Closed Bug 422253 Opened 16 years ago Closed 16 years ago

Acrobat PDFWriter prints/saves document garbled

Categories

(Core :: Printing: Output, defect)

Product:
Core
Component:
Printing: Output
Platform:
x86
Windows XP
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 454532

People

(Reporter: terryfowler, Unassigned)

References

(
URL
)

Details

(Keywords: dataloss, regression)

Attachments

(4 files)

A print to PDF version of an appointment confirmation
32.76 KB, application/pdf
Details
Here's a printout of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=422253, using Acrobat PDF Writer 4.0
51.59 KB, application/pdf
Details
pdf sample of highlighted fonts in 02-07-04 build
398.66 KB, application/pdf
Details
pdf sample of corrupt text in head/foot of 03-05-04 build
401.05 KB, application/pdf
Details 
User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030714 Firefox/3.0b4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030714 Firefox/3.0b4

Any web page printed or saved using Acrobat Reader 7.0 and PDF Writer to create the PDF document has text garbled - characters are jumbled up and unreadable.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Select Print
2.  Use Acrobat PDFWriter for Printer
3.  Assign file name and save with View File Checked to open Acrobat Reader 7.0 after completion
Actual Results:  
Characters unreadable in resulting PDF document

Expected Results:  
Acurate reproduction of web page or selection of page

Works fine in Internet Explorer all versions
Replicated this effect with Firefox3B5 and Adobe Acrobat 5.0. PDFWriter (part of Adobe Acrobat 5.0) works fine with other applications, and with Firefox2. I suspect some font translation since graphics and text positioning seem correct. Printing to a normal printer works fine. Print preview works fine. Changing PDFWriter Properties (compression and Font Embedding) do not have an effect. Reinstalling Acrobat did not correct.


The following line:
Thank you for helping test Firefox 3 Beta 5! This release is being made

Is translated into a PDF file displaying:
7KDQN\ RXIRUKHOSLQJWHVW) LUHIR[  %HWD 7LVUHOHDVHLVEHLQJPDGH


Repeatable with old PDF writer (3.02). Works with Firefox 2. Other printers work OK.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008032620 Firefox/3.0b5
Workaround: 

Acrobat Distiller renders PDFs correctly. Same software, same HTML pages, Acrobat PDFWriter garbles, Acrobat Distiller doesn't.
same problem with Acrobat 4.0
I have Acrobat 4.0 full version and Adobe Reader Ver 8. I have the same problem on three different computers. Printing to PDFWriter worked fine with Firefox 2.x, still works fine with IE, but the resultant pdf file is garbled with Firefox 3. Interestingly, the Print Preview function displays correctly.
I have Acrobat 5.0 full version and discovered the same problem now with the newly released Firefox 3. Printing to PDFWriter worked fine with Firefox
2.x, still works fine with IE, but the resultant pdf file is garbled with
Firefox 3. Interestingly, the Print Preview function displays correctly.

In addition I found that printing from Firefox to Foxit PDF Writer (=creating a PDF File using Foxit instead of the Acrobat v5) produces a perfect PDF file.

I have Acrobat 4.05 full version and discovered the same problem with the newly released Firefox 3.  Printing to PDFWriter worked fine with ff 2.x.  The output pdf file is garbled when using ff 3 but not with ff 2.  Primo PDF renders a proper output.
Here is an example of what is being produced.  The issue seems to be with FF 3 and all versions of Adobe.  This was produced with the full version of 5.0 but it also occurred with the full version of Adobe 7.0
Component: General → Printing
Product: Firefox → Core
QA Contact: general → printing
I get the same bad results with V5, V7 and V8 of Adobe's PDF writer. Using Docudesk's DeskPDF product, the results are correct.
Confirming for Firefox 3.0 (it did work correctly with Firefox 2).

         OS: Windows XP Home Edition version 2002, service pack 2
PDF creator: Acrobat PDF Writer 5.0 for Windows NT (PDF version 1.2) Acrobat 3.x

CutePDF Writer does seem to function correctly.

It is interesting to note that the PDFs created by "CutePDF Writer" are always larger than the "Acrobat PDF Writer" PDFs and do embed the font. The font name it uses is always unrecognisable though (like TTE1BCB2B0t00).
It might be that this issue is related "Acrobat PDF Writer" not embedding fonts properly. Verification welcome (i.e. check embedded fonts for "Acrobat PDF Writer" and "other PDF creator" documents). Could this have something to do with a change in the naming of fonts? Just guessing here though.


(In reply to comment #0)
Experiencing the same problem after installing Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0 when when printing to Acrobat PDFWriter 5.0.  This printer uses PDFKD.DLL

PDFWriter worked fine with Firefox 2.0.14 and works ok with all other programs.   Problem occurs on both  XP with SP3, and Windows 2000, with SP4.  Tried printing with PDF995 instead of Acrobat PDFWriter and the pages printed ok.



Experiencing a similar problem, please use this URL for reference: http://promo.realestate.yahoo.com/on-the-path-to-a-housing-rebound.html

Using Adobe PDF and Primo PDF printer drivers, and Mozilla 3.0 and IE7 for comparison.  If you create 2x2 matrix, you get 4 PDF output files.  One can download the PrimoPDF freeware from http://www.primopdf.com/.  

The Mozilla 3.0 results are the same as the IE7, using two identical printer drivers(, not counting the actual file size).  IE7 output contains all the text, and most of it is intelligible. Parts of it is under graphics features of the page.  The Mozilla outputs only have the first page of the text, so it is truncated.
I'm getting the same problem with Acrobat 5 PDFWriter
I have the same problem after upgrading to Firefox 3 and printing to Acrobat PDF Writer 4.0. It was working fine with Firefox 2.
(It works fine with Acrobat Distiller, version 4.0.)

My configuration is: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0.
Yes, distiller 5 works for me, too.
Distiller works fine but not PDF Writer
Me too - PDFWriter 4 garbled fonts running from FF3 on XP SP2. Either this gets fixed or IE becomes my default again - FF will not dictate how I print
Confirmed that Adobe PDFWriter 5.0 outputs garbled text(otherwise formatted correctly) when printing under Firefox 3.01, while the .PDF output is as-expected under Internet Explorer 7, Opera 9.5, Word 2000, etc.
Why is the status of this still "unconfirmed" after 4 months of clear documentation.  I will add to the confirmation and state that this is a major setback to the use of this browser by any business.  This version should not have been released to the public with such a glaring oversight.
Marking confirmed, per comment 20 (and from visual inspection of attachments).

See also bug 439767.

As a workaround, the BullZip Free PDF printer worked with Firefox 3, the last time I tried it.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
If someone could track down a regression range for this, that'd be hugely helpful. (testing nightly builds from http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/ to find out when this bug appeared)
Flags: wanted1.9.0.x?
Keywords: dataloss, regression
Version: unspecified → Trunk
Keywords: qawanted
I did a quick search on bugzilla and found some more duplicate entries to this bug: {{bug|440529}}, {{bug|442570}} and {{bug|444012}}.
All of them describe the same problem and all of them are unassigned.
This bug needs to be fixed.
(In reply to comment #23)
> If someone could track down a regression range for this, that'd be hugely
> helpful. (testing nightly builds from
> http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/ to find out when this
> bug appeared)

I'm not sure if this is the granularity that you need, but I tested the latest v2 (2.0.0.11) and it worked fine with PDFWriter 5.0.

However, the first build of 3.x which I tested showed the same error symptoms described in this bug report:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/2007/11/

2007-11-07-03-firefox3.0b1/	07-Nov-2007 07:34

If there is an earlier build to try, I'd be interested in a link, please.
You found the 2007 folder, so keep going further back :). There are also 2006, 2005, and 2004 folders (though 1.8 branched off the trunk in 2005, IIRC, so if 2.0 doesn't have problems, it happened later than that).
(In reply to comment #26)

Oh, I was actually attempting to locate the first build in which I saw the reported bug symptoms - i.e., I'd used PDFWriter successfully in 2.0.0.11 and prior releases/builds, but in that 2007 build for 3.0b1, it suddenly failed.  And, in all subsequent 3.x builds that I tested.

Was there a 3.x release prior to the one I tried?

Sorry if this question has an obvious answer.
Yeah, like I said in comment #26, the 2.x and 3.x codebases diverged many years ago already. You can try out the various Gran Paradiso alphas that got released in the lead-up to Fx3.0b1, but more helpful would be to try the nightly builds found in the directory you already linked to.
(In reply to comment #25)
> http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/2007/11/
> 
> 2007-11-07-03-firefox3.0b1/     07-Nov-2007 07:34
(In reply to comment #27)
> Was there a 3.x release prior to the one I tried?

Ryan and I should have been more clear -- earlier builds are simply named [timestamp]-trunk rather than [timestamp]-firefox3.0bX.

So, for example, you can test this going back to e.g. January 1st 2007, with this build:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/2007/01/2007-01-01-04-trunk/
Even earlier builds are in separate folders for 2006, 2005, etc.

Also, binary search is your friend. :)

If you (or anyone) can locate two consecutive "[timestamp]-trunk" builds where this behavior changed, that'd be very helpful and much appreciated.
Flags: wanted1.9.1?
Whiteboard: [needs-regression-range]
the last good build for me, with absolutely no font issues in body frame or the PDF page's header/footer, was from the 02-06-11 build from 2007/02/2007-02-06-11-trunk/ 

my font problems begin in build 02-07-04 from 2007/02/2007-02-07-04-trunk/ where all text in body frame is output as highlighted in black (although not 'corrupt' gibberish) while text in head/foot was completely fine

this remains the same through the 03-04-04 build 

the real font 'corruption' begins to appear in the 03-05-04 build from 2007/03/2007-03-05-04-trunk/ where text in the head/foot is suddenly 'corrupt' gibberish while the text in the body frame remains highlighted in black as in builds since 02-07-04

as of the offical release, all text appears as 'corrupt' gibberish throughout the entire head/foot & body frame but the letters are no longer highlighted in black
pdf sample of highlighted fonts in 02-07-04 build
pdf sample of corrupt text in head/foot of 03-05-04 build
Thanks for the sleuthing work, JohnP!

(In reply to comment #30)
> my font problems begin in build 02-07-04 from 2007/02/2007-02-07-04-trunk/
> where all text in body frame is output as highlighted in black

Bonsai link: http://tinyurl.com/6hevlo
That's very likely due to the patch for bug 177805, which was very wide-reaching and touched a bunch of printing-related files.

> the real font 'corruption' begins to appear in the 03-05-04 build from
> 2007/03/2007-03-05-04-trunk/ where text in the head/foot is suddenly 'corrupt'

Bonsai link: http://tinyurl.com/6s6llv
That sounds like a regression from bug 370588. ("Make gfxTextRun be a single shared class for all platforms")

> as of the offical release, all text appears as 'corrupt' gibberish throughout
> the entire head/foot & body frame

Could someone could narrow down the date range for when this changed?  i.e. find the two consecutive nightlies where one yields normal body text and the next yields gibberish body text?  (It'd be between 2007-03-05 and the FF3 release, according to comment 30)
Blocks: 370588
it's somewhere between 08-31-05 (good) and 09-30-05 (bad) but I need some sleep & can't keep sleuthing right now. Good night & good luck!
I find that Google's new Chrome exhibits the same problem with PDF Writer.  One difference is that Chrome prints my header and footer correctly, whereas Firefox garbles both and seems to superimpose both at the top of the page.
(In reply to comment #34)
> it's somewhere between 08-31-05 (good) and 09-30-05 (bad)

JohnP: Thanks for narrowing it to this monthlong period -- if you or anyone else with PDF Writer could further narrow this down (so we can figure out what code-change triggered the problem), it'd be much appreciated!
got it (on my system at least):
09-20-05 is last time body is not corrupt or black highlighted(but head/foot corrupt); from 09-21-05 thru 09-24-05 body highlighted but not 'corrupt' with corrupt head/foot; starting 09-25-04 body and head/foot both corrupt, no body highlighting
(In reply to comment #37)
> starting 09-25-04 body and head/foot both corrupt
Great, thanks!

Bonsai link: http://tinyurl.com/4z8jq6
--> looks like a regression from bug 377336  (whose patch deals with printing & fonts on WinXP)
Blocks: 377336
Keywords: qawanted
Whiteboard: [needs-regression-range]
There is an analysis of the problem at bug 454532, comment 3. The short version of it is that it is a bug in PDFWriter. Workarounds include using Distiller or using the built in cairo PDF exporter by installing the printpdf plugin (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5971).
Doesn't really meet the "wanted" criteria (security, stability, regression from maintenance release) for 1.9.0.x. However, we'll look at a reviewed and baked patch.
Flags: wanted1.9.0.x? → wanted1.9.0.x-
Yes, this is a dup of 454532 -- upgrading to Distiller, using the Print to PDF addon, or using something like PrimoPDF are the solution.  I don't think we'll be able to fix this at all; at best we'll blacklist PDF Writer and point to a knowledgebase article.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 16 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
I just installed Microsoft Visio professional 7 and get the same results (garbled text but graphics are ok) when trying to print pdf using adobe acrobat 5.0.  This seems to support bug in PDF writer hypothesis.
Can you explain your most recent comments:

Doesn't really meet the "wanted" criteria (security, stability, regression from
maintenance release) for 1.9.0.x. However, we'll look at a reviewed and baked
patch.

Does this mean that you're not all that interested in "fixing" the problem?  I'd be glad to tell the different companies I consult with to either regress back to Firefox 2 or switch to Internet Explorer, if it appears that the Firefox staff is not interested in fixing the problem.  Please advise.
Rich: Please read the comments posted after the one you're commenting on (and on the bug this is duped to).

My understanding is that this is a in PDF Writer, not a bug in Firefox.  AFAIK, the bug wasn't exposed in FF2 because we used an older graphics backend in that version.  And as comment 42 points out, this PDF Writer bug can be reproduced in other apps besides Firefox.

So, there's not much we can do here, besides recommending that people not use PDF Writer.

Vlad gave some suggested workarounds in comment 41:
> upgrading to Distiller, using the Print to PDF
> addon, or using something like PrimoPDF are the solution.

I hope that helps / addresses your question.
(In reply to comment #44)
> My understanding is that this is a in PDF Writer, not a bug in Firefox.
(oops -- meant to say "this is a _bug_ in PDF Writer")
Rich & others: See in particular bug 454532 comment 3, under heading "Adobe PDF Writer", where Adrian did a bunch of analysis to find & understand the bug in PDF Writer.
That's a cop-out!  PDF Writer works in "everything" EXCEPT Firefox.  How can you blame the application?  And to recommend an alternative applications is again a cop-out.  Even your application worked fine before you released the version 3x.  

It's this sort of response that will be the un-doing of LINUX as well ... let's just give everybody a "work-around".  No accountability or owning up to the problem.  

Is this your final decision on it?  To do nothing, and blame the application that works fine with all other applications?  Please confirm.  

I will take action on your response.
(In reply to comment #47)
> That's a cop-out!  PDF Writer works in "everything" EXCEPT Firefox.  How can
> you blame the application?  And to recommend an alternative applications is
> again a cop-out.  Even your application worked fine before you released the
> version 3x.  

Well, except that PDF Writer doesn't work in "everything" -- in IE (and, presumably, Firefox 2), it only works for latin text, and doesn't work in many other apps (e.g. see the Visio comment earlier).  IE and Firefox 2 don't do the more complex text layout that Firefox 3 does for latin text, so it can print without using glyph indices.  If we "fixed" it, we would only have a chance of fixing it for printing latin text, and doing so would cause other problems (layout differences between print and screen).

So, as of right now, this is a bug in PDF Writer that happens to be exposed by Firefox.  If someone comes up with a patch for the latin text issue, it would be considered, but as of right now noone is working on such a patch.
It's a bit of a lark to claim PDFW "doesn't work in many other apps" -- Viso is practically a non-issue in this context as the vast majority of environments using it don't print from it but instead embed Visio objs or pics into other WP/Graphics documents. It is a cop-out not to address the issue & makes me wonder what bugs you might not take seriously in future upgrades. As for me, I'm exporting my bookmarks & then reverting to IE on both my XP & Vista systems
(In reply to comment #49)
> Viso is
> practically a non-issue in this context as the vast majority of environments
> using it don't print from it

It's irrelevant that people don't tend to print from Visio.  The point is, this is a bug in PDF writer that is exposed by *multiple* apps -- it's not a FF3 bug.

Also, as Vlad pointed out, this bug is also exposed by other apps that people *do* tend to print from, e.g. IE and presumably FF2, when dealing with non-Latin text.

> I'm exporting my bookmarks & then reverting to IE

Or, you could also just switch to an up-do-date, less-buggy PDF generator, like Adobe Distiller.  But if you're that committed to sticking with an older buggy one, that's your choice.
PDF Writer "used to" work in Firefox ... now it doesn't.  The PDF Writer didn't change.  Guess what did?  THAT is the answer to "who" is at fault.  Your programmers didn't address this situation and are now reluctant to go back and fix it, as they should do.  But I can see that your resolve is to argue this rather than fix it.  I would assume that future problems with Firefox will be met with the same lack of fervor to resolve issues.  

Consider me an abandoned FIREFOX user, supporter, and most of all ... I will not encourage folks I deal with, work with, and support ... to consider going to something that is so poorly supported.  It's like many of the Linux-based software utilities that have come to the forefront, and Linux itself.  Great OS.  I Love Linux.  But their attitude, like yours, is not to give your best and support it to be clean and efficient.  "Buggy" is acceptable.  THAT is going to be the downfall of such a wonderful OS like Linux, and it will be because of programmers attitudes like this one here.  "Buggy?  Acceptable loss.  Find something that does work."

I'm "un-plugging" from Firefox.
Rich: you clearly haven't read/understood the explanations provided in comment 48 and bug 454532 comment 3, if that's your response.

> "Buggy" is acceptable.  THAT is
> going to be the downfall 

"Buggy" is unacceptable, but in this case, the bug is not in Firefox but in an outdated, no-longer-supported piece of software, which has an upgrade/replacement available.

And as Vlad said, workaround-patches may be accepted -- feel free to give it a shot, if it's that important to you. :)

Also, please see points #2 and #3 under "Commenting" on https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html
Hi guys, thanks for all the work in finding the cause of this bug. I can understand that you're not creating a workaround for this bug; creating one not only takes developer time from other, perhaps more pressing, issues, it also makes the sourcecode more complex. A workaround is available after all: upgrade the software that behaves incorrectly (Adobe PDF Writer) to a newer version (Distiller). While this can be an annoyance right now, it is better in the long term; not even just for Firefox, but possibly even for the user, as more and more programs will probably show problems with PDF Writer (with increasing unicode usage).
I hope that I've brought a little understanding on the why of the decisions made, and leave it here.
Sigh!

I really had hoped that this bug would be fixed. I cannot justify spending over $1000 upgrading our Acrobat 5 to bloated 9 because Firefox doesn't work nicely with PDF Writer (not a compelling enough reason).

But I've discovered that (free) Opera 9 does play nicely with PDF Writer, for those who want to switch to something else besides IE.
(In reply to comment #54)
> Sigh!
> 
> I really had hoped that this bug would be fixed. I cannot justify spending over
> $1000 upgrading our Acrobat 5 to bloated 9 because Firefox doesn't work nicely
> with PDF Writer (not a compelling enough reason).

The distiller printer driver that comes with Acrobat 5 works fine.
I thought bugzilla was for bug reporting and tracking not for discussion and whining...  :-/   Can the discussion about the bug be taken somewhere else, like a forum??
This issue is most definitely NOT resolved. I was so confused for the last handful of months why my PDF Writer wasn't working properly, and just found out today that it is due to Firefox. I understand how you're attempting to spin this, and it's honestly wrong. I switched to Firefox because I felt like you guys really cared about your users. Every other app I use supports PDF Writer, and I NEED the writer for my work, as I compile hundreds of different documents into PDF. Distiller, and all other writers, do not compare to the simplicity of PDF Writer. Why don't you guys just take your thumbs out and actually be pro-active to create a patch integrated with Firefox to make this work? My company has no desire to waste hundreds of dollars on a newer version of Acrobat, and quite frankly shouldn't be strong-armed into it because you're too lazy to develop your browser with a fix for the issue. 

PDF Writer is what it is. The bug isn't with it, you're simply choosing not to support it any longer. That's wrong. I, like the others here, am going to delete Firefox right now, and download another browser (as I still hate IE). I'm really disappointed in you guys.
A few month ago I thought like you Greg. But now more and more software stop working with Acrobat Writer 5. ... I have dropped it. There are free and better alternatives. PDF Writer 5 is what it is: It's outdated.[Acrobat Writer 5.0.5. Copyright 1984-2001 Adobe Systems Incorporated and its licensors. All rights reserved.]
Here is an elegant workaround that works very well in FF 3x.

I render any HTML page that I want to print using PDF Writer in FF using the "IE Tab" add-in, which makes FF use Windows's IE rendering engine to display the page. IE does not seem to suffer from the incompatibilities that plague FF 3x and Acrobat. Tested with IE 6, it should work in later versions.

Here's what you need to do.
Download and install the IE Tab add-on in Firefox.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419
Restart Firefox.

For any web/HTML page that you want to save in PDF format using PDF Writer.
1. Open the page using Firefox.
2. Click the little Firefox logo in the bottom right-hand corner of the main FF window.
This starts the Internet Explorer rendering engine in Firefox. It will reload the page using the IE engine without exiting FF.
3. Print the page, selecting PDF Writer as usual.
4. Click on the little IE logo to resume browing using the FF engine.

That's it!
I no longer use Acrobat PDFWriter, I use Foxit and have no problems with printing.

Grace and Peace,
Jerry
Most comments above seem to indicate using Distiller with Acrobat 5.0 is an alternative, but Distiller isn't working either for me (only in Firefox, works fine elsewhere).
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