Hi,

I have a pdf file that I created using MikTeX and GSView. (LaTeX -> ps
-> pdf). The pdf appears correctly on screen, but printing the pdf
results in ligatures (fi) being replaced by blank spaces.

Printing the same pdf from another computer results in a "correct"
print out with no missing ligatures. So I know the problem is related
to something on my computer.

Training my brain to "see" 'fi' in front of 'lter' and 'nicky' is
driving me crazy. Any ideas anybody ????

Thanks,
Kishore.

"Kishore" <kishorekotteri@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:d3bf369c.0401221352.3c3fd5ac@posting.google.com...
>
> Training my brain to "see" 'fi' in front of 'lter' and 'nicky' is
> driving me crazy. Any ideas anybody ????
>

I would   nd that would make   les di cult  to read.

Tom.

kishorekotteri@yahoo.com (Kishore) wrote in message news:<d3bf369c.0401221352.3c3fd5ac@posting.google.com>...
> Hi,
> 
> I have a pdf file that I created using MikTeX and GSView. (LaTeX -> ps
> -> pdf). The pdf appears correctly on screen, but printing the pdf
> results in ligatures (fi) being replaced by blank spaces.......
> 
> Thanks,
> Kishore.

Hi,

We also faced the same problem on files received from our client. Till
this day, we could not find an exact reason for this behavior except
for some of our own observations.

In our case, the letters "fi" (and also "fl" (FL)), behaved the same
way and the behavior we observed was that these were not represented
as TWO separate characters, instead they were ONE single character.
You can verify this by selecting the text with the help of text
selection tool. Thus, whatever software had created these files, it
made a single ligature for the two characters. Our assumption was that
whatever font was used in the file for these instances, it was missing
both in our PDF files as well as on our system. However, the ASCII
character that these ligatures returned, was always the same. So we
programtically converted these ASCII characters to represent the
normal "f i" and "f l" characters.

May be someone else could give some more precise insight on this
behavior.

Regards.

On 27 Jan 2004 05:08:34 -0800, cmer_mukhtar@hotmail.com (cmer) dijo:

>In our case, the letters "fi" (and also "fl" (FL)), behaved the same
>way and the behavior we observed was that these were not represented
>as TWO separate characters, instead they were ONE single character.
>You can verify this by selecting the text with the help of text
>selection tool. Thus, whatever software had created these files, it
>made a single ligature for the two characters. Our assumption was that
>whatever font was used in the file for these instances, it was missing
>both in our PDF files as well as on our system. However, the ASCII
>character that these ligatures returned, was always the same. So we
>programtically converted these ASCII characters to represent the
>normal "f i" and "f l" characters.
>
>May be someone else could give some more precise insight on this
>behavior.

I think I understand what is happening. 

To explain this I have to turn on my wayback machine and crank it up a
century or so. Back in the old days of metal type there were special
characters called ligatures. A printer would by a typeface from a
foundry and it would come with ligatures for fi, fl, ff, ffi and ffl,
and occasionally other combinations. The reason for the ligatures was
that the top of the f tended to break off, so connecting it to the
next letter helped make the font more durable.

When modern newspaper typsetting came along (in the middle of the last
century) the materials were stronger and breakage was less a problem.
Although typesetting was still done by hand, it was easier to redesign
the typefaces without the ligatures. From the middle of the 20th
century onwards you found fewer and fewer printed materials that used
ligatures. 

When desktop computers first appeared ligature characters were an
unnecessary luxury. After all, typewriters had always gotten along
without ligature characters. But by the mid-1980s some computer users
were aching for more beautiful output and the new graphical operating
systems were making it possible. Eventually computer type foundries
started selling fonts with "expert sets." The expert set would contain
the missing ligatures. The user would have to switch fonts each time a
ligature was needed, which was kind of a pain. But clever designers
figured out they could do it in a flash just by recording a search and
replace macro. (On the Macintosh the fi and fl ligatures could be
inserted automatically in some advanced programs.)

Just as an aside, the ff, fi, fl, ffi and ffl ligatures in the expert
font matched to the V, W, X, Y and Z in the regular font.

Now, what I am guessing is happening with your documents is that they
were created with a standard font and its matching expert set.
However, when the PDF was created the user failed to embed the fonts.
Your computer has the standard font installed, so that displays fine.
But you don't have the expert font, so those characters show up as
blank spaces.

The best solution is for you to tell your clients to be sure that all
fonts are embedded in the PDF. This should resolve the problem. Note:
some TrueType fonts and a few Type 1 fonts cannot be embedded due to
software licensing requirements. If that is the case, the best thing
is for your client to use a different font. However, I don't know of
any expert sets that were ever available in TrueType format anyway,
and almost all Type 1 fonts are unrestricted, so chances are they just
need to check the box for embedding when they create the PDF.

--
Bogus e-mail address, but I read this newsgroup regularly, so reply here.

Thanks Marek,

I was wondering why 'fi', 'ffi' etc had to be clubbed into one symbol
at all in the first place.

Anyway the problem with my pdf file was that it didn't print out (i.e.
the ligatures did not print correctly) when I tried printing it out to
the network printer from my computer. Taking the same .pdf file to
another computer on the network and printing to the same network
printer resulted in a good print out. So I assume that the necessary
fonts are embedded in the .pdf file, but something was going wrong
enroute to the printer.

I decided to take a shot in the dark, and updated the printer driver
on the computer to which the printer in connected. Lo and behold, the
ligatures re-appeared on print outs from my computer after that.

So I still don't know what was wrong, but as long as I can see
"'fi'les" and "e'ffi'cient" on my print out I won't complain.

Thanks,
Kishore.

kishorekotteri@yahoo.com (Kishore) wrote:

>I was wondering why 'fi', 'ffi' etc had to be clubbed into one symbol
>at all in the first place.

This has been considered a hallmark of good typography for much longer
than there have been computers...
----------------------------------------
Aandi Inston  quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
Please support usenet! Post replies and follow-ups, don't e-mail them.

Aandi Inston wrote:

> kishorekotteri@yahoo.com (Kishore) wrote:
> 
> 
>>I was wondering why 'fi', 'ffi' etc had to be clubbed into one symbol
>>at all in the first place.
> 
> 
> This has been considered a hallmark of good typography for much longer
> than there have been computers...
>

True.

To expand a bit, typographers look for a consistent "color" in a block 
of text. That is, the negative space (white areas between and around the 
black areas) should not be blotchy. You should not see pigeonholes (huge 
word spaces), rivers (word spaces that align into a continous stream 
down the paragraph), letterspacing (letters pushed apart within a word 
to make up space on the line), etc. For a good example of bad 
typesetting, open a blank Word doc with the Normal template and default 
settings, and type a few hundred words of text. Look at the page. That's 
what you don't want to do.

The problem with most serif fonts is that in the original design of the 
font the top stroke of the f extends past the width of the crossbar. In 
order to keep the spacing between letters visually consistent (see 
above), that top stroke wants to fit over the following letter a little 
bit. This is called kerning. So for "fo," "fa,", "fe," etc., it's not a 
problem. But for "fi" and "fl" the top of the f crashes into the 
following letter. The solution is for the font designer to create a 
single glyph that resolves the issue through design subtleties.

For nearly a century, this was a rather arcane issue, because the 
Linotype didn't accommodate any sort of kerning and the letter f was 
redesigned to fit within the body width. But now that we are freed from 
that restriction, typographers can again indulge their perfectionism.

Aandi Inston wrote:

> kishorekotteri@yahoo.com (Kishore) wrote:
> 
>>I was wondering why 'fi', 'ffi' etc had to be clubbed into one symbol
>>at all in the first place.
> 
> This has been considered a hallmark of good typography for much longer
> than there have been computers...

To add a bit of detail: it has to do with the 'overhang' of the 'f', which
for certain typefaces (not all) would run into the dot in the 'i' and 'j'
(look at a MS Word print, that does not use ligatures). That looks ugly, so
a better solution was to combine the 'fi' into one glyph (sign if you
want). Same reasoning was applied to ff, fl and (sometimes) ft.

That said, I've seen examples of ligatures which were only there for
aesthetics (sh, ch and such)

Regards, 

Remco

Hi Marek,

Marek Williams wrote:
[..]
> The user would have to switch fonts each time a ligature was needed, 
> which was kind of a pain. But clever designers figured out they 
> could do it in a flash just by recording a search and replace macro. 

I have no idea about typesetting conventions in English; in German and
FWIK, the ligatures can't simply be inserted "automatically" that way.
Beceause there are so many compound words, the ligature would "tie" from
one part to the other which would really mess up the meaning. Most
probably, you can get away with that in English; in other languages, a
special dictionary might be needed.

2cents
..bob
...Word-MVP
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