[cairo] Awful PDF output from Evince

[Behdad Esfahbod]

On 11/26/2009 04:59 PM, Adrian Johnson wrote:
> Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
>> When I try printing this PDF:
>>
>> http://www.toronto.diplo.de/Vertretung/toronto/en/04/VisaRegulations/downloaddatei__visaform__schengen,property=Daten.pdf
>>
>>
>> using evince into a new PDF (I'm trying to shrink it from A4 to
>> Letter), I get a 23MB output. The original is 91K!
>>
>> Printing to PS is slightly better. Comes out at 5MB.
>>
>> Both outputs take a LONG LONG time to render in evince. And the
>> printer didn't like them either.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> behdad
>
>
> I printed your PDF to PDF and PS using code similar to the PS/PDF
> rendering example [1] and get a 215k PDF and 614k PS.
>
> Does the PS file contain one big image? It may be an evince bug.

No, on the contrary:  it includes thousands of small fallback images, 
typically a few pixels wide and high!

behdad:~ 0$ grep 'Fallback' output.ps  | wc -l
8229
behdad:~ 0$ grep 'Fallback' output.ps  | tail
% Fallback Image: x=189, y=761, w=7, h=1 res=300dpi size=450
% Fallback Image: x=200, y=761, w=3, h=1 res=300dpi size=195
% Fallback Image: x=206, y=761, w=4, h=1 res=300dpi size=255
% Fallback Image: x=211, y=761, w=5, h=1 res=300dpi size=315
% Fallback Image: x=217, y=761, w=4, h=1 res=300dpi size=255
% Fallback Image: x=224, y=761, w=3, h=1 res=300dpi size=195
% Fallback Image: x=231, y=761, w=4, h=1 res=300dpi size=255
% Fallback Image: x=120, y=762, w=4, h=1 res=300dpi size=255
% Fallback Image: x=177, y=762, w=4, h=1 res=300dpi size=255
% Fallback Image: x=231, y=762, w=4, h=1 res=300dpi size=255



>
> [1] http://www.cairographics.org/renderpdf/
>