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Posted to fop-dev@xmlgraphics.apache.org by Peter Hancock <pe...@gmail.com> on 2010/11/12 15:13:37 UTC
Printing FOP generated PDF using PCL6 drivers
Dear FOP devs,
I am working on rounded corner support in fop (see branch
Temp_RoundedCorners for work in progress) and I have hit upon a
problem
whilst trying to print PDF to a printer using a PCL6 driver.
Borders in PDF are created using a graphical streams of primitive
drawing commands and the rounded variant makes use of cubic bezier
curves.
I am inconsistently not able to print rounded borders and I am hoping
a snippet of the graphical stream of two border sections may provide a
fop developer with enough
info to debug the problem.
The first snippet is part of PDF that is successfully transformed to
printable PLC
q
1 0 0 1 -10 0 cm
4.393 4.393 m
7.205 1.581 11.023 0 14.999 0 c
383.720001 0 l
387.696014 0 391.514008 1.581 394.325989 4.393 c
387.255005 11.464 l
386.317993 10.527 385.045013 10 383.720001 10 c
15 10 l
13.674 10 12.401 10.527 11.464 11.464 c
h
W
n
0 G
[] 0 d 15 w
0 7.5 m 398.720001 7.5 l S
Q
The next snippet does not work
q
1 0 0 1 51.022999 785.195007 cm
-0 -1 1 -0 0 0 cm
8.302 8.302 m
13.616 2.988 20.830999 0 28.344999 0 c
700.156982 0 l
707.671021 0 714.885986 2.988 720.200012 8.302 c
716.192017 12.31 l
711.940002 8.059 706.169006 5.668 700.156982 5.669 c
28.346001 5.669 l
22.333 5.669 16.562 8.059 12.31 12.31 c
h
W
n
0.85098 0.14902 0.254902 RG
[] 0 d 28.346001 w
0 14.173 m 728.502991 14.173 l S
Q
I am aware that the problem may be in the print driver (outside the
scope of this list), or due to a wider context in the PDF,
but I am consistently able to print embedded SVGs that FOP maps to
equivalent graphical streams, and this leads me to conclude there may
be a problem with the border generation code.
Whilst debugging this issues I did notice that the coordinates are
formatted to 6 decimal places in the border painting yet to 8 dps in
org.apache.fop.svg.PDFGraphics2D ( the SVG to PDF bridge).
Changing PDFBorderPainter to use 8 dps did not solve my problem,
however I am wondering why the discrepancy exists.
Please prompt me for more details if you are able to offer any help
Thanks in advance,
Pete
Re: Printing FOP generated PDF using PCL6 drivers
Posted by Peter Hancock <pe...@gmail.com>.
Hi Jeremias,
> Sorry for the late feedback. I don't see anything wrong with the paint
> sequences you show here. These are basic painting operations. And I
> assume they work perfectly when viewed in Acrobat Reader or GhostScript.
Yes, and printed fine with a PS print driver.
> Out of experience, I can say that the PCL printer drivers of Microsoft
> origin have had problems for years (not just with FOP/Acrobat but also
> with MS Word and other tools). And each time the equivalent PostScript
> driver was used, the problem went away (see fop-users archive, too).
Thanks for pointing this out to me!
> To a certain degree, you can play with the driver settings. In many cases,
> I saw that the PCL driver rasterizes full pages rather than using text
> operator. Not sure if that's part of the problem.
The documents producedmay be distribution electronically to the end
customer and we will not have control over their printing setup.
> In the end, I'm unclear how one should be able to find out why one
> snippet below works and the other doesn't. The only real difference is
> the 90° rotation in the second example. But I can't imagine that such a
> basic operation should cause the problem. If it does, that driver is
I have been able to print examples of rounded borders that contain
these rotation commands.
> simply buggy and it doesn't make sense to go through hoops to try to work
> around the bug. And I can't imagine that two decimal digits more or less
> will cause any such problem.
I agree.
> Have you tried printing the PDF from GhostScript/GhostView to the PCL
> printer? Or from another PDF viewer? Does the same problem occur? Have
I have printed successfully to the printer using GhostScript, not
however, with a PCL print driver
.
> you tried enabling "Print as Bitmap" in Acrobat (found in the printing
> dialog under "Advanced")?
That worked fine for me too.
I am continually leaning to the conclusion that the PCL print driver
is at fault but I do have doubts since SVG's describing complex curves
seem to be transformed to PDF commands that survive the PCL driver.
And since I have had some success printing rounded corners I would
really like to know what difference is causing the problem.
Oh well, perhaps this is one of those problems that will be solved
when we find simpler examples of passes and fails.
Thanks for taking the time to consider the problem.
Pete
Re: Printing FOP generated PDF using PCL6 drivers
Posted by Jeremias Maerki <de...@jeremias-maerki.ch>.
Another thought: try to work off a Linux with a PCL driver and print
from Adobe Acrobat. I bet there will be a difference. If it works, it's
one more point against the Windows PCL printer driver.
On 16.11.2010 15:24:35 Jeremias Maerki wrote:
> Hi Peter
>
> Sorry for the late feedback. I don't see anything wrong with the paint
> sequences you show here. These are basic painting operations. And I
> assume they work perfectly when viewed in Acrobat Reader or GhostScript.
>
> Out of experience, I can say that the PCL printer drivers of Microsoft
> origin have had problems for years (not just with FOP/Acrobat but also
> with MS Word and other tools). And each time the equivalent PostScript
> driver was used, the problem went away (see fop-users archive, too). To
> a certain degree, you can play with the driver settings. In many cases,
> I saw that the PCL driver rasterizes full pages rather than using text
> operator. Not sure if that's part of the problem.
>
> In the end, I'm unclear how one should be able to find out why one
> snippet below works and the other doesn't. The only real difference is
> the 90° rotation in the second example. But I can't imagine that such a
> basic operation should cause the problem. If it does, that driver is
> simply buggy and it doesn't make sense to go through hoops to try to work
> around the bug. And I can't imagine that two decimal digits more or less
> will cause any such problem.
>
> Have you tried printing the PDF from GhostScript/GhostView to the PCL
> printer? Or from another PDF viewer? Does the same problem occur? Have
> you tried enabling "Print as Bitmap" in Acrobat (found in the printing
> dialog under "Advanced")?
>
> On 12.11.2010 15:13:37 Peter Hancock wrote:
> > Dear FOP devs,
> >
> > I am working on rounded corner support in fop (see branch
> > Temp_RoundedCorners for work in progress) and I have hit upon a
> > problem
> > whilst trying to print PDF to a printer using a PCL6 driver.
> >
> > Borders in PDF are created using a graphical streams of primitive
> > drawing commands and the rounded variant makes use of cubic bezier
> > curves.
> > I am inconsistently not able to print rounded borders and I am hoping
> > a snippet of the graphical stream of two border sections may provide a
> > fop developer with enough
> > info to debug the problem.
> >
> > The first snippet is part of PDF that is successfully transformed to
> > printable PLC
> > q
> > 1 0 0 1 -10 0 cm
> > 4.393 4.393 m
> > 7.205 1.581 11.023 0 14.999 0 c
> > 383.720001 0 l
> > 387.696014 0 391.514008 1.581 394.325989 4.393 c
> > 387.255005 11.464 l
> > 386.317993 10.527 385.045013 10 383.720001 10 c
> > 15 10 l
> > 13.674 10 12.401 10.527 11.464 11.464 c
> > h
> > W
> > n
> > 0 G
> > [] 0 d 15 w
> > 0 7.5 m 398.720001 7.5 l S
> > Q
> >
> > The next snippet does not work
> >
> > q
> > 1 0 0 1 51.022999 785.195007 cm
> > -0 -1 1 -0 0 0 cm
> > 8.302 8.302 m
> > 13.616 2.988 20.830999 0 28.344999 0 c
> > 700.156982 0 l
> > 707.671021 0 714.885986 2.988 720.200012 8.302 c
> > 716.192017 12.31 l
> > 711.940002 8.059 706.169006 5.668 700.156982 5.669 c
> > 28.346001 5.669 l
> > 22.333 5.669 16.562 8.059 12.31 12.31 c
> > h
> > W
> > n
> > 0.85098 0.14902 0.254902 RG
> > [] 0 d 28.346001 w
> > 0 14.173 m 728.502991 14.173 l S
> > Q
> >
> > I am aware that the problem may be in the print driver (outside the
> > scope of this list), or due to a wider context in the PDF,
> > but I am consistently able to print embedded SVGs that FOP maps to
> > equivalent graphical streams, and this leads me to conclude there may
> > be a problem with the border generation code.
> >
> > Whilst debugging this issues I did notice that the coordinates are
> > formatted to 6 decimal places in the border painting yet to 8 dps in
> > org.apache.fop.svg.PDFGraphics2D ( the SVG to PDF bridge).
> > Changing PDFBorderPainter to use 8 dps did not solve my problem,
> > however I am wondering why the discrepancy exists.
> >
> > Please prompt me for more details if you are able to offer any help
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> >
> > Pete
>
>
>
>
> Jeremias Maerki
>
Jeremias Maerki
Re: Printing FOP generated PDF using PCL6 drivers
Posted by Jeremias Maerki <de...@jeremias-maerki.ch>.
Hi Peter
Sorry for the late feedback. I don't see anything wrong with the paint
sequences you show here. These are basic painting operations. And I
assume they work perfectly when viewed in Acrobat Reader or GhostScript.
Out of experience, I can say that the PCL printer drivers of Microsoft
origin have had problems for years (not just with FOP/Acrobat but also
with MS Word and other tools). And each time the equivalent PostScript
driver was used, the problem went away (see fop-users archive, too). To
a certain degree, you can play with the driver settings. In many cases,
I saw that the PCL driver rasterizes full pages rather than using text
operator. Not sure if that's part of the problem.
In the end, I'm unclear how one should be able to find out why one
snippet below works and the other doesn't. The only real difference is
the 90° rotation in the second example. But I can't imagine that such a
basic operation should cause the problem. If it does, that driver is
simply buggy and it doesn't make sense to go through hoops to try to work
around the bug. And I can't imagine that two decimal digits more or less
will cause any such problem.
Have you tried printing the PDF from GhostScript/GhostView to the PCL
printer? Or from another PDF viewer? Does the same problem occur? Have
you tried enabling "Print as Bitmap" in Acrobat (found in the printing
dialog under "Advanced")?
On 12.11.2010 15:13:37 Peter Hancock wrote:
> Dear FOP devs,
>
> I am working on rounded corner support in fop (see branch
> Temp_RoundedCorners for work in progress) and I have hit upon a
> problem
> whilst trying to print PDF to a printer using a PCL6 driver.
>
> Borders in PDF are created using a graphical streams of primitive
> drawing commands and the rounded variant makes use of cubic bezier
> curves.
> I am inconsistently not able to print rounded borders and I am hoping
> a snippet of the graphical stream of two border sections may provide a
> fop developer with enough
> info to debug the problem.
>
> The first snippet is part of PDF that is successfully transformed to
> printable PLC
> q
> 1 0 0 1 -10 0 cm
> 4.393 4.393 m
> 7.205 1.581 11.023 0 14.999 0 c
> 383.720001 0 l
> 387.696014 0 391.514008 1.581 394.325989 4.393 c
> 387.255005 11.464 l
> 386.317993 10.527 385.045013 10 383.720001 10 c
> 15 10 l
> 13.674 10 12.401 10.527 11.464 11.464 c
> h
> W
> n
> 0 G
> [] 0 d 15 w
> 0 7.5 m 398.720001 7.5 l S
> Q
>
> The next snippet does not work
>
> q
> 1 0 0 1 51.022999 785.195007 cm
> -0 -1 1 -0 0 0 cm
> 8.302 8.302 m
> 13.616 2.988 20.830999 0 28.344999 0 c
> 700.156982 0 l
> 707.671021 0 714.885986 2.988 720.200012 8.302 c
> 716.192017 12.31 l
> 711.940002 8.059 706.169006 5.668 700.156982 5.669 c
> 28.346001 5.669 l
> 22.333 5.669 16.562 8.059 12.31 12.31 c
> h
> W
> n
> 0.85098 0.14902 0.254902 RG
> [] 0 d 28.346001 w
> 0 14.173 m 728.502991 14.173 l S
> Q
>
> I am aware that the problem may be in the print driver (outside the
> scope of this list), or due to a wider context in the PDF,
> but I am consistently able to print embedded SVGs that FOP maps to
> equivalent graphical streams, and this leads me to conclude there may
> be a problem with the border generation code.
>
> Whilst debugging this issues I did notice that the coordinates are
> formatted to 6 decimal places in the border painting yet to 8 dps in
> org.apache.fop.svg.PDFGraphics2D ( the SVG to PDF bridge).
> Changing PDFBorderPainter to use 8 dps did not solve my problem,
> however I am wondering why the discrepancy exists.
>
> Please prompt me for more details if you are able to offer any help
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Pete
Jeremias Maerki