Comment 13 for bug 389182

Please excuse the long post but I am not sure which details are helpful for others.

My pdf files from 18185.co.uk still appear blank with Okular however the file Timo posted appears OK. They appear to be created using different PDF Producers as follows:

From my "blank" pdfs
From Adobe>File>Properties>Description menu: PDF Producer Paolo Gios www.paologios.com
From Adobe>File>Properties>Fonts menu: Helvetica Bold & Times Roman Truetype fonts

From Timo's "blank" pdf
From Adobe>File>Properties>Description menu: PDF Producer Adobe Distiller 7.0 (Windows)
From Adobe>File>Properties>Fonts menu: Several core MS Truetype fonts (from Windows)

Just a guess but could this be to do with TrueType Fonts on the Windows platform used to create the original pdf that are not embedded in the problem pdf file or available in Ubuntu? Looking at PDF properties for the files that I can read with any pdf reader they usually have Embedded Fonts while the problem ones do not.

With Okular:
Timo's pdf refers to fonts in /usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/ with the name of the font. I have installed MS core fonts on Ubuntu.
My still blank pdfs refers to fonts in /usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/n019004l.pfb for Helvetica Bold and /usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/n021003l.pfb for Times Roman.

Now back in Adobe Acrobat:
Looking at my (no longer) "blank" pdf file Helvetica Bold is mapped to Arial Bold and Times Roman to TimesNewRoman. Does this suggest that some readers are better than others at finding fonts that exist on the host system to substitute for unavailable fonts?

I guess a possible work around would be to install the missing fonts however for many people they just wish to get on with more productive work. Sorting out the font substitution so that it works without the original fonts may be a better solution? Any ideas? Happy to try out suggestions.