changes in behaviour.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Highlighting and copying/pasting into Writer doesn't reproduce the problem in Trusty.