On Fri 03 Mar 2017 at 20:28:56 +0200, Martin-Éric Racine wrote: > 2017-03-03 18:25 GMT+02:00 Francesco Potortì <poto...@isti.cnr.it>: > > > This apparently has to do with the old problem of cups-pdf converting > > PDF to PS and back to PDF. > > > > I have an old Ubuntu Lucid installation where the problem does not > > exist. > > Debian and Ubuntu both briefly used a patch (around version 2.5.1 > IIRC) that bypassed the pdf2pdf filter. It worked well for simply > passing documents that were already in PDF format over to CUPS for > output to a PDF spool. However, it completely broke CUPS-PDF's > primary functionality which is to convert arbitrary document formats > into PDF, and it also prevented users from further manipulating the > documents via CUPS-PDF's configuration file options before outputting > them to the PDF spool. This resulted in complaints from users who > depended upon these features, so I removed the patch.
The fullest discussion of this I know of is at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups-pdf/+bug/820820 Users should take note of the comment: > The reasons for not skipping this step are known to you > (it will severly impede the functionality of CUPS-PDF). > Furthermore, once again, CUPS-PDF is not meant for > processing PDF-input (i.e., it is not meant to be a > PDF-manipulation tool). However, cups-pdf is still seen as a general "convert something to a PDF" utility. At one time it might have served that purpose, but not now. Both text and PDF input produce a below-standard, non-searchable output. There is a case for clarifying its purpose as a cups-filters plus backend method for getting a decent quality, searchable PDF from PostScript input only. (Okular produces PostScript; Evince doesn't). -- Brian.
