[Please correct me if I'm wrong...] ZapfDingbats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapf_Dingbats ) is a copyrighted font. Therefore it breaks copyright to copy it without permission. Since PDFBox is Open (has a distribution compatible with the Open Definition ( http://opendefinition.org/ ) which allows anyone to copy, modify and re-use it), it cannot include materials which have restrictive licences (and may require purchase).
PDFBox relies on the target OS distribution to include some of the 14 fonts. Since Windows doesn't have ZapfDingbats it is missing by default and PDFBox cannot rectify this. This will also mean that anyone who has separately licensed ZapfDingbats (or an equivalent with a restrictive licence) cannot include them in derivative works of PDFBox. The problem would appear to arise from the PDF standard requiring a copyrighted font. P. P. On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 5:31 PM, John Hewson <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 6 Apr 2015, at 08:59, Eric Douglas <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > ZapfDingbats should be there, shouldn't have to substitute, as you > > mentioned. > > No, these are not the same issues. PDFBox should always be able to provide > ZapfDingbats but that font doesn't ship with Windows, so we need to > substitute it for Windings on that platform. On the Mac this isn't a > problem. > > > https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/PDFBOX-1900 > > John Hewson > > <https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/ViewProfile.jspa?name=jahewson> > added > > a comment - 11/Feb/14 00:55 > > > > This is a PDFBox bug. Zapf Dingbats is one of the standard 14 fonts that > > should always work without being embedded. > > > > As mentioned on that bug report, I had actually created this PDF using > > iText, which doesn't appear to give any way to embed the font. > > I got a rendering problem on pdfbox trying to read this PDF back in, > > because this font is not embedded or installed, though Adobe renders it > > just fine. > > This will likely come up again someday, though I worked around this for > > now, since as I mentioned this is a PDF I'm creating. I changed this > > instance to render to the Graphics using the original object I created it > > from instead of reading the PDF after it's created. > > > > I will test that ExternalFonts.addSubstitute when I get time, as another > > workaround. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > > -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069
