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I have a PDF in which the TrueType font OCRB is used, however the font is not embedded.

So I tried to install the font on my system (which is by the way a SLES11 SP2), I did the following things:

  • Double Clicked the font on gnome Desktop and clicked install
  • Copied it in the /user/home/username/.fonts folder
  • Copied it in the /usr/share/fonts
  • With root: SuSEconfig --module fonts
  • fc-cache

When I try to print the .pdf with the command:

lpr -PHL2400Ce -# 1 test.pdf

The .pdf prints just fine, but the OCRB font is gone and replaced with the standard one.

However, when I open the .pdf with evince (gnome Document viewer) I see the OCRB font in the viewer (correct) and when I print it (with the same printer) its there and absolutely correct.

I don't understand this because I guess evince also uses lpr in some way? Any ideas what I can do? (It is very important for me being able to print the .pdf via command line, since it's gonna be part of batch jobs which runs in background)

I also tried some approaches like this:

gs -dSAFER -dNOPLATFONTS -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sPAPERSIZE=letter -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dMaxSubsetPct=100 -dSubsetFonts=true -dEmbedAllFonts=true -sOutputFile=output2.pdf -f test.pdf

Which brings me the output:

....
Can't find (or can't open) font file Arial-BoldMT. 
Didn't find this font on the system!
Substituting font Helvetica-Bold for Arial-BoldMT.
Substituting font Helvetica for OCRB

So what I see here is, that gs substitutes Helvetica for OCRB even though there is no message Can't find or can't open font... as it is for Arial-Bold. Any idea why?

share|improve this question
To have evince print via lpr, add the line gtk-print-backends="pdf,cups,lpr" to your ~/.gtkrc-2.0. By default, it's using CUPS directly. Not sure what your lpr is (CUPS' compat clients?), and how it works (i.e. how could you do what evince does from the command line), sorry. – sr_ Nov 21 '12 at 7:49
Sorry I don't understand why I should do this? I mean evince is printing correctly, I just wanted to give "proof" that the truetype font is corrctyl installed and also working, but not from command line. Or do you mean I should add the line just for "testing" purposes? Btw: I don't need to do exactyl what evince does, I just want the true type font to be printed with a command line print (I also don't care if its lpr or another command I have to use). – tenhouse Nov 21 '12 at 8:04
I suspect evince does not use lpr under the hood unless you make it do this, so, yes, testing purposes :) – sr_ Nov 21 '12 at 8:23
ok I added the line (and created the file since it was inexistent), when I opened evince and clicked print I had a new option "Print with lpr" when I chose it and entered the command lpr -PHL2400Ce it also printed correctly (with the OCRB) – tenhouse Nov 21 '12 at 8:39

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