help needed on imagemagick PDF conversion

**TeeJay** · 06-17-2009, 06:00 PM

Hi guys. I am trying to convert a PDF to JPG using imagemagick. It works fine on my Windows PC, but failed to work on JPC server. The error I am getting is:

**** Warning: Fonts with Subtype = /TrueType should be embedded.
The following fonts were not embedded:
Arial-BoldMT
ArialMT

I typed 'gs -h' and found out the gs is looking at font folder /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts, which does not contain the Arial fonts listed above. Then I tried to install MSTTF, which asked me to install cabextract, which gave me another error:

error: cannot create %sourcedir /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES

As you can see, it's been a long, frustrating day trying to get the seeminly simple command to work. I am new to Linux, so any advice is much appreciated.

Many thanks.

**jason** · 06-18-2009, 07:47 AM

You probably need to be root to do those installs, at least to do them in a "normal" manner without doing your own custom builds. Since you are posting in the Shared and Semi-Dedicated forum, I assume you do not have root access to your server. "Root" is the super user (administrator) of the system. In order install any software or write to files outside of your own account (which is at /home/yourusername) you need to be logged in as root.

You can open a support ticket and ask if JPC would be willing to install the fonts for you--they might do it. Or, if you have Acrobat Professional, consider editing the document to embed the fonts so that this isn't an issue. You can do this in the Fonts tab of the Document Properties dialog which you can reach from File > Properties or simply by pressing Ctrl-D.

--Jason

**TeeJay** · 06-18-2009, 10:49 AM

Thanks for the reply, Jason. I tried another PDF file, and this time it gave me a different warning message:

**** Warning: Embedded symbolic TT fonts must contain a cmap for Platform=1 Encoding=0.

This is the command I am using:

convert receipt.pdf receipt.jpg

Just wondering if there is anyone out there who has successfully used imagemagick to convert PDF to JPG? My script is supposed to create a thumbnail image of the PDF file for the users, so I don't really have control as to the input PDF file.

Thank you!

**the_ancient** · 07-01-2009, 04:56 AM

Originally Posted by TeeJay

Thanks for the reply, Jason. I tried another PDF file, and this time it gave me a different warning message:

**** Warning: Embedded symbolic TT fonts must contain a cmap for Platform=1 Encoding=0.

This is the command I am using:

convert receipt.pdf receipt.jpg

Just wondering if there is anyone out there who has successfully used imagemagick to convert PDF to JPG? My script is supposed to create a thumbnail image of the PDF file for the users, so I don't really have control as to the input PDF file.

Thank you!

This is one area that windows has the advantage, Font Support sucks in linux, you will never be able to offer a reliable PDF conversion on Linux with out working out large numbers of font problems.

For my Full time employer I abandoned the web server for Image Conversion and put it in a internal Windows PC for the company and the users access a internal web site(even though they dont know they are) for their document uploading and conversion.

**homoludens** · 07-03-2009, 01:00 AM

Originally Posted by TeeJay

Just wondering if there is anyone out there who has successfully used imagemagick to convert PDF to JPG? My script is supposed to create a thumbnail image of the PDF file for the users, so I don't really have control as to the input PDF file.

I started doing this recently so I can provide PDF preview images for my file browser; I'm not having any issues at all.

Ghostscript is outputting a warning, not an error, and substituting for the missing font. Imagemagick should therefore convert the PDF. Are you sure it isn't?

Originally Posted by TA

This is one area that windows has the advantage, Font Support sucks in linux, you will never be able to offer a reliable PDF conversion on Linux with out working out large numbers of font problems.

No it doesn't. Font support sucks on any system that doesn't have the required font.

I've just installed wine, and the internet has become ugly again. Arial. Ugh. At least it's anti-aliased.

**Gwaihir** · 07-04-2009, 07:56 AM

That's not bad font support, that's Microsoft's (attempts at) vendor lock in at work.

Originally Posted by homoludens

Ghostscript is outputting a warning, not an error, and substituting for the missing font.

[..]

Font support sucks on any system that doesn't have the required font.

In its Windows and Office products, Microsoft defaults to font (variants) of their own design. Linux will have to replace these with fonts with a Linux compatible licence. So, you'll see lots and lots of substitutions, but the differences tend to be extremely small in most cases.