Re: pdf file is not read correctly
On Tue, 20 Jun 2017 09:19:16 +0100
Abdelkader Belahcene <abelahcene@gmail.com> wrote:
> *Hi everybody,*
>
>
>
> *Strange, until today, I believed that a pdf file written in any
> language can be read by a pdf reader, since it is binary !! For
> example evince, and not I was wrong !!The following file is a pdf
> file in Arabic, it is read correctly under windows by acrobat reader,
> but not with evince, some parts are read but not others,
> (nevertheless my coding of the system is utf8), but what is the link
> with utf8, since pdf is binary !!
PDF is fundamentally a text format, but it is usually compressed,
sometimes encrypted, and may contain embedded binary documents such as
images. Sometimes the text in a PDF is in the form of an image, where
some real physical text has been scanned and embedded in a PDF as an
image, but more usually, the text is in a standard encoded form such as
ASCII or UTF8.
Note: the computer needs to have installed on it all the fonts used in
an encoded-text document, or else the document has to contain the
fonts embedded within it. This may be where your problem lies, in more
than one font having been used, though I would expect a PDF reader
which is missing a font to tell you so and invite you to install it.
PDF was basically developed from PostScript, and PS files pretty well
are raw text which a text editor can display (but not interpret), and
PS is a distant descendent of pure text plotter driver languages such as
HPGL.
> Please, how can I fix this problem,
> thank you very much and in advance*
Not all PDF readers are created equal. PDF is effectively a programming
language, and different implementations of an interpreter for the
language do not all behave in the same way.
I've had quite a lot of trouble with Evince, mostly, it has to be said,
with PDFs generated by applications which are not primarily PDF
creators. I've not yet found one of these dodgy documents which Okular
can't handle. It's a bit slow, but it gets there, and it's worth a try
in your case. If it works, and Evince doesn't, and your document isn't
confidential, you might consider submitting a bug report to the Evince
developers.
Note that Windows Acrobat Reader is produced by the people who invented
PDF, and will generally do the best job of rendering a PDF file. There
are derivatives of PDF which just about only Acrobat Reader will
handle, though Foxit tries to keep up. There is a Linux version of
Foxit, but it's not Open Source. Neither was the Adobe Acrobat Reader,
and Adobe dropped support for that a few years ago.
--
Joe
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