[scribus] Fonts in PDF for Blurb

[Šarūnas]

On 12/6/19 12:01 PM, Bert Driehuis wrote:
> Hi Šarūnas,
> 
> I am not a preprint expert either, but if I understand the printer's
> story correctly, part of the problem was in using layers (and thus, 
> transparency). Many printers have problems with transparency, so I
> usually limit the PDF version to 1.3 when dealing with such issues.
> Selecting 1.3 forces Scribus to remove the problematic features from
> the PDF.
> 
> The problem with embedding fonts is that a font is, in essence, a
> program to render letterforms. And that program can have bugs. Most
> fonts have small errors, and sometimes a printer's software will trip
> over errors that your own software doesn't have a problem with. By
> outlining the font you include the letter forms by generating them on
> your own computer. This eliminates any differences in
> interpretation.
> 
> I learned this the hard way. In my case, the printed result had
> black splotches where I had accidentally used an image with
> transparency. I have to this date not found a free tool that will
> point out such problems.
> 
> If you're interested in checking the quality of a font, you could
> try opening it in FontForge and running its verifier. You may be
> surprised by how many errors lurk in some expensive commercial
> fonts...

Hi, Bert,

I have just spent some time checking various fonts with Fontforge. Each
and every of them had warnings (or are those errors?, missing points at
extrema, overlapping paths and alike) for most of their glyphs. I
couldn't find a “clean” font so far on my Kubuntu system. Fonts are form
various foundries. Guess that's how it was all the time, and my book
ended being printed with some particular/outdated RIP, or there indeed
were issues with layers in PDF. I'm still to find a tool to give a good
analysis of PDF as far as layers. I just checked all the PDF I ever
submitted to Blurb and they are all 1.3, PDX/X-3. I guess outlining all
fonts might be a safeguard, but I wonder if there are any downsides as
far as print quality? Also I think I have read that Scribus NG (1.5.x)
should be a step-up as far as font embedding...

Šarūnas




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