xmlroff-list

[xmlroff] Hugly PDF output

[<pca...@ca...>]

Hi!

Sorry for the rough subject but this is really important to me.

I have been playing the whole day yesterday with XMLroff and was very
pleased by the results even if it is still beta.
I was very pleased until I had a look at the generated PDF file which
looked like very big compared to the amount of text inside the document.

It looks like that the pages are just images embedded in PDF therefore
the files are big, the text cannot be copied/paste and it is not
possible to search text inside the document. I am using xpdf to display
pdf files.

Is this a bug or a feature?

Is it due to the backend and will it evolve or not in the future?

Thanks,

Phil.

Re: [xmlroff] Hugly PDF output

[Tony G. <Ton...@Su...>]

pca...@ca... writes:
> Sorry for the rough subject but this is really important to me.
>
> I have been playing the whole day yesterday with XMLroff and was very
> pleased by the results even if it is still beta.
> I was very pleased until I had a look at the generated PDF file which
> looked like very big compared to the amount of text inside the document.
>
> It looks like that the pages are just images embedded in PDF therefore
> the files are big, the text cannot be copied/paste and it is not
> possible to search text inside the document. I am using xpdf to display
> pdf files.
>
> Is this a bug or a feature?
>
> Is it due to the backend and will it evolve or not in the future?

I think you'll find that most of the PDF file is embedded fonts, not
graphic images of the text.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to tell gnome-print to not embed
fonts, which is good for reproducible output but not so good for
producing small-size files (as you have seen).

Have you tried copying and pasting text from xmlroff output?

It's not something that I usually do, but I did just try it with the
DocBook sample that Tim Waugh sent yesterday and got complete
gibberish:

   8MXPI 8EFPI SJ 'SRXIRXW 7IGXMSR XMXPI 7IGXMSR XMXPI 4EVEKVETL

(It does appear to be a cipher of what it should be, not that that
makes it useful for anything.)

Is that what you were referring to?

Regards,


Tony.

Re: [xmlroff] Hugly PDF output

[<pca...@ca...>]

To Tony:

 Yes, i was referring to that kind of 'gibberish' (don't know that word
 but sounds good to define the effect :) )

To Tim and Tony,

 Find attached to this email, two files used to produce a PDF file I
 can't search in.
 Note: using xsltproc and fop on these two files makes a PDF file I 
 can search in (and copy paste too).

Thanks,

Phil.

Re: [xmlroff] Hugly PDF output

[Tony G. <Ton...@Su...>]

pca...@ca... writes:
>  Yes, i was referring to that kind of 'gibberish' (don't know that word
>  but sounds good to define the effect :) )

xmlroff isn't doing anything to garble the text.

I've asked on the gnome-print list whether or not this is a feature of
GNOME Print's PDF.

Regards,


Tony.

Re: [xmlroff] Hugly PDF output

[Tim W. <tw...@re...>]

On Thu, Mar 10, 2005 at 10:23:19AM +0100, pca...@ca... wrote:

> It looks like that the pages are just images embedded in PDF therefore
> the files are big, the text cannot be copied/paste and it is not
> possible to search text inside the document. I am using xpdf to display
> pdf files.

I'm using xpdf to display an xmlroff-generated PDF file, and searching
for text works fine.

xpdf-3.00, xmlroff-0.3.2.

Tim.
*/