erratic printing from acroread

[Maf. King]

On Friday 02 Jul 2004 17:10, Kurt Pfeifle wrote:
>
> Distiller 5 may have used new features not understood by
> the downstream programs (like ghostscript) further processing
> the file, features such as transparency etc.
>
>
> You could try to use acroread command line options to create
> different versions of PostScript and try these if they print
> (and display in kghostview) OK. Try
>
>    "acroread --help"
>
> to see some options.
>
>    "acroread -toPostScript -level1 file.pdf"
>    "acroread -toPostScript -level2 file.pdf"
>    "acroread -toPostScript -level3 file.pdf"
>

Wow, that's 2 things I've learned today!

No change. the converted pages after page 11 are all blank, for all 3 levels 
of PS.
using the "-start 12" option produces a 7 page blank PS doc.


> > The
> > Original Poster also had problems printing, using a similar system to me.
> >  I contributed to the thread because I was annoyed by the (now fixed,
> > thanks!) dialog box issue.  ps2pdf produces
>
> "ps2pdf"? You mean pdf2ps, no?
>

Quite correct.  pdf2ps is much more use if trying to turn a pdf in2 a ps...
my typo, sorry.  So GS can convert the pdf into a ps, and that file displays 
correctly and can br printed.  The ps output of acroread is causing the 
problems.

> Well, try the conversions which acroread offers, and test some
> different options.
>
> > a full 18-page ps file, so GS is clearly
> > fine with the file.
>
> But the printer's PS interpreter isnt. So you could investigate
> the PS file and see what weird commands are on page 15 which
> doesnt print....
>

when viewing the acroread output postscript file, gs dies with the message: " 
Error: /invalidfont in -dict- " , which I guess is quite a big clue... but I 
don't know enough postscript to dig further at the moment.

Well, I don't want to get too hung-up on this particular file and what is 
wrong in this particular case, as it isn't a big deal for me.  I would like 
to help Andreas "wean his work off the win2k box", so maybe he can 
try some of your suggestions and let us know the results.

Thanks,
Maf.