Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Tue, 16 May 2006, sindi keesan wrote:

> On Tue, 16 May 2006 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:
>
> > sindi keesan wrote:
> > > I just remembered that xpdf package includes:
> > >    pdftops
> > >    pdftoppm
> > > These are non-X programs.
> >
> > Does that mean your pdf problem is fixed?
> > Instead of using X to run xpdf 3.1, you convert
> > them to ps/ppm and use a ps/ppm viewer instead?

I just tried out bmv.
With libvga.so.1 linked to the uclibc libvga.so.1.4.3
it segfaults.  (This is needed by David's uclibc zgv to work with
kernel 2.4.31).

With the SW4.0 libvga.so.1.3.1 it says 'relocation error...libvga.so.1 
_fxstat.....'

This is the same problem I had with X libraries.  The program was compiled 
for glibc 2.2 (Debian) and must also need libvga compiled for glibc 2.
I don't want to try compiling it myself.  (I compiled an earlier version 
with help, but without support for rotation - bmvold.tgz at my site).

With the Slackware 7.1 (glibc 2.1.3) libvga.so.1.4.3 from BL2 it works 
except it needs ghostscript from Slackware 7.1 to actually display 
anything.  I could add Slackware 7.1 ghostscript to use it, and replace 
libvga.so.1.4.3-uclibc with Slackware 7.1 version of libvga.so.1.4.3 and 
then bmv for libc2 would work.

GS 5.10 (SW7.1) uses about 4MB of fonts, then a lot of .ps files which I 
might need only for printing (bjc, epson).

I was unable to compile the latest gs with svgalib support.

The older gs will work on all ps files even if they came from a pdf 1.5 
file, but it is rather large if you include the fonts.

I don't want to add 10MB of ghostscript in order to use bmv as a viewer of 
ps files.


This leaves pdftotext, pdfimages, and pdftoppm.

pdfimages produces .pbm files from scanned documents that were packaged in 
pdf format.  That is most of what I am asked to read.

pdftotext works only if there is text in the document and it is not 
encrypted.

For mixed text and images, pdftoppm converts one pdf to several pages of 
ppm image viewable with zgv or xv (but not xli, though netpbm can convert 
ppm to gif).  It also wants 14 display fonts.  Precompiled xpdf statically 
included FreeType and I presume the CLI pdftoppm looks for X fonts.

To use xpdf (with these same fonts) I think I could temporarily symlink to 
the SW7.1 libX11.so. file and use the method of running one X program 
without rxvt or icewm:

(Xvesa -screen 1024x768x15); DISPLAY=:0 xpdf filename.pdf


There remains the problem of fonts.  The 75dpi fonts in BL2 occupy 1167K 
(over 1MB) and have names starting in cour and helv and tim and symb. 
cour comes in varieties plain, B BO O and R.

xpdf and pdftoppm want Courier, Helvetica, and Times, in plain, Bold, 
BoldOblique and Oblique (italic), plus Symbol and ZapfDingbats.

Could I copy over just the cour???.pcf.gz from BL2 /fonts/75dpi and 
make a fonts.alias to display cour helv tim plain/bold/italic all as plain 
courier instead of using 12 different sets of fonts?  Which font in /75dpi 
is ZapfDingbats?

The fonts.alias in BL3 /misc fonts directory lists about a page of:
-schumacher-clean-medium-r-normal
-b&h-lucidatypewriter-medium-r-normal
-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal ....
-adobe-courier-medium-r-normal-...

Was this added so that some program (Abiword?) would work properly and if 
so could a few more similar lines be added to make xpdf work correctly 
with the existing fonts?  Or could something similar be written up for a 
/75dpi directory in BL3 to use one set of plain courier fonts instead o fa 
a megabyte of fonts with xpdf?

BL3 has no .pcf.gz fonts, just /100dpi/c0632bt_.pfb, an Adobe Bitstream 
font.  What is this used for in BL3?

I just copied over all the /75dpi fonts from BL2 and pdftoppm still 
complains of no display fonts.  xfnts.tgz contains only the files in /misc 
/PEX and /75dpi.   So installing it is unlikely to help (assuming the 
SW4.0 and SW7.1 packages are identical).


Sindi