Text is not selectable in PDF

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Prosaique

Hello folks,

When I export my files to PDF the text appears as an image instead of selectable text. I've seen that people have asked questions about this before here and here for example. I have tried the solutions offered, like unticking subset for the fonts, but nothing works. No font gets embedded except for the OTF fonts STIX and Verina that come with Scribus, so no pre-installed TTF windows fonts get embedded. So no text can be selected and no fonts appear in Adobe Reader on the Font tab of the Document properties dialog, except for the OTFs I mentioned.
I use Scribus 1.4.5 on Windows 10. I've also tried removing and reinstalling Scribus, but that didn't work either.
However, when I use the unstable branch 1.5.0 the fonts get embedded if in the export dialog fonts are selected to be embedded and subset is unticked. Then the text is selectable and can be copied properly.
Also if subset is ticked and in the export dialog the fonts are not selected to be converted to outline, the text is selectable and copyable.
Finally, I've tried to find relevant differences in the preferences of both versions, but couldn't find any.

It would be nice if I could use the stable branch. Can anybody help me? Why does Scribus 1.4.5. not embed the fonts?
Thanks in advance!

utnik

hi prosaique

this is a problem with most of the microsoft standard fonts. the font licenses allow to embed these fonts in print files, but an internal flag is set to 'non embeddable'.
as a workaround you could:

       
  • open the font file in fontforge
  • go to 'element' → 'font info' → 'os/2' → 'misc.'
  • set 'embeddable' to 'printable document'
  • close the window
  • 'file' → 'generate font' ('truetype')
...and hope that it works.
this is part of a legal gray zone, but as long as the writen license allows embedding, it should be ok...

utnik

Prosaique

Quote from: utnik on December 21, 2015, 04:36:37 PM
hi prosaique

this is a problem with most of the microsoft standard fonts. the font licenses allow to embed these fonts in print files, but an internal flag is set to 'non embeddable'.
as a workaround you could:

       
  • open the font file in fontforge
  • go to 'element' → 'font info' → 'os/2' → 'misc.'
  • set 'embeddable' to 'printable document'
  • close the window
  • 'file' → 'generate font' ('truetype')
...and hope that it works.
this is part of a legal gray zone, but as long as the writen license allows embedding, it should be ok...

utnik
Unfortunately it didn't work. Scribus immediately closes down after selecting the modified font.
Do you know why this font embedding problem doesn't appear in Scribus 1.5.0?

utnik

hi prosaique

Quote from: Prosaique on December 21, 2015, 10:03:30 PM
Unfortunately it didn't work. Scribus immediately closes down after selecting the modified font.

sorry to read that.
i never had a problem with fonts built or edited by fontforge – don't know what happend...

QuoteDo you know why this font embedding problem doesn't appear in Scribus 1.5.0?

no, but afaik it wasn't there with scribus 1.3.3.x either. as it's limited to microsoft fonts with a wrong flag, it's no big deal for me. i almost never use ms standard fonts.

utnik

Prosaique

Okay, thanks for trying to help me!

GarryP

If you are - or anyone else reading this is - having trouble with some fonts you could try something like Identifont - http://www.identifont.com/index.html - where you might be able to find an alternative that will work better. (I'm sure there are plenty of other sites that provide a similar service.)

It's not an ideal solution, and some reformatting might be necessary, but it might be better than nothing.

Prosaique

Thanks, I'll have a look at that.
Could using the unstable version 1.5.0 cause any problems or will that work fine?

agnescb

Just a quick note that I get a similar issue with 1.4.6 on OS X Yosemite 10.10.5, in case other people run into the issue (and since it took me 3 hours of wading through past post of embed/subset/outine issues to find this post, which finally fixed my problem).

On PDF export some (but not all) system fonts are available to embed but are not actually embedded. Adobe Reader gives me a warning when the PDF is opened and the fonts are listed but not actually embedded. MacOS preview just shows a blank where the text is supposed to exist, Adobe Reader shows the text correctly or not depending on whether it is allowed to use local fonts or not.

Asking for the font to be outlined on export fixes the issue of text not showing up/not showing up correctly, at a cost of usability.

I can generate a PDF just fine using the same fonts with LibreOffice.

Like Prosaique upgrading to Scribus 1.5 the same file produces a PDF with the same problematic fonts correctly embedded and displaying fine in all readers.

founder

Quote from: Prosaique on December 21, 2015, 10:03:30 PM
Quote from: utnik on December 21, 2015, 04:36:37 PM
hi prosaique

this is a problem with most of the microsoft standard fonts. the font licenses allow to embed these fonts in print files, but an internal flag is set to 'non embeddable'.
as a workaround you could:

       
  • open the font file in fontforge
  • go to 'element' → 'font info' → 'os/2' → 'misc.'
  • set 'embeddable' to 'printable document'
  • close the window
  • 'file' → 'generate font' ('truetype')
...and hope that it works.
this is part of a legal gray zone, but as long as the writen license allows embedding, it should be ok...

utnik
Unfortunately it didn't work. Scribus immediately closes down after selecting the modified font.
Do you know why this font embedding problem doesn't appear in Scribus 1.5.0?

Just tested this with times.ttf.
Scribus 1.4.6 opened the document "Replace Times new Roman" with.

So I copied the old version of times.ttf to /usr/ocal/share/fonts

Stil the same problem. I restarted the computer, same problem.

At the box with what to replace, times.ttf appears not anymore as TF.
When I try to change a style, only italic, bold, italic bold are from Times New Roman available.

Font Viewer shows correct times.ttf.
Founder of PEGE - Planetary Engineering Group Earth https://www.pege.org
Founder and CEO of https://gemini-next-generation.house

founder

Still searching for a solution, that times.tff works again.

I deleted the changed version.
I copied again the original version to /usr/local/share/fonts

I tried fc-list in the command line, here some lines of the result:

/usr/share/fonts/truetype/tlwg/Kinnari-Italic.ttf: Kinnari:style=Italic
/usr/local/share/fonts/times.ttf: Times New Roman:style=Regular,Normal,obyčejné,Standard,Κανονικά,Normaali,Normál,Normale,Standaard,Normalny,Обычный,Normálne,Navadno,thường,Arrunta
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/nanum/NanumBarunGothic.ttf: NanumBarunGothic,나눔바른고딕:style=Regular
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSansCJK-Regular.ttc: Noto Sans CJK JP,Noto Sans CJK JP Regular:style=Regular

and later in the list

/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSansMono-BoldOblique.ttf: DejaVu Sans Mono:style=Bold Oblique
/usr/local/share/fonts/timesbi.ttf: Times New Roman:style=Bold Italic,Negreta cursiva,tučné kurzíva,fed kursiv,Fett Kursiv,Έντονα Πλάγια,Negrita Cursiva,Lihavoitu Kursivoi,Gras Italique,Félkövér dőlt,Grassetto Corsivo,Vet Cursief,Halvfet Kursiv,Pogrubiona kursywa,Negrito Itálico,Полужирный Курсив,Tučná kurzíva,Fet Kursiv,Kalın İtalik,Krepko poševno,nghiêng đậm,Lodi etzana
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/tlwg/Laksaman-Bold.ttf: Laksaman:style=Bold

strange, the list shows only
times.tff
timesbi.ttf

Any idea, how to make times.tff again useable?

Founder of PEGE - Planetary Engineering Group Earth https://www.pege.org
Founder and CEO of https://gemini-next-generation.house

founder

Problem solved!

There ist the file

/home/founder/.scribus/checkfonts.xml

<Font Modified="2016-07-14T16:06:59" File="/usr/local/share/fonts/comicz.ttf" Status="1"/>
<Font Modified="2016-07-14T16:06:59" File="/usr/local/share/fonts/nimbussanlcon-bold.ttf" Status="1"/>
<Font Modified="2018-02-01T14:33:36" File="/usr/local/share/fonts/times.ttf" Status="0"/>
<Font Modified="2016-07-14T16:06:59" File="/usr/local/share/fonts/timesbd.ttf" Status="1"/>
<Font Modified="2016-07-14T16:06:59" File="/usr/local/share/fonts/timesbi.ttf" Status="1"/>
<Font Modified="2016-07-14T16:06:59" File="/usr/local/share/fonts/timesi.ttf" Status="1"/>
<Font Modified="2015-07-16T01:12:14" File="/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/c0419bt_.pfb" Status="1"/>
<Font Modified="2015-07-16T01:12:14" File="/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/c0582bt_.pfb" Status="1"/>

I changed the status of times.ttf from 0 to 1, now it works again.
Founder of PEGE - Planetary Engineering Group Earth https://www.pege.org
Founder and CEO of https://gemini-next-generation.house

Nermander

I think that file is created by Scribus and the 0 indicates that Scribus found some problem with the font.

GarryP

I would not generally recommend manually changing that value.
If Scribus has determined that the font is not usable - for whatever reason - then it's best to assume that it can't be used.
You might not have any trouble - and feel free to change it if you want - but doing so might cause other issues that are not so obvious.

If you are having this kind of problem with a font it is usually okay to rename the checkfonts.xml file - as something like checkfonts-old.xml - and then starting Scribus. This forces the application to go through the whole fonts-checking procedure from scratch and is a good way to get things back in some kind of order if you have been moving fonts around between different installation locations.