Arch Linux

xaff

Member

Registered: 2009-02-26

Posts: 64

Badlooking fonts in pdf viewers

For some reason fonts in pdf documents are badly rendered, they're really uncomfortable to look at. I'm using okular with ghostscript engine. I don't have that problem anywhere else, so I believe it's ghostscript related. Didn't have that problem in Kubuntu, so it's a configuration issue.

What can I do to fix it?

brownkenny

Member

Registered: 2007-08-07

Posts: 8

Re: Badlooking fonts in pdf viewers

I've noticed similar ugliness with pdf files in okular. I never found a solution, so I wound up installing evince.

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: Badlooking fonts in pdf viewers

On my machine gsx (ghostscript viewer) seems to ignore embedded fonts, as well as doesn't look as good as evince (poppler). The evince-gtk package in AUR is pretty much Gnome free. It may be worth taking a look:

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=24416

xaff

Member

Registered: 2009-02-26

Posts: 64

Re: Badlooking fonts in pdf viewers

Still it's avoiding a problem, not fixing it. Kubuntu got this working, I think we should also be able to.

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: Badlooking fonts in pdf viewers

You said that okular is using the ghostscript engine. Is it possible to use poppler-qt?

xaff

Member

Registered: 2009-02-26

Posts: 64

Re: Badlooking fonts in pdf viewers

As far as I see it's impossible to change the engine to anything else. I wish I had kubuntu box around here, but I'm 99% positive it's exactly the same there.

Just checked what fonts are loaded by okular in /proc/(pid)/maps with a sample pdf file:

mateusz@saturn:/proc/8858$ egrep -i '([ot]tf|pf[ab])' maps
7f5514353000-7f5514399000 r--p 00000000 08:11 74079                      /usr/share/fonts/TTF/arialbd.ttf
7f55148fa000-7f551492d000 r--p 00000000 08:11 74081                      /usr/share/fonts/TTF/ariali.ttf
7f551492d000-7f5514977000 r--p 00000000 08:11 74089                      /usr/share/fonts/TTF/cour.ttf
7f5514977000-7f55149bb000 r--p 00000000 08:11 74082                      /usr/share/fonts/TTF/arial.ttf
7f5515fe4000-7f5516070000 r--p 00000000 08:11 74033                      /usr/share/fonts/TTF/DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf
7f5516070000-7f5516108000 r--p 00000000 08:11 74049                      /usr/share/fonts/TTF/DejaVuSans.ttf

At least those aren't bitmap fonts, I have no idea why it renders them so badly.

Edit: Actually those fonts are loaded using fontconfig, but it may be that fonts are also included in a pdf file and the included font is rendered like that. I'm not sure how to check exact data in pdf file.

Edit2: File > Properties > Fonts in okular points only to ttf fonts.

Last edited by xaff (2009-04-12 18:28:58)

bender02

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2007-02-04

Posts: 1,328

Re: Badlooking fonts in pdf viewers

BTW, mupdf (in AUR) renders beautifully, but it's in the early stages of development, so for instance keybindings are a bit strange for me.

xaff

Member

Registered: 2009-02-26

Posts: 64

Re: Badlooking fonts in pdf viewers

does it have the option to reverse colors? i'll check it out anyway

bernarcher

Forum Fellow

From: Germany

Registered: 2009-02-17

Posts: 2,281

Re: Badlooking fonts in pdf viewers

If you want a really lightweight poppler-based pdf viewer, you might try apvlv.

It is blindingly fast, features really good rendered fonts, yet is based on vim like keyboard control.

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vau

Member

From: Adelaide, Australia

Registered: 2008-08-23

Posts: 24

Re: Badlooking fonts in pdf viewers

If you want a really lightweight poppler-based pdf viewer, you might try apvlv.

It is blindingly fast, features really good rendered fonts, yet is based on vim like keyboard control.

The only thing it is lacking -- continuous page display. Is there any secret keybinding? Otherwise it's really good.