Re: patch to fix text color in PDF output

[Andrew Hawryluk]

On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 7:33 AM, David Kastrup<address@hidden> wrote:
> Andrew Hawryluk <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 3:11 AM, David Kastrup<address@hidden> wrote:
>>> Andrew Hawryluk <address@hidden> writes:
>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> Long ago I noticed that the text in our PDF manuals is fully black,
>>>> which results in rough-looking text when printed:
>>>> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2008-10/msg00059.html
>>>>
>>>> Attached is a patch which corrects this, and the printed output is
>>>> noticeably improved. (The on-screen output is nearly
>>>> indistinguishable.)
>>>>
>>>> I'll send this to the TexInfo folks as well.
>>>>
>>>> Andrew
>>>> From b2608a3c68f677729d5b72379d18b978b8c6236a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
>>>> From: Andrew Hawryluk <address@hidden>
>>>> Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:14:42 -0600
>>>> Subject: [PATCH] Fix TexInfo PDF output text color
>>>>
>>>> Changed CMKY colors to RGB colors, as RGB black prints
>>>> better than CMYK black on home printers.
>>>
>>> In that case, the "home printer" is broken.  It might be conceivable to
>>> use greyscale black as an alternative, but RGB black appears like a bad
>>> choice for printing.
>>>
>>> Could you specify the details of your "home printer"?
>>
>> I have had identical results on two monochrome laser printers, using
>> both Evince and Acrobat Reader. The home printer is a Samsung ML-2010;
>> I don't remember what the work printer is. In either case, they seem
>> to compensate for the fact that cmyk (0 0 0 1) is not the darkest tone
>> available. Do you get different results in print?
>
> Sure do.  So what driver with what setting converts your PDF to the
> respective printer language?
>
> --
> David Kastrup
>

Good question.
At home: Samsung ML-2010, SpliX V. 2.0.0 on Ubuntu 9.04 (evince or acroread)
At work: not sure, Windows XP and Adobe Acrobat 9.0 (Yes, I have just
confessed to having printed a bit of LilyPond documentation at work.)

I have also now tried monochrome black with CMYK red, which is
probably the best output option, but the TeX code could be cleaned up.
I have attached sample pages of the original and my latest variation
for comparison. Perhaps someone else can print both pages and see a
difference.

Thanks, David, for humoring me as I figure this out!

Andrew