[Pkg-octave-devel] Bug#710272: Bug#710272: octave: Printing gives a Ghostscript error

[Mike Miller <mtmiller@ieee.org>]

Hendrik Rittich wrote:
> I had the fonts-pagul package installed. When I remove the package the error is gone.

Good, so this is exactly the same problem I ran into.

> Nerver the less, when opening the created _EPS_ file with Ghostscript I get the following warning:
>
>
> GPL Ghostscript 9.05 (2012-02-08)
> [...]
> Can't find (or can't open) font file /usr/share/ghostscript/9.05/Resource/Font/{}.
> Can't find (or can't open) font file {}.
> Querying operating system for font files...
> Can't find (or can't open) font file /usr/share/ghostscript/9.05/Resource/Font/{}.
> Can't find (or can't open) font file {}.
> Didn't find this font on the system!
> Substituting font Courier for {}.
> [...]

This looks like the right behavior for any font name that doesn't
exist on the system, whether it's "{}" or "MyFavoriteFont".

> Thus I think that octave or gnuplot (to answer the question: Yes I am using the gnuplot backend.) somehow create an invalid EPS file.

The only thing invalid about the EPS file is the font name. I get the
same error if I set the font to "MyFavoriteFont" and there is no such
font installed. I get the same error if I use another TrueType fonts
that I *do* have on my system (e.g. FreeMono, Inconsolata). I don't
think Octave can be responsible for that, unless Octave should only
allow the minimum known set of PostScript built-in fonts.

This is why I filed #662892 against ghostscript rather than octave or
gnuplot. Some combination of ghostscript and the Pagul font is causing
an error in the ghostscript routine that looks up TrueType fonts by
name.

-- 
mike