[kde] kpdf has no fonts

[James Richard Tyrer]

Thorsten Schnebeck wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> kpdf from kde-3.4 has problems with most of my PDFs.
> It does not render the text. When starting via konsole I get something like 
> this.
> kpdf: Error: Couldn't create a font for 'Times-Bold'
> kpdf: Error: Couldn't create a font for 'Times-Bold'
> kpdf: Error: Couldn't create a font for 'Times-Bold'
> kpdf: Error: Couldn't create a font for 'Times-Bold'
> kpdf: Error: Couldn't create a font for 'Times-Roman'
> 
> What kind of setup is missing?

This works for me because I have installed the fonts that come with 
Acrobat Reader 3.x for Windows.

First note that Adobe Acrobat Reader comes with Time so it works.

So, I am guessing, or you might want to install those fonts:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobatreader/win/3.x/ar302.exe

and the AFMs:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/type/win/all/afmfiles/900-960/950/

But, back to the problem.  I don't know if KPDF gets its fonts with Qt, 
but I am going to assume that it does since I doubt that you would be 
having the problem otherwise, but it is possible that it is getting the 
fonts with X since it is based on XPDF.

First, question: does it display correctly in GSView (or some other 
program that uses GhostScript)?  If not, you don't have the GhostScript 
fonts installed.  If so, FontConfig is not substituting for Times.  This 
is a general issue with FontConfig and the GhostScript fonts. 
GhostScript makes the substitutions as listed in Fontmap.GS:

/Times-Roman			/NimbusRomNo9L-Regu	;
/Times-Italic			/NimbusRomNo9L-ReguItal	;
/Times-Bold			/NimbusRomNo9L-Medi	;
/Times-BoldItalic		/NimbusRomNo9L-MediItal	;

Second question, do you have XPDF installed? and does it work with that 
file.  If not, you probably have an X issue.

You can obtain a package that contains the: "fonts.dir" & "fonts.scale" 
files so that X will make the same substitutions:

ftp://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/gimp/fonts/urw-fonts.tar.gz

This will fix it if it is an X problem.  Unpack in either: 
/usr/share/fonts or /usr/X11R6/fonts and add the directory: /<path>/URW/ 
to your X configuration file.

But, AFAIK, there is no prepackaged solution to the issue with 
FontConfig.  Installing the URW package won't fix the problem if it is a 
FontConfig/Qt issue since FontConfig does not use the: fonts.dir" & 
"fonts.scale" files.

IMHO, KDE needs to address this since it is normal for PDFs to require 
the 14 standard PostScript fonts.

-- 
JRT
 
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