using the SS (slanted symbol) font with gropdf

[G. Branden Robinson]

This is probably of most interest to Deri but I thought I'd send it to
the list.

This is kind of a follow-up to a message from July.

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2022-07/msg00145.html

I'm playing with using the PostScript slanted symbol font ("SS") with
gropdf.

Here's my input document.

$ cat EXPERIMENTS/slanted-symbols.ms
.LP
Let's demonstrate use of the
.B S
and
.B SS
fonts in PDF.
.LP
Symbol:
.ft S
\(*A \(*B \(*C \(*a \(*b \(*c
.ft
.LP
Slanted Symbol:
.ft SS
\(*A \(*B \(*C \(*a \(*b \(*c
.ft

(Classical studies majors need not tell me that I should have said "G"
instead of "C".  I noticed that as soon as the document rendered.)

I used groff 1.22.4 (Debian) to produce a PDF, contriving an extra font
description directory to force gropdf to find the SS font.

$ mkdir ~/tmp/devpdf
$ cp -l /usr/share/groff/1.22.4/font/devps/SS ~/tmp/devpdf
$ groff -ms -F ~/tmp -Tpdf EXPERIMENTS/slanted-symbols.ms >| ss.pdf

The lowercase Greek letters are slanted in both the S and SS fonts; the
stroke weight seems heavier for the latter, but for me that's not a big
deal.

When I do the same with groff Git, I am a little more worried.

$ ./build/test-groff -ms -F ~/tmp -Tpdf EXPERIMENTS/slanted-symbols.ms >| ss.pdf
Use of uninitialized value $body in concatenation (.) or string at 
.../GIT/groff/build/gropdf line 2658, <__ANONIO__> line 38.
Use of uninitialized value $tail in concatenation (.) or string at 
.../GIT/groff/build/gropdf line 2658, <__ANONIO__> line 38.
Use of uninitialized value $fld in concatenation (.) or string at 
.../GIT/groff/build/gropdf line 2380, <> line 90.
Use of uninitialized value $fld in concatenation (.) or string at 
.../GIT/groff/build/gropdf line 2380, <> line 90.

But it gets better.  When I view the file with evince, none of the
lowercase Greek letters from the SS font render at all.

evince also complains.  Apart from the usual handful of Gtk-WARNING and
Gtk-CRITICAL diagnostics, because cool kids like GNOME developers never
look at the standard error stream ("terminal window?  what would I need
that for?"), I get this.

some font thing failed
some font thing failed
some font thing failed
some font thing failed
some font thing failed
some font thing failed
some font thing failed
some font thing failed
some font thing failed
some font thing failed

One might, at this point, begin to appreciate why I'm such a cranky old
bastard about diagnostic messages being informative.

okular renders groff-Git-generated ss.pdf fine, and just like the
1.22.4-generated version to my eyeballs.

So I have two concerns.

1.  What can be done to hush up those Perl warnings?
2.  Is gropdf in groff Git producing some kind of ill-formed document
    that okular is able to cope with but evince doesn't?

Actually, make it 3.

3.  I'd like to know if use of groff's SS font (for grops) is necessary
    for any reason when using gropdf.  If not, then I think I would like
    to update gropdf's man page to mention its superfluity.

Thanks for any light you can shed on this stuff.

Regards,
Branden

signature.asc
Description: PGP signature