[Scribus] Import an EPS from Sibelius, having major problems!

[Plinnell]

On Tuesday 04 September 2007, dax702 wrote:
> Well, just discovered something interesting.  I exported as just a
> regular EPS (Sibelius has several options for EPS for different
> programs). Opened that EPS in Photoshop and it's pristine, perfect,
> no flaws.  

It should. Photoshop, like the other Adobe graphics applications, 
shares a library for importing and parsing PDF which has been refined 
over years and they invented the standard.

However, when dealing with PostScript, you can *not* really judge the 
quality on screen - only by high resolution printing or PDF export - 
then zooming in 400% or more in Adobe Reader.  

You can get decent quailty in Scribus if you imported the EPS into an 
image frame and specified 300 dpi as EPS resolution from Scribus when 
exporting PDF from Scribus. Note: the on-screen preview of the EPS is 
a low resolution preview for placement. It will be much higher 
quality when exported. 

This would be similar to converting the EPS into a bitmap in 
Photoshop. PSD support in 1.3.4 is *very* good - I would dare say 
excellent.

I would be curious to know about those EPS options as well.


>I've attached the same EPS to this message so you can
> see what happens when you import into Scribus.  I will also send a
> bug report too.  How quickly are bugs like this addressed?

Quickly, if we know where the issue is. In this case supporting Type 3 
fonts is on the roadmap, but not a priority.

This is not a bug, but a yet to be implemented feature.

> I need
> to start using the software to assemble this book fairly soon...
> http://www.nabble.com/file/p12470351/Exercise%2B7.eps
> Exercise+7.eps

Furthermore, I had a look at the EPS file internally:

When I tested it with epstool it had a few warnings about 
non-conforming directives. 

It uses Type 3 fonts which are an almost obsolete format. What is Type 
3 and why does it matter ? 

Well a Type 3 font is actually a way of creating the font as a series 
of postscript commands. It was originally developed as the Type 1 
specification was not open at the time. Once the Type 1 specification 
was open, it really a rarity and obsolete.

The way Sibelius creates the postscript file it seems to me is by 
converting True Type fonts into Type 3 fonts. I do not understand why 
it simply does not embed, subset or create outlines of the True Type 
fonts. This would make it far more robust IMO. 

When Scribus cannot embed a font in a PDF, like Open Type fonts, it 
converts them to postscript outlines which are is *far* more portable 
and robust than converting to another type format. 

Summary:

Sibelius' EPS export is not the best I have seen and Scribus does not 
yet have the capability to support the rarely used Type 3 format.

Lastly.

Pretty please do not top post. It breaks threading for many people 
here on the list and certainly those who receive it on digest. See:
http://docs.scribus.net/index.php?lang=en&page=resources

Peter
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