Bug#731164: ghostscript: ps2pdf makes highlighted/annotated text unreadable by poppler-based PDF viewers
On 2024-01-05 22:58:58 -0600, Steven Robbins wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Dec 2013 17:15:19 +0100 Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> wrote:
> > Package: ghostscript
> > Version: 9.05~dfsg-8
> > Severity: important
> >
> > When I use ps2pdf on a file with highlighted/annotated text (as
> > produced by Apple's Preview on Mac OS X 10.6.8), this text is
> > displayed below the background with poppler-based PDF viewers
> > (xpdf, evince, okular).
> >
> > I've attached the original file temp.pdf (no problems with it),
> > the out.pdf file produced by "ps2pdf temp.pdf out.pdf", which
> > cannot be read correctly by poppler-based PDF viewers, and the
> > out.png file, which is a screenshot of "xpdf out.pdf" (so that
> > you can see the problem).
>
> I don't know where the problem lay, but just tested now with xpdf
> 3.04+git20231213-1. Both temp.pdf and out.pdf displayed identically.
I confirm. However, Firefox 121 (from the Debian package) still
has the same issue with "out.pdf". That said, if I try again
"ps2pdf temp.pdf out.pdf" with ghostscript 10.02.1~dfsg-1 (on
my Debian/unstable machine), Firefox displays the new out.pdf
document just like the poppler-based PDF viewers, with readable
text (and with no warnings). So, if there was a bug in ghostscript,
it is now "fixed".
FYI, "qpdf --check temp.pdf" signals an error in the PDF file:
WARNING: temp.pdf (object 11 0): object has offset 0
and "ps2pdf temp.pdf out.pdf" now fixes it silently.
--
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)
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