printing from libreoffice garbles output

Bug #886571 reported by Florian Hars
34
This bug affects 6 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
cups (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned
libreoffice (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

If I write a text in libreoffice and then print it, a random subset of the characters in the output are replaced with another character (I have seen ¨ and u in different documents). If I export as PDF, I can print that document without problems.

I print to the IPP service on a Samsung CLP-610ND printer using the recommended foomatic CLP-610 driver (the other CLP-610 and the CLP-610ND driver offered by the config panel do always produce a "use the proper driver" error page).

Other people have seen the same behaviour with a HP LaserJet 1022 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1870870
and a HP Color LaserJet 1600 http://www.ubuntu-forum.de/index.php?page=Thread&postID=337315

This is a regression in 11.10.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: libreoffice-writer 1:3.4.3-3ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Nov 5 15:36:49 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
SourcePackage: libreoffice
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

Revision history for this message
Florian Hars (florian-hars) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in libreoffice (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Lars Renström (lars-renstrom) wrote :

I can also confirm garbled output with a Samsung ML-2851ND. It seems to "trash" all Swedish characters in the document. This worked OK in 11.04 version. Workaround is to export as PDF and print that, as described above.

Revision history for this message
Age Jan Kuperus (ajk-tt) wrote :

I can confirm the same problem with a HP1020.

 I found another workaround in http://askubuntu.com/questions/68909/im-having-problems-printing-in-libreoffice-writer-adobe-acrobat-reader-and-evo :

" What fixed the problem for me was reverting from pdf to postscript print setting in LibO. File -> Printer Settings -> Properties -> Device -> Printer Language type was set to PDF so I changed it to PostScript. Had to update the normal template to make it stick."

Revision history for this message
Age Jan Kuperus (ajk-tt) wrote :

and yes, 11.10 on x86_64

Revision history for this message
Age Jan Kuperus (ajk-tt) wrote :

another observation that might be helpful: the pdf files that are generated in /var/spool/cups/tmp (and then printed with the errors) seem to be correct (evince can read, display and print them correctly).

Revision history for this message
Björn Michaelsen (bjoern-michaelsen) wrote :

So it is either:
a) Libreoffice creating invalid pdf, that evince still renders without problems
b) Libreoffice creating valid pdf, and cups choking on it.

@Age: Could you upload one of problematic to print odf and generated pdf files?

Changed in cups (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Age Jan Kuperus (ajk-tt) wrote :

attached file contains both the odt file and the generated foomatic pdf

Revision history for this message
Age Jan Kuperus (ajk-tt) wrote :

following bug#879977 I looked at #879365. There I found:

Дмитрий (dmitrix) wrote on 2011-10-24: #37

solution to this problem
wget http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/f/foomatic-filters/foomatic-filters_4.0.7-0ubuntu1.1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i foomatic-filters_4.0.7-0ubuntu1.1_i386.deb

p.s. do not update this package in update-manager

After doing this (with the corresponding amd64 package, of course) the file printed correctly.

Revision history for this message
Claude Krantz (puma) wrote :

This bug hits me as well.

Running fully-updated Oneiric (Kubuntu, x86_64) and printing to two different HP printers (Deskjet 5550 and Laserjet 1320) via a CUPS 1.5.0 server running on FreeBSD 8.2.

The problem is reproducible on two independent machines. Using PDF as a printing language in Libreoffice Writer causes two problems:

- Page margins are not correct (usually the text body is shifted towards the right, I print to DIN A4 paper). This seems to happen regardless of the content of the document.

- For texts involving German (umlauts ä, ö, ü) or French (accents é, è, ...) special characters, the text is printed as garbadge, with ' or " characters replacing ca. 50% of the letters. For documents involving only English characters this does not seem to happen, however a single non-English character occurring in the document is sufficient to trash the entire printout.

Switching to Postscript as a printer language in Libreoffice solves both problems completely. PDF printing from other applications (okular) on the Linux clients as well as on the BSD server itself works flawlessly.

Downgrading "foomatic-filters" to 4.0.7 as recommended by Age did not resolve the issue in my case.

Revision history for this message
Claude Krantz (puma) wrote :

I should say that I do not believe this is duplicate of

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ghostscript/+bug/879977

I upgraded ghostscript to the version accepted to oneiric-proposed on 15 Nov 2011: Did not resolve the issues described above.

Claude Krantz (puma)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter) wrote :

Perhaps this one is duplicate of bug 891074. An Oneiric update for this bug will be proposed soon.

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