I don't have an exact answer, but something similar recently happened to
me. I have a PDF with a bunch of Old Italic characters. It displays
correctly on screen regardless of what computer I use. If I print from
my laptop downstairs to the Brother network printer in my study
upstairs, the Old Italic characters all come out as nonsense (some
accent shapes, a few odd letters). If I print it upstairs on a
different computer, but using the same network printer, all is well.
It's a Brother multifunction machine with the latest Windows driver
installed on both machines. Moral: PDFs aren't as bulletproof as we think.
I assume you have already considered: are the fonts embedded in the
PDF? Did he enter the characters as precomposed combinations or by
using combining marks? First option more likely, I imagine.
This is a real shot in the dark, but here goes:
Is it possible that, at some point in the process, the precomposed
characters were decomposed and then put back together in a way that
affected the output? If the font in use contains precomposed
combinations but does not support positioning of combining marks this
might happen. ???
David
On 1/18/2016 5:14 PM, Dominik Wujastyk wrote:
A student of mine is preparing a PhD thesis with XeLaTeX. He recently
sent me his draft as a PDF (xelatex -> dvipdfmx (20150315)). I
attach a page of this, kkk.pdf, extracted from the thesis with pdftk.
The Sanskrit text in roman script contains a number of letters that
have under-dots, like ṣṭḥṃ etc. He is typing this with a
Unicode-aware editor, SublimeText.
His PDF output from XeTeX displays on the screen just fine, using
Okular or Evince (Linux Mint 17.3 etc.).
But when I /print/ his document on my HP LaserJet Pro 400 MFP printer,
the underdots have turned into overdots, and are shifted slightly
horizontally. I attach a scan of the printed output, kkk-pdf-scan.pdf.
I haven't encountered anything quite like this before, and it baffles
me. I've tried outputting the PDF to PS and printing that. Printing
the PDF to another PDF. I've tried using Evince not Okular. Always
the same problem. Everything points to the printer or the printer
driver. But this is not a hole-in-the-wall printer, and I'm using
HP's own driver. HP knows how to interpret PostScript, surely.
The system details for the installed printer and driver are:
HP_LaserJet_400_MFP_M425dn
--------------------------
Type: Printer
Device URI: hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_400_MFP_M425dn?serial=CNF8H3NM1D
PPD: /etc/cups/ppd/HP_LaserJet_400_MFP_M425dn.ppd
PPD Description: HP LaserJet 400 MFP M425 Postscript (recommended)
Printer Sending data to printer.Jet_400_MFP_M425dn is idle. enabled
since Mon 18 Jan 2016 14:27:39 MST
Required plug-in status: Installed
Communication status: Good
I've run HP's diagnostics, and it is satisfied that the printer is
properly installed and everything's up to date.
Can anyone shed any light on this problem?
Dominik
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