can't copy text from generated PDF

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ronnietucker

Hi folks,

For some reason I (and my readers) are unable to select and copy text from the PDF's that I'm generating from Scribus.

Each page has a text box that has four columns, the text for the text box is pasted into the Story Editor, and I then add any images on top of the text box. I do that for each article. I have several paragraph styles, one has the new Ubuntu font (which is what I mostly use) and one has a basic courier font style. The courier style WILL select/copy to the clipboard, but the Ubuntu style won't. But even when the courier style does select (for copying) it selects horizontally across the four columns, rather than top to bottom, left to right. This makes it impossible to copy programming code, or command line commands.

My PDF's can be downloaded from: http://fullcirclemagazine.org
and an archive of each issue from: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazine (under the /Translations section)

Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
Ronnie

ronnietucker

UPDATE:

I believe it has something to do with the new Ubuntu font. Scribus will embed the bold Ubuntu font, but will only outline the regular and italic fonts.

Is there any way to force embedding of the italic and regular, or is this a problem with the Ubuntu font itself?

The problem with selections going horizontal is still there though  :(
Thanks!
Ronnie

John_Jason_Jordan

Quote from: ronnietucker on April 10, 2011, 03:31:00 PM
UPDATE:
I believe it has something to do with the new Ubuntu font. Scribus will embed the bold Ubuntu font, but will only outline the regular and italic fonts.
Is there any way to force embedding of the italic and regular, or is this a problem with the Ubuntu font itself?

Go into Preferences > Fonts and check to see which check boxes are ticked for the fonts in question.
Linguistics on Linux!

ronnietucker

Quote from: John_Jason_Jordan on April 10, 2011, 06:28:02 PM
Quote from: ronnietucker on April 10, 2011, 03:31:00 PM
UPDATE:
I believe it has something to do with the new Ubuntu font. Scribus will embed the bold Ubuntu font, but will only outline the regular and italic fonts.
Is there any way to force embedding of the italic and regular, or is this a problem with the Ubuntu font itself?

Go into Preferences > Fonts and check to see which check boxes are ticked for the fonts in question.

It has all four Ubuntu fonts (bold, regular, italic and bold italic) ticked for: 'Use Font', 'Embed In (Postscript)', and 'Subset'.
Thanks!
Ronnie

Meho R.


ronnietucker

Thanks!
Ronnie

Morda

Hi guys!

I have a problem similar to Ronnie's (that's why I use this old topic), unfortunately Meho's advice does not work for me.

Here's the situation:

When I export my (all text) file, the pdf I get is a bit strange: some parts of the text behave like text (can be selected and copied, are searchable, etc.), but some are just an image. The division has to do with fonts: some of them create text, the remaining create image. I enclose a test .sla and .pdf files. As you can see, with Arabic typesetting, Arial and Letter Gothic the  result is text , with Calibri and Cambria there´s image.

In this .sla file I outlined all the fonts (in order to reduce the file size) — there´s no change with embedding.

Another pdf version? - no, the result is the same for 1.5 and for 1.3.

I thought that maybe there´s a difference in the font permissions to embed, but all of them  are marked as "editable".

I have noticed that pdf readers (Acrobat Reader, Foxit Reader) or Acrobat X do not show all the fonts used in the document — I don´t know whether this is important or not.


Well, I think that will be it. If any of you can help me with this, I´ll apprec¡ate any suggestion.    (I use 1.4.0 rc5, Win)

Take care,

Morda

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utnik

hi morda

could you upload a package which includes the fonts as well? when i open the .sla, scribus replaces the fonts – not the best setting to track down the problem...

utnik

Morda

Sure. I upload both the .sla and the .pdf — just in case.

Morda

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Nermander

Scribus currently can not embed certain fonts, I think Open Type fonts are the problem. They will be "subset" which if I recall correct means they are converted to outlines (or something like that). It means they will not appear as text in the PDF.

utnik

hi morda

Quote from: Morda on March 06, 2012, 08:12:56 PM
Sure. I upload both the .sla and the .pdf — just in case.

this .sla file is comes still without the used fonts – what i meant, was: 'file' → 'collect for output...', then zip and upload this folder.

utnik

Morda

Oooops, sorry, a misunderstanding. Here comes the file with all.

Morda

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Nermander

The PDF only have 3 embedded fonts:

ArabicTypesetting
ArialMT
LetterGothic-Reg

They are all TrueType.

So I think my previous analyze stands: The erring fonts are Open Type fonts and get converted to outlines.

utnik

hi morda

take a look at http://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=8950 – maybe, this is the solution: go to 'file' → 'document setup' → 'fonts', search for the font in question and see, if the 'subset' box is checked (if so, uncheck it...)

utnik

Morda

→ Nermander: 
Exactly, this is what I said before ("...pdf readers (Acrobat Reader, Foxit Reader) or Acrobat X do not show all the fonts used in the document"). The fonts that are not shown in pdf are just the ones that pose problems.

OK, you say OpenType / TrueType. But... how do I tell  the type of a given font? A silly question? - maybe not:
- in Character Map fonts are accompanied by a little icon: for some of them it's "TT", for some "O" and a small group has none. I guess that "TT" stands for TrueType and "O" for "OpenType". Well, let's see: Arabic Typesetting: "O", Arial: "O", Calibri: "O", Cambria: "O", Letter Gothic: "TT".
- in Control Panel → Fonts → (double click on a chosen font): 
Arabic Typesetting (OpenType): "OpenType arrangement, digitally signed, TrueType outlines",
Arial (OpenType): "OpenType arrangement, digitally signed, TrueType outlines",
Calibri (OpenType): "OpenType arrangement, digitally signed, TrueType outlines",
Cambria (TrueType): "OpenType arrangement, TrueType outlines",
Letter Gothic (TrueType): "TrueType outlines".

The difficult fonts are, in my case, Calibri and Cambria. But Character Map shows them as the same kind of font as non problematic Arabic Typesetting and Arial, while the Control panel shows Cambria and Calibri as fonts of different types. A complete mess and no clue to solve the problem.

→ utnik: 
This trick is what helped Ronnie a year ago. Unfortunately, as I've already written, ticking and unticking the "Subset" option changes nothing. Well, there is a little difference: if this option is selected, I cannot embed the font and it has to be outlined. But in either case the parts for which Calibri and Cambria were used are not "real text" in pdf.