On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 5:02 AM, <jida...@jidanni.org> wrote: > Dear Hojia list, here's more of the conversation, as some participants > are not subscribed so couldn't post. Thread is on > http://news.gmane.org/group/gmane.org.user-groups.taiwan.tossug.hojia There are recently also some related discussions in gnome-tw-list too: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-tw-list/2010-October/msg00006.html (in Chinese) In some distro BCI is exceptionally turned on for Chinese via a white list, but obviously the list is not very complete. (Though I don't think this is meaningful any more. Why not just turn it on?)
One more thing, if auto-hinting is turned on (one of the work-arounds before the patent expired) for FreeType (via font-config or... ), BCI will be forced off no matter if it's compiled in. And auto-hinting doesn't handle the radical assembled fonts which results in the same condition as broken glyphs. So some configuration files would need adjustments accordingly. >>>>>> "D" == Derek B Noonburg <der...@foolabs.com> writes: > D> On 2010 Nov 17, Kan-Ru Chen wrote: >>> jida...@jidanni.org writes: >>> >>>> Can anybody read the Chinese these days with xpdf anymore? >>>> wget -O x.pdf >>>> http://www1.hl.gov.tw/bus/upload/%AA%E1%BD%AC%AB%C8%B9B%A5%FA%C2%D7%BDu%AE%C9%B6%A1%AA%ED.pdf >>>> xpdf x.pdf >>>> See http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=591094 >>>> Should I dump xpdf and instead use what? >>>> Thanks. >>> >>> I could confirm the Chinese characters were broken inside my evince. >>> >>> I guess, since poppler disabled hinting, the bytecode interpreter wasn't >>> used at all. IIRC, it was disabled for correctness or better print >>> quality, because grid fitting is not suitable for printing. I used to >>> have a patched version installed locally some time ago. >>> >>> Screenshot attached. > > D> In my experience, that sort of broken output for Chinese glyphs is > D> always due to a missing or disabled bytecode interpreter in FreeType. > > D> There are two ways that can happen: > > D> (1) FreeType was built with the bytecode interpreter disabled. This was > D> the default before 2.4 (and the 2.4.x versions can still be configured > D> this way, but I'm not sure why anyone would do that). Later 2.3.x > D> versions (I think) of FreeType have a workaround that tries to fix > D> Chinese fonts based on their name. This may or may not work, depending > D> on exactly how the font was embedded in the PDF file. I.e., FreeType > D> 2.4.x should always work; FreeType 2.3.x may or may not work. > > D> (2) FreeType hinting was disabled. In Xpdf 3.02, there is a > D> compile-time check for FreeType's bytecode interpreter -- if the > D> interpreter is available, then hinting is enabled, otherwise hinting is > D> disabled. This means that, if Xpdf 3.02 is compiled with a 2.3.x > D> version of FreeType without the bytecode interpreter, and then FreeType > D> is later upgraded to 2.4.x, then Xpdf will still disable hinting. > > D> I believe some Linux distributions (and code forks, like Poppler) may > D> also modify the Xpdf code to disable hinting. (Certain fonts look > D> better when FreeType's auto-hinting is disabled.) > > D> If you want to debug the problem, I would recommend doing this: > > D> (1) Download the Xpdf binaries from my ftp site. They're staticly > D> linked to FreeType (a 2.3.x version, with the bytecode interpreter > D> enabled). You can just unpack the tar file in /tmp and run it from > D> there -- no need to install anything. If that displays the Chinese text > D> correctly, then the problem is almost certainly as described above. > > D> (2) Install FreeType 2.4.x, and make sure the bytecode interpreter is > D> enabled. Build Xpdf 3.02pl5 from the unmodified source code from my ftp > D> site. If that works, then my guess is that the issue is one of: > > D> (a) The Xpdf package released by your distribution has been modified > D> to disable hinting > > D> (b) The Xpdf package released by your distribution was built with > D> FreeType 2.3.x with the bytecode interpreter disabled (and not > D> re-built after FreeType was upgraded to 2.4.x). > > D> The next release of Xpdf (3.03) will have a run-time option (xpdfrc > D> setting) to enable/disable FreeType hinting. Of course, I can't control > D> modifications made by Debian packagers, the Poppler project, etc. > > D> - Derek > > Above my head, but I sure hope the Debian people will recompile with all > those expired-patent things etc. included this time. > _______________________________________________ > ho...@tossug.org > http://tossug.org/mailman/listinfo/hojia > -- Best regards, Yuan Chao -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
