Font issues with Blurb and Scribus

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kenerling

I hope this is the right sub-forum; the issue is font embedding in pdfs. Forgive me if I'm in the wrong place.

Blurb and Scribus don't get along.

This has been discussed before, for example here and here and I myself recently ran into this issue of fonts not printing correctly at Blurb, when a pdf is generated from Scribus.

Having figured out that I had indeed embedded my fonts in the pdf that was sent to Blurb, I did reach out to them. Their reply was:

QuoteThe issue is that the creation tool used to create the PDF (Scribus) is unable to correctly embed fonts in a way that our printers can print them reliably unless the fonts are outlined.

That word they used, "reliably," is important, because sometimes things made in Scribus do print perfectly at Blurb. So, the idea here is to open a discussion to try to figure out what goes wrong in the other cases.

In my other post that I linked to above, I said, concerning the test book I had made, that

Quoteeverything in Garamond or Bell MT font did not print (but things in Arial did).

In my .sla file, I did notice something:

For the Arial text, which did print correctly, the text properties tab for the text frame lists Arial as the character set, and Arial is actually used in the text frame.

This was not the case for the frames that did not print correctly. That is, I inserted a text frame, but then manually changed the character set of the words that I had typed into them. So, for example, a had inserted a text frame set to Arial, but changed the actual text therein to Bell MT (i.e., clicking on the text frame shows Arial in the Text Properties window; double-clicking into the text changes that to Bell MT).

Is it possible that this "double font indication" plays a role in the fact that Blurb's printers seem to get confused with Scribus files? Could that be a thing?

I do hope that others having ordered things from Blurb will sound in. In the self-publishing world, Blurb is kind of a major player, so, I do think it would be good to brainstorm and see if some tendency can be detected.

Thanks in advance and cheers to all.

 

a.l.e

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

My first reaction is: you are the culprit or Blurb is.

On your side it might be that:

  • the Garamond and Bell MT font files that you have are broken
  • or you did not (correctly or at all) embed them

Luckily, those are probably the easiest things to check (if all necessary files are provided!)

And you seem confident, that you prepared correctly your PDF.

Another possibility is that Blurb has issues that happen from time to time (which is normal...), and when the PDFs are created by Adobe they do the extra effort to fix what they machines failed at processing.
When they don't trust the creator (Scribus...) they just blame Scribus and go on to print it wrongly (supposedly as the client provided it) or reject the job.

Since nobody has an insight in what exactly happened (and there are so many things that can wrong at every step), they do not get caught with it and Scribus gets the bad reputation.

This will be very hard or even impossible to check or prove.
(Who wants to send multiple times the same job and check if it comes back exactly the same each time? That's costly and time consuming! And you're not even sure to trigger the issue, even if it exists!)

Of course, there is also the chance that Scribus does something wrong. Or something that is technically correct but the print shop won't be able to process.
(If I recall the details correctly, one "famous" example of this, is related to the way Scribus used to place the single glyphs in the PDF: it was not wrong, but the mass of calculation that the printer needed to do, broke any job with a decent size! It took years of back and forth, until Scribus finally acknowledged, that being correct in this matter is not enough and the non-bug got fixed.)
Or Scribus might simply not highlight enough, that you did not do, what you meant to do (and the result won't be what you're thinking it should be: producing a good PDF is a very complex task).

Checking your PDF might help there.


Finally, one thing that makes the analysis harder is, that many users who complain, don't want or cannot publish all the files needed for checking what could have happened.
Some share them in private and on demand, but we can't build a public collection of such cases, one that provides files that can be compared to find similarities.

As an example, in this case we need (at least):

  • The .sla collected for output (with all resources!)
  • The PDF that has been sent to Blurb
  • The link to the form you used for submitting the PDF (with the list of all the restriction they were giving you)
  • An image with what went wrong in the printed result

Please, don't provide them to me, since I'm not the person who is best qualified for checking them.
(Well, I could create a private collection that I could provide on demand to people who are experts in PDFs and fonts!)

Let's see if we can debug this in some way!

kenerling

#2
Quote from: a.l.e on February 20, 2025, 08:44:56 PMbut we can't build a public collection of such cases, one that provides files that can be compared to find similarities.

I could, technically speaking, provide all of the items you mentioned, but I agree that creating a true, large-enough and representative sample, a database of such errors, is going to be nearly impossible to do, not to mention someone-somewhere's willingness to plunge into what is a "niche" problem, despite the weight of Blurb in self-publishing. And, of course, is Blurb going to be willing to contribute to such an effort beyond saying "outline the fonts"? Hmmm

Quote from: a.l.e on February 20, 2025, 08:44:56 PMOn your side it might be that:

    • the Garamond and Bell MT font files that you have are broken

Can that happen? I don't see why that would be... I'm on a "Stock" Windows 10 Home computer and I've never done anything in particular with fonts on it.

Quote from: a.l.e on February 20, 2025, 08:44:56 PMor you did not (correctly or at all) embed them

That's what I was wondering at first, but I do think they were correctly embedded. Here's the document properties in Adobe Acrobat Reader:



Ah! Quick edit: the image above is for the pages of my test book. The Garamond text was on the cover of the book, which is submitted as a second pdf.

Nonetheless, what I got was this:



Quick edit bis: the Garamond text on the cover was exactly like above: squares instead of letters.

Quote from: a.l.e on February 20, 2025, 08:44:56 PMAnd you seem confident, that you prepared correctly your PDF.

"Confident" might be waaaaay too big of a word. As to the document setup, I did everything Blurb indicates, and as to exporting the pdf, in the end, I touched nearly nothing in the dialog, except for checking "Use document bleeds" on the Pre-Press tab and making sure "Embed or subset" was chosen on the Fonts tab. So, for what it's worth, the pdf export was "standard," for lack of a better word.

Quote from: a.l.e on February 20, 2025, 08:44:56 PMSince nobody has an insight in what exactly happened (and there are so many things that can wrong at every step), they do not get caught with it and Scribus gets the bad reputation.

This will be very hard or even impossible to check or prove.
(Who wants to send multiple times the same job and check if it comes back exactly the same each time? That's costly and time consuming! And you're not even sure to trigger the issue, even if it exists!)

Hence what I'm hoping for here: that other people who have ran into difficulties with Blurb will sound in with their experiences, and, when all those experiences are put together, certain tendencies might become visible.

For example, above, I put out the thought that maybe Blurb doesn't like it when the text frame and the actual text in that frame have different character set descriptions. Alone, that means nothing, but if many people say, "Oh hey, that was my situation too," and others say, "I didn't have any problems with Blurb, and all the text in my frames were always what the frame said they were," well, now, we're starting to see something that could become a hypothesis.

Bref, a collective exploration of the problem... but I fear that this will remain a pipe dream without some serious input from many people.

Come on other Blurb users! Share your experiences!




Nermander

I am thinking that if Blurb cannot tell you in technical terms what is wrong with the PDF, there is probably nothing wrong with it. It is their software that cannot handle the full PDF format.

And then it will become very difficult, because we would need to know what limitations their software has.

The key here is they are not saying the PDF is wrong, they are saying that the PDF is not made "in a way that our printers can print them reliably".

A bit of googling found someone who stated "The fonts I was using apparently belong to a particular group of fonts (can't remember what they are called), which simply won't print on the printers that they use."

Now, this made me think. Isn't it so that when Scribus subsets fonts, it creates a custom postscript font for it?

So maybe it is something as simple as that they cannot handle a certain type of embedded font?

a.l.e

Yesterday evening, I asked Jean and got a few very interesting infos:

  • Some of the Blurb printers might have issues with the custom encoding used for embedding TrueType fonts (and he is already wondering if Scribus should avoid that, as it is already doing for PDF-X/4)
  • Blurb send the jobs to a wider range of print providers and you cannot know which one will get your job: some of them might have rips that do not support such encoding.
  • And Adobe users seem to know well this problem: Blurb font problems

Finally, if you can provide the files he can have a look.
If you send me the links, I can create a private repository that we can use for such cases and share it with Jean.

Nermander

I think that was the page I found when googling.

I did notice some of the Blurb guidance recommend PDF/A (not sure what version), I think PDF/A requires unicode encoding? And only later versions of PDF/A allows embedding Open Type fonts.

kenerling

Quote from: Nermander on February 21, 2025, 09:36:13 PMThe key here is they are not saying the PDF is wrong, they are saying that the PDF is not made "in a way that our printers can print them reliably".

I was very impressed with the precision of that sentence. In sum, the person responding did a marvelously good job of covering his butt.


Quote from: Nermander on February 21, 2025, 09:36:13 PMA bit of googling found someone who stated "The fonts I was using apparently belong to a particular group of fonts (can't remember what they are called), which simply won't print on the printers that they use." (...) So maybe it is something as simple as that they cannot handle a certain type of embedded font?

When I contacted Blurb, I asked them if there was a set of "Blurb safe" fonts, ones that they knew printed correctly with Scribus-generated pdfs. A question to which they provided no reply. I can start the list by saying Arial appears to print no problem. But, Arial. Yuck.


Quote from: a.l.e on February 22, 2025, 01:17:04 PMYesterday evening, I asked Jean and got a few very interesting infos:

    • Some of the Blurb printers might have issues with the custom encoding used for embedding TrueType fonts (and he is already wondering if Scribus should avoid that, as it is already doing for PDF-X/4)

I went looking for specificities concerning the "best" pdf version to use with Blurb. If they indicate it in their generic instructions, I haven't found it yet. However, I did find this random pdf document from Blurb entitled A Few Things to Know, where they say, "When you export your PDF files, you need to use the PDF/X-3:2002 standard." That's faint evidence though, as it dates to 2010 (created and modified date for the pdf file). BUT, if Scribus avoids custom encoding in PDF/X-4, maybe that's actionable information???


Quote from: a.l.e on February 22, 2025, 01:17:04 PMAnd Adobe users seem to know well this problem: Blurb font problems

Considering that's Adobe (InDesign) creating Adobe (pdf), it does make it difficult to believe that this problem lies elsewhere than with Blurb.


Quote from: a.l.e on February 22, 2025, 01:17:04 PMFinally, if you can provide the files he can have a look.

Do you mean me? And if so...


Quote from: a.l.e on February 22, 2025, 01:17:04 PMIf you send me the links

Where or how would I go about doing that?

Cheers to all!






a.l.e

QuoteConsidering that's Adobe (InDesign) creating Adobe (pdf), it does make it difficult to believe that this problem lies elsewhere than with Blurb.

It is a bit more complicated than that.

But at the end, it boils down do the fact that RIPs (the thing that converts PDFs into bitmaps that can be printed) and the printers (the thing that gets the bitmaps and put ink on paper) are really complex and fragile machines.

It's hard to know everything about them (and at least until a recent past, the people working at print shop were not really fan of knowing everything about software details: their craft is paper and ink!) and the best way to get the own jobs to go through smoothly is to get to know your printer.

But this is impossible with Blurb, since the job is sent to a random print shop and you will never know which one it was.

Quote
QuoteIf you send me the links

Where or how would I go about doing that?

Put it on a shared space you trust (Google Drive is such a element), make it accessible to who has the "secret" link, and send me the link with a private message in this forum...

kenerling

Quote from: a.l.e on February 23, 2025, 08:27:19 PMsend me the link with a private message in this forum...

Done!

Thanks and cheers!

a.l.e

Jean just committed a patch that might solve your issue:

0017436: Avoid custom font encodings when embedding TTF fonts in PDF
https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=17436

Sadly, it won't be easy to find out if this change will improve things with Blurb, since they are sending the jobs to "random" print shops and the one getting your next job might be one that would have been safe anyway...

kenerling

Quote from: a.l.e on March 03, 2025, 09:50:20 PMJean just committed a patch that might solve your issue:

0017436: Avoid custom font encodings when embedding TTF fonts in PDF
https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=17436

That's great to hear, and my thanks to all.

Quote from: a.l.e on March 03, 2025, 09:50:20 PMSadly, it won't be easy to find out if this change will improve things with Blurb,

Regardless, it's already a step toward resolving the issue, and all the best voyages start with one step.

I'm hanging on to my pipe dream of other Scribus/Blurb users sounding in to round out the available information!

Again, thanks, and cheers.