PDF cannot find font - using Helvetica instead

breakdesign · 15.05.2004, 22:07

Hi all!

I'm having a problem getting PDF's generated using the standard Mambo 4.5 PDF generator.

I get the error :

could not find a font in the Resources dictionary - using Helvetica instead.

It then exports a PDF document with all text on the same line.

What I think must be happening is that the /media/php_helvetica.afm and /media/helvetica.afm files are not being found. Thus the PDF generator doesn't have any metrics for the fonts, and renders incorrectly.

I have found references to a /font folder in the class.pdf.php - but haven't really wanted to change anything, since I guess this is something that should work without too much hassle?

Oh, this worked fine on my dev server (windows xp / apache2) - but got the error once i moved over to linux / apache1.3 - i guess it uses your installed fonts on the system with win xp.

I also have the /media directory as CHMOD 776 - if that is of any help?

Your thoughts on this will be appreciated! I know it must be something really simple, but just cant seem to get it working!

Have a cool weekend!

Stefan

mmx · 16.05.2004, 07:58

Try placing them in the media/ folder. There is at least one afm file installed there already.

breakdesign · 17.05.2004, 03:44

Hi MMX

I have the AFM files already in /media and CHMOD the directory to 776

I also once tried saving them in a /fonts folder, but no luck.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks!
Stefan

mmx · 17.05.2004, 04:38

I know it's possible to install fonts locally because they do it on TYPO3, but they may only be supporting TrueType fonts (not sure about this). Later versions of GD1 and all versions of GD2 have FreeType support, so the latter is probably the case. It might be possible to specify a path via php.ini to handle it but I have never looked at this. GDlib 1 and 2 are php extensions.

Strangely, mambo does support ezPDF because its included and that library does support Type 1 fonts. However, no Type 1 files are installed as is the usual case with PDF implemented as they have done.

I wouldn't mind researching this further for curiosity reasons but am a bit overloaded for the next few days. I'll try to look into this later in the week.

breakdesign · 18.05.2004, 12:16

Hi MMX

Thanks for the info - I'll see what I can get done on the server - I don't have direct access to it - it's on a shared server somewhere in Germany, but will have a look!

Look forward to hearing back from you in the future! For now I will try and install an updated PDF generator, that's what other users have done that encountered the same problem.

Cool, thanks again

Stefan

mmx · 18.05.2004, 14:23

Another gem that I just became aware of is that GD needs to be compiled into PHP with the GD/T1lib library. Otherwise, it will not support Type 1 fonts.

breakdesign · 18.05.2004, 14:26

Hi MMX

I think that's it - I will look into it and see if I can get my hosting provider to get it sorted!

Thanks for all your help!

Stefan