amcd Posted January 7, 2022 Share Posted January 7, 2022 I have tried importing some PDF documents that contain a Barcode into both Designer and Publisher. Both apps load the PDFs but make a mess of the Barcodes. In fact the PDF Barcodes are rendered automatically into the Barcode's text by both Designer and Publisher. How can I persuade Designer and Publisher to load the actual Barcodes without auto conversation. Please see attached images from Publisher. Many thanks Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted January 7, 2022 Share Posted January 7, 2022 The problem is related to using a barcode font without having the font installed. You can resolve the problem either by placing the PDF for "passthrough", in which case the embedded font is used (you can do this in any Affinity app), or use a third party utility (e.g. Ghostscript or Adobe Acrobat Pro) to flatten the embedded fonts in the PDF, or as below, save the PDF as a PS file (e.g., using macOS Preview), in which case the file can be opened in Affinity apps and the barcode text will be rendered as curves: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amcd Posted January 8, 2022 Author Share Posted January 8, 2022 Thanks for introducing the PDF passthrough concept to me... When I use "File>Open” for the PDF (rather than "Place") the Barcode is always interpreted as text in both Designer and Publisher. Is there a way to change settings to enforce PDF Passthrough when opening a PDF? PLACING THE PDF... PUBLISHER.... I have tried placing the PDF in Publisher into a new document... Using "File>Place" ...the PDF opens and the "Passthrough" Toolbar option works OK.. the Barcode appears just fine. I can toggle the Toolbar option between "Passthrough" (Barcode appears) and "Interpret" (Text appears).. DESIGNER.... I have tried placing the PDF in Designer into a new document... Using "File>Place" ...the PDF opens but the "Passthrough/Interpret" Toolbar options DO NOT work... text appears... If I toggle between "Passthrough" and "Interpret" on the Designer, there is no change and only Text appears. Please advise soonest... many thanks... amcd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amcd Posted January 8, 2022 Author Share Posted January 8, 2022 I also tried placing the PDF in Affinity Photo, as per Designer PDF Passtrough is not working? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted January 8, 2022 Share Posted January 8, 2022 Strange. I cannot reproduce this with the test file that I used, so if I place it in Photo or Designer (on either platform), I get exactly the same behavior as shown on the video. Perhaps this is just a screen refresh issua? What happens if you try to rasterize the PDF that is placed for passthrough (Layer > Rasterize)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted January 8, 2022 Share Posted January 8, 2022 10 hours ago, amcd said: I also tried placing the PDF in Affinity Photo, as per Designer PDF Passtrough is not working? It would be helpful to have your PDF for testing. Also, a screenshot of your Designer or Photo window, showing the Context Toolbar and Layers panel while you have the Placed PDF selected, and the Move Tool active. Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amcd Posted January 9, 2022 Author Share Posted January 9, 2022 Hi Walt... I am attaching a copy of the original 2 Page PDF / Barcode form with some markups (another.pdf) ... Please try with Designer, Publisher and Photo as I get mixed results... a bit hard to describe in words.. Your input would be much appreciated.. One of the strengths of Publisher etc is to generate truly flattened / rasterized PDFs. Various non-Adobe PDF apps make a mess of fully Flattening / Rasterizing PDFs into a 100% non-editable form. Acrobat Pro for Mac is good but extremely expensive. Ghostscript PDF Interpreter seems to be only a Windows app? Per the previous advice, I tried generating PS files (using >Print>PDF>Save as Postscript). This works and PS file can be placed no-problem. But PS files need to be generated for each seperate page in a 2 or more page PDF document. Thanks again for the help... amcd OpenNetwealthForm.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 Perhaps you have been opening instead of placing the PDF, as I did not have any problems with the barcode font when placing the file (I tested this both on Windows and macOS, using both Designer and Photo): Ghostscript does exist for macOS, as well, even if not as official build. You can get it e.g. from here: https://pages.uoregon.edu/koch/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 Here's how you can use PDF Output Preview to flatten fonts in a PDF file using Ghostscript: PDF Output Prieview can be downloaded from within posts of this thread: Dazmondo77 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amcd Posted January 9, 2022 Author Share Posted January 9, 2022 16 hours ago, Lagarto said: Perhaps you have been opening instead of placing the PDF, as I did not have any problems with the barcode font when placing the file (I tested this both on Windows and macOS, using both Designer and Photo): barcode_designer.mp4 59.17 MB · 0 downloads Ghostscript does exist for macOS, as well, even if not as official build. You can get it e.g. from here: https://pages.uoregon.edu/koch/ I have been placing the PDF, not using File>Open Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amcd Posted January 9, 2022 Author Share Posted January 9, 2022 MAny thanks for Ghostscript for Mac link Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amcd Posted January 9, 2022 Author Share Posted January 9, 2022 16 hours ago, Lagarto said: Perhaps you have been opening instead of placing the PDF, as I did not have any problems with the barcode font when placing the file (I tested this both on Windows and macOS, using both Designer and Photo): barcode_designer.mp4 59.17 MB · 0 downloads Ghostscript does exist for macOS, as well, even if not as official build. You can get it e.g. from here: https://pages.uoregon.edu/koch/ Good video . Works the same for me on Designer when I use "Place"... Publisher is quite different in operation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amcd Posted January 9, 2022 Author Share Posted January 9, 2022 17 hours ago, Lagarto said: Here's how you can use PDF Output Preview to flatten fonts in a PDF file using Ghostscript: pop_font_flattening.mp4 31.85 MB · 0 downloads PDF Output Prieview can be downloaded from within posts of this thread: From your website, I downloaded Ghostscript-9.50-Full.pkg and Ghostscript-9.55-Full.pkg. In both cases the .pkg ran OK on my (macOS Monterey 12.1) and reported "Install Succesful" but .... Neither wanted to install and show up as apps ... Please can you advice as I must be missing something.. I would be most grateful Many thanks... Allan/amcd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amcd Posted January 10, 2022 Author Share Posted January 10, 2022 18 hours ago, Lagarto said: Perhaps you have been opening instead of placing the PDF, as I did not have any problems with the barcode font when placing the file (I tested this both on Windows and macOS, using both Designer and Photo): barcode_designer.mp4 59.17 MB · 0 downloads Ghostscript does exist for macOS, as well, even if not as official build. You can get it e.g. from here: https://pages.uoregon.edu/koch/ 1 hour ago, amcd said: 1 hour ago, amcd said: I see that the Ghostscript-9.55-Full.pkg places many files in the usr/local folder on my mac. I tried Terminal and Homebrew script to install Ghostscript but got nowhere... Now I am wondering how to get the app in my mac application folder. Thanks again.. Allan/amcd 1 hour ago, amcd said: 1 hour ago, amcd said: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted January 10, 2022 Share Posted January 10, 2022 Ghostscript is typically installed under /usr/local/bin (under version specific sub folders) where it can be launched by typing gs in the prompt of the Terminal app (Ghostscript does not have a graphical user interface of its own). The above mentioned installation location is typically added in the PATH environment variable so that the execution path does not need to be specified when typing Ghostscropt commands. [You might want to remove additional Ghostscript versions that you installed and then re-install the latest version; personally I am still running version 9.50 but later versions might work equally well; for some reason I could not make the homebrew version work on my M1 system.] You can type in the following command, replacing the filename parameters with actual filenames (enclosed in quotation marks) in the Terminal prompt to flatten fonts within a PDF: gs -o <destinationpdf> -dNoOutputFonts -sDEVICE=pdfwrite <sourcepdf> PDF Output Preview, mentioned, above, is just a front end app that executes the above mentioned command allowing the user to select the PDF and then saves the flattened PDF in the folder of the source PDF appending "_nofonts" in the filename body, after which the PDF is shown in the default PDF viewer of the system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted January 10, 2022 Share Posted January 10, 2022 On 1/8/2022 at 7:03 PM, amcd said: I am attaching a copy of the original 2 Page PDF / Barcode form with some markups (another.pdf) ... Please try with Designer, Publisher and Photo as I get mixed results... a bit hard to describe in words.. Your file works in all 3 applications for me. I can Place it, using Passthrough mode, and I see the barcode. I noticed in Photo and Designer that there was a brief delay (under .5 second) where I saw the scrambled text from the bottom of your first screenshot in this topic. But it was quickly replaced by the barcode. That did not happen in Publisher. Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amcd Posted January 10, 2022 Author Share Posted January 10, 2022 Thanks Walt... That is consistent with 19 hours ago, Lagarto said: Ghostscript is typically installed under /usr/local/bin (under version specific sub folders) where it can be launched by typing gs in the prompt of the Terminal app (Ghostscript does not have a graphical user interface of its own). The above mentioned installation location is typically added in the PATH environment variable so that the execution path does not need to be specified when typing Ghostscropt commands. [You might want to remove additional Ghostscript versions that you installed and then re-install the latest version; personally I am still running version 9.50 but later versions might work equally well; for some reason I could not make the homebrew version work on my M1 system.] You can type in the following command (replacing the filename parameters with actual filenames (enclosed in quotation marks) in the Terminal prompt to flatten fonts within a PDF: gs -o <destinationpdf> -dNoOutputFonts -sDEVICE=pdfwrite <sourcepdf> PDF Output Preview, mentioned, above, is just a front end app that executes the above mentioned command allowing the user to select the PDF and then saves the flattened PDF in the folder of the source PDF appending "_nofonts" in the filename body, after which the PDF is shown in the default PDF viewer of the system. Thanks for all of your help on gs and your PDF Output Preview app... I learned a lot of new stuff!!!!!... I have now managed to get Publisher, Designer and Photo working using Passthrough Mode showing the required fonts.. Thanks again Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dazmondo77 Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 On 1/9/2022 at 5:49 AM, Lagarto said: Here's how you can use PDF Output Preview to flatten fonts in a PDF file using Ghostscript: Lagarto --- Wow this is awesome, I've been searching for years for an easy solution for this ----- 👍 👍 👍 lacerto 1 Quote Mac Pro Cheese-grater (Early 2009) 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC Ram, Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5, Ugee 19" Graphics Tablet Monitor Triple boot via OCLP 1.2.1 - Mac OS Monterey 12.7.1, Sonoma 14.1.1 and Mojave 10.14.6 Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo 1.10.5 - 2.2.1 www.bingercreative.co.uk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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