Strange PDF printing problems

[Nigel Ridley]

I recently downloaded a user manual from Mackie.com:
http://www.mackie.com/pdf/onyx1640_om.pdf

After downloading it I wanted to print it - but it would only print some colored heading but not 
the actual text. This was using both Adobe Reader 8 and KPDF. Actually I couldn't even highlight 
and copy any text (the resulting box only gave the option of copying a graphic to the clipboard).

I ended up printing it from my wife's XP computer at work. Why should the Windows version of 
Adobe Reader 8 print it when the Linux version wouldn't?

OK. things got stranger. I also use Scribus and somebody offered a script to reduce the size of 
large PDF's. It uses pdftops and pstopdf with a simple perl script (being lazy and tired, I just 
ran the script on the PDF - 'just to see').
Anyway, there were a couple of errors:

nigel at laptop:~/Documents/PDF_scripts$ ./compress-newsletter.pl 
/home/nigel/Hamaayan/Newsletters/September-08/Test/onyx1640_om.pdf
Running pdftk ...
Error: Failed to open PDF file:
    /home/nigel/Hamaayan/Newsletters/September-08/Test/onyx1640_om.pdf
    OWNER PASSWORD REQUIRED, but not given (or incorrect)
Errors encountered.  No output created.
Done.  Input errors, so no output created.
Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at ./compress-newsletter.pl line 202.
Running pdftops ...
Running gs ...
Running pdfopt ...
-rw-r--r-- 1 nigel nigel  2071083 2008-09-15 19:13 
/home/nigel/Hamaayan/Newsletters/September-08/Test/onyx1640_om_new.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 nigel nigel  1897192 2008-09-06 15:25 
/home/nigel/Hamaayan/Newsletters/September-08/Test/onyx1640_om.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 nigel nigel 63134149 2008-09-15 19:12 
/home/nigel/Hamaayan/Newsletters/September-08/Test/onyx1640_om.ps_8U1cYk
-rw-r--r-- 1 nigel nigel  2068838 2008-09-15 19:13 
/home/nigel/Hamaayan/Newsletters/September-08/Test/onyx1640_om.tmp_XXJ0Db
nigel at laptop:~/Documents/PDF_scripts$

but it did produce a PDF that I could highlight and copy text from - but on copying the text (and 
some graphics) into OpenOffice - it still wouldn't print (as if the text was invisible) BUT, and 
this is a bit weird - I then changed the fonts/text to a different color (80% gray - I try to 
save ink!) and it printed!!??

What's going on? Anybody care to enlighten me?

TIA

Blessings,

Nigel

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PrayingForIsrael.net
http://www.prayingforisrael.net/