Ubuntu

Lubuntu libreoffice print-to-file creates "blank" PDF

Asked by Dave Macfarlane

1. Trying out Lubuntu 20.04 (current release, both Live from USB, and installed to hard disk (and hence incorp. latest updates)

2.Libreoffice version 6.4.2 (as bundled), and have also tried a "test-build" of v 6.4.4

3. Print-to-file from LO writer of simple text file, creates a PDF..size varies with amount of text

4. Created PDF appears blank when viewed with qpdfview (and I also tried mupdf)

Remarks
-This simple test of print-to-file works perfectly in Lubuntu 19.10 -- EVEN with LO test build of 6.4.4.
- FeatherPad print-to-pdf in Lubuntu 20.04 works fine.
-I have reproduced fault on 3 different machines

I find it hard to believe that nobody else(?) has reported this problem

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Ubuntu Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
Dave Macfarlane
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#1

Libreoffice has a function "Export to PDF". If you try this one instead of print-to-pdf, do you get the same blank document?
If you copy such "empty" document to a Lubuntu 19.10 machine, does it there look empty, too?
If you copy a PDF that is created on Lubuntu 19.10 to your 20.04 system, how does it look when viewed with qpdfview?

Revision history for this message
Dave Macfarlane (macfadj-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#2

Manfred,
first, answering your questions...
1 Export to PDf produces similarly blank document
2 Blank PDF created on 20.04 is equally blank on 19.10
3 Valid PDF created on 19.10 is valid on 20.04
So, yes, through this procedure I think you have demonstrated that PDFs being generated from Libreoffice-writer on Lubuntu 20.04 have something intrinsically wrong with them.
And seems only to be an issue with text (I have embedded images, and they show up OK).

Inspecting internals of any of these invalid PDFs from Lubuntu20.04, I find they will always contain messages about fonts I have tried to use, e.g.
---------------------------
% CreateFontSubset failed for font "FreeMono" weight=5
% CreateFontSubset failed for font "Ubuntu Condensed" weight=5
6 0 obj
<<
>>
 endobj
---------------------------

Under Lubuntu 20.04, LO-calc behaves in a similar way - generated PDFs have no text, they also contain these CreateFontSubset failed messages and it doesnt make any difference if I use Export to PDF, or Print to File.

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

What is the output of:

lsb_release -a; uname -a; apt-cache policy libreoffice

Thanks

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#4

With regards to your

"I find it hard to believe that nobody else(?) has reported this problem"

That's fine. Someone has to be first.... Why can't it be yourself?

Revision history for this message
Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#5

Your problem might be the same as https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=128470 respectively https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=125234

Do you receive some output for the command

export | grep VCL

?

Revision history for this message
Dave Macfarlane (macfadj-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#6

For completeness, I will paste below outputs of the commands suggested above by both actionparsnip and M Hampl.

As the links M H provides show that the folks over at documentfoundation are aware of this problem, which was my principle concern, I guess we can close this. (I'm going to mark it as "Problem Solved" as it hopefully will be, by the time 20.04 comes out officially later this month.)

For the record, following a suggestion found near the end of the 2nd thread (see above link to DocumentFoundation bug #125234), I find that doing the following, at least in my case, solves the dreaded "blank PDF" problem..

> SAL_VCL_QT5_USE_CAIRO=true libreoffice --writer

=======================
OUTPUTS REQUESTED ABOVE...

> export | grep VCL:
declare -x SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN="qt5"

> lsb_release -a:
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu Focal Fossa (development branch)
Release: 20.04
Codename: focal

> uname -a:
Linux vaio 5.4.0-21-generic #25-Ubuntu SMP Sat Mar 28 13:10:28 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

> apt-cache policy libreoffice:
libreoffice:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1:6.4.2-0ubuntu3
  Version table:
     1:6.4.2-0ubuntu3 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 Packages