printing hardy home page from firefox to pdf or hpijs looks awful, scrunched fonts

[cpitchford]

Binary package hint: firefox

# lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 8.04
Release: 8.04

# dpkg -l |grep " hp"
ii hpijs 2.8.2+2.8.2-0ubuntu8 HP Linux Printing and Imaging - gs IJS drive
ii hplip 2.8.2-0ubuntu8 HP Linux Printing and Imaging System (HPLIP)
ii hplip-data 2.8.2-0ubuntu8 HP Linux Printing and Imaging - data files

I've a fairly new install of hardy, I've installed all recommended patches as of today. I do have a HP printer and I'm using the HPlip printing software quiet successfully (was really impressed the network scanner facility work out of the box!)
However, I'm having a real hard time printing from Firefox.

The fonts are on the whole terrible. Scrunched up and overlapping. This happened on the release that shipped with hardy as well as the recent update to ff3-rc2
What's more, if I print to a PDF file, and open using the standard PDF viewer it still looks awful.
I've tried installing some non-free packages too such as msttcorefonts and not much has happened really.

The rendering on the screen looks good for the most part, but the printed (or rendered to PDF) version nearly always looks a bit off.. I though the default hardy homepage was a good starting point
http://start.ubuntu.com/8.04/

[cpitchford (ubuntu-intrepid)]

I've just tried the same PDF in "preview" on a Mac running MacOS and I can't read anything bar the "search" button which actually looks really good!

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Mon, Jun 09, 2008 at 11:52:03PM -0000, cpitchford wrote:
>
> ** Attachment added: "Print to PDF from firefox3-rc2 of the Hardy home page"
> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/15162057/Welcome_to_Ubuntu_8_04_LTS_.pdf
>

As RC2 just entered the testing repositories in ubuntu today, I assume
that you are running upstream builds.

Please use the ubuntu package and reopen if this is the case there as
well.

 status invalid

 - Alexander

[cpitchford (ubuntu-intrepid)]

I've made a huge error in my report!! Sorry!!!

I am infact running firefox 3.0-rc1 that was released a day or so ago. I'm only using packages from the standard repositories and have only upgraded packages using "Update Manager"
The problem with printing happened prior to the release of rc1 and infact has not changed since I updated:

# dpkg -l |grep firefox
ii firefox 3.0~rc1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1 meta package for the popular mozilla web bro
ii firefox-3.0 3.0~rc1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1 safe and easy web browser from Mozilla
ii firefox-3.0-gnome-support 3.0~rc1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1 Support for Gnome in Mozilla Firefox
ii firefox-gnome-support 3.0~rc1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1 meta package pointing to the latest gnome-su

Strangely enough, on a friends 8.04 desktop system using a Samsung CLP-300 he is not experiencing these problems when printing to the printer or to the PDF device.

If I use "print to file" and select PDF as the output format, the file is just as bad as if I had printed to the PDF printer device. I'm guessing this is a font issue rather than a printer issue and assuming Firefox doesn't interact with print components such as HPijs directly it must be something outside the print environment?

Either way, I'm definately using a stable released version of firefox and not a testing release.

[cpitchford (ubuntu-intrepid)]

I've done some more playing and found it to be an issue with bitmapped fonts.

If I use:
  dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config

and select, Native, Always and Yes (with regards to hinting, sub-pixel rendering and bitmapped fonts) Firefox will not print the start page correctly and fonts on the start page are rendered to the screen without anti-aliasing

However, if I re-run dpkg-reconfigure and select Native, Always and No (this time with bitmapped fonts disabled) Firefox not only looks much better, but the printing problem has disappeared

[cpitchford (ubuntu-intrepid)]

Here is the same browser window with the bitmapped fonts disabled using dpkg-reconfigure.

I'm guessing this is going to be a fontcongfig issue, not a firefox issue? I'm uncertain why bitmapped fonts would be causing the problem though I know they can be tricky. The only reason I have bitmapped fonts enabled in fontconfig is to allow gnome-terminal to mimic the look of an original XTerminal. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I find the Xterm fixed font far more readable than any of the scalable fonts.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 08:50:54PM -0000, cpitchford wrote:
> If I use "print to file" and select PDF as the output format, the file
> is just as bad as if I had printed to the PDF printer device. I'm
> guessing this is a font issue rather than a printer issue and assuming
> Firefox doesn't interact with print components such as HPijs directly it
> must be something outside the print environment?
>
> Either way, I'm definately using a stable released version of firefox
> and not a testing release.
>

Please attach your xorg.conf and your Xorg.0.log taken from a session
in which you reproduce this bug.

 status incomplete

 - Alexander

[cpitchford (ubuntu-intrepid)]

Ok, I think I've found a solution..

I've added the following file:

$ cat /etc/fonts/conf.d/69-zzz_fixedfonts.conf
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<!-- Enabled Fixed bitmap fonts -->
 <selectfont>
   <acceptfont>
     <pattern>
        <patelt name="family"><string>Fixed</string></patelt>
     </pattern>
   </acceptfont>
 </selectfont>
</fontconfig>

and disabled bitmapped fonts in dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
I assumed that I need to ensure my config was processed prior to 70-no-bitmaps.conf hence why I made it 69-zzz-

Now I have a fixed font gnome-terminal and my firefox fonts and printing to pdf/printer all seem much much happier!

I'm guessing this can be closed now since I think I've solved it myself. What might be nice is if the font config package moved 70-no-bitmaps.conf and 70-yes-bitmaps.conf to 75 giving the administrator the option to include some fixed fonts prior to the overriding yes/no?
I also suppose I should really use local.conf too!

Sorry to trouble everyone!

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 10:19:13PM -0000, cpitchford wrote:
> I've done some more playing and found it to be an issue with bitmapped
> fonts.
>
> If I use:
> dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
>
> and select, Native, Always and Yes (with regards to hinting, sub-pixel
> rendering and bitmapped fonts) Firefox will not print the start page
> correctly and fonts on the start page are rendered to the screen without
> anti-aliasing
>
> However, if I re-run dpkg-reconfigure and select Native, Always and No
> (this time with bitmapped fonts disabled) Firefox not only looks much
> better, but the printing problem has disappeared
>
>

OK, most likely not a ffox bug then. not sure where to assign this
too. asking for reassignment

 affects ubuntu/firefox-3.0
 status invalid

 tag needs-reassignment
 affects ubuntu
 status incomplete

 - Alexander

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 10:40:59PM -0000, cpitchford wrote:
> Ok, I think I've found a solution..
>
> I've added the following file:
>
> $ cat /etc/fonts/conf.d/69-zzz_fixedfonts.conf
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
> <fontconfig>
> <!-- Enabled Fixed bitmap fonts -->
> <selectfont>
> <acceptfont>
> <pattern>
> <patelt name="family"><string>Fixed</string></patelt>
> </pattern>
> </acceptfont>
> </selectfont>
> </fontconfig>
>
> and disabled bitmapped fonts in dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
> I assumed that I need to ensure my config was processed prior to 70-no-bitmaps.conf hence why I made it 69-zzz-
>
> Now I have a fixed font gnome-terminal and my firefox fonts and printing
> to pdf/printer all seem much much happier!
>
> I'm guessing this can be closed now since I think I've solved it myself. What might be nice is if the font config package moved 70-no-bitmaps.conf and 70-yes-bitmaps.conf to 75 giving the administrator the option to include some fixed fonts prior to the overriding yes/no?
> I also suppose I should really use local.conf too!
>
> Sorry to trouble everyone!
>

let fontconfig maintainer decide ...

 affects ubuntu/fontconfig
 status confirmed

 - Alexander

[madbiologist (me-again)]

Official support for Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron" has ended. If this is still occurring on Ubuntu 14.10 "Utopic Unicorn" please run ubuntu-bug to create a new bug report so that we can get a new set of log files and system information.