GNU bug report logs - #41812
28.0.50; pr-ps-... does not print certain accented characters, bust shows question marks instead

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Gregor Zattler <grfz <at> gmx.de>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: 28.0.50; pr-ps-... does not print certain accented characters, bust
 shows question marks instead
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2020 21:09:55 +0200

Dear Emacs developers,

when printing via ps-print-... I realized, that some
accented characters, namely

- capital letter L slash
- small letter n acute
- small letter o acute
- small letter z acute

are exchanged for question marks.

Way to reproduce

With attached file test.txt do:
emacs -Q test.txt --eval '(pr-ps-buffer-preview 1)

Perhaps the problem lies somewhere in the software stack
used to actually print.


As a workaround I was forced to use LibreOffice instead of
exported org-mode documents.


Thanks for looking into this, Gregor

Message #8 received at 41812 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Gregor Zattler <grfz <at> gmx.de>
Cc: 41812 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#41812: 28.0.50;
 pr-ps-... does not print certain accented characters, bust shows
 question marks instead
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2020 10:14:13 +0300

> From: Gregor Zattler <grfz <at> gmx.de>
> Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2020 21:09:55 +0200
> 
> With attached file test.txt do:
> emacs -Q test.txt --eval '(pr-ps-buffer-preview 1)

I didn't find any attachments in your report.

Thanks.

Message #11 received at 41812 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Gregor Zattler <grfz <at> gmx.de>
Cc: 41812 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#41812: 28.0.50;
 pr-ps-... does not print certain accented characters, bust shows
 question marks instead
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2020 10:30:24 +0300

> From: Gregor Zattler <grfz <at> gmx.de>
> Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2020 21:09:55 +0200
> 
> when printing via ps-print-... I realized, that some
> accented characters, namely
> 
> - capital letter L slash
> - small letter n acute
> - small letter o acute
> - small letter z acute
> 
> are exchanged for question marks.

With the exception of o acute, the other characters aren't Latin-1, so
I think what you see is expected.  To see more characters, you need to
customize ps-mule.el; at least ps-mule-font-info-database-default
should be customized.  Maybe you should also install GNU Intlfonts.  I
suggest to read the commentary at the beginning of ps-mule.el for more
details.

To make the report more easily reproducible and investigated, it is
better to leave printing.el commands that invoke Ghostview out of the
picture, since invoking external commands could produce other
irrelevant issues.  If you instead produce a PostScript buffer out of
your text and look at the produced PostScript, do you see the question
marks there, and if so, for which characters?

Thanks.

Message #14 received at 41812 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Gregor Zattler <grfz <at> gmx.de>
To: 41812 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#41812: 28.0.50; pr-ps-... does not print certain accented
 characters, bust shows question marks instead
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2020 21:59:39 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hi Eli, Emacs developers,
* Gregor Zattler <grfz <at> gmx.de> [2020-06-13; 11:49]:
> * Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org> [2020-06-12; 10:30]:
>>> From: Gregor Zattler <grfz <at> gmx.de>
>>> Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2020 21:09:55 +0200
>>>
>>> when printing via ps-print-... I realized, that some
>>> accented characters, namely
>>>
>>> - capital letter L slash
>>> - small letter n acute
>>> - small letter o acute
>>> - small letter z acute
>>>
>>> are exchanged for question marks.
>>

This time the file with the test text is attached:

[multibyte.txt (text/plain, inline)]

test text follows:   Łódź  koń
     

[Message part 3 (text/plain, inline)]

>> To make the report more easily reproducible and investigated, it is
>> better to leave printing.el commands that invoke Ghostview out of the
>> picture, since invoking external commands could produce other
>> irrelevant issues.  If you instead produce a PostScript buffer out of
>> your text and look at the produced PostScript, do you see the question
>> marks there, and if so, for which characters?

I did emacs -Q ~/tmp/multibyte.txt  --eval '(ps-spool-buffer)'
then in *PostScript* there are question marks for:

- capital letter L slash
- small letter n acute
- small letter z acute

>> With the exception of o acute, the other characters aren't Latin-1, so
>> I think what you see is expected.  To see more characters, you need to
>> customize ps-mule.el; at least ps-mule-font-info-database-default
>> should be customized.  Maybe you should also install GNU
>> Intlfonts.

I installed these.

>> I suggest to read the commentary at the beginning of
>> ps-mule.el for more details.

Thanks.  The documentation for
ps-mule-font-info-database-default says, it's used if
ps-multibyte-buffer is nil.  So I customized
ps-multibyte-buffer to 'bdf-font-except-latin and spooled
again.  With the same result question mark-wise.

I then tried additionally ps-mule-font-info-database-default
with an additional entry Symbol: utf-8 with font source bdf
(I have no clue how to customize this variable).  This
resulted in the same 3 question marks in the *PostScript*
buffer.



I do not really understand how this works and how to
customize it.

Since my multibyte.txt file is loaded in a buffer with an
"U" in the left corner of the mode line, I expected emacs to
do the right thing also with regard to printing.


But thanks for your help.  I'll do some internet search when
I have more time for this.



Ciao,
--
Gregor

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