when is a PDF not a PDF?

[me-5yx05kfkO/aqeI1yJSURBw at public.gmane.org (Matthew Gillen)]

On 09/14/2009 02:56 PM, R. Luoma wrote:
> Based on postings to this group, I purchased
> the Brother HL-4070CDW Color Laser Printer,
> which allows printing of PDF files from a USB stick.
> 
> Sometimes, the 4070 will choke and sometimes die on some PDF files
> (well, I need to press the appropriate printer buttons
> to get things working again).
> Up until I "upgraded" to OpenOffice 3.0.1, this problem
> was rather infrequent, but some some reason on the 4070
> the PDF files produced by OO 3.0.1 often look like chapters
> from the Swedish Chef's Cookbook (the Unexpurgated Edition ;)
> 
> Oddly enough, if I tell OpenOffice to print the file
> directly ot the 4070, it comes out fine.  Unfortunately,
> there are circumstances where I would really like to save
> the document as a PDF and print the PDF later on.
> 
> I have been unable to find anything on the web
> concerning my misprintings.
> 
> Does anyone have recommendation on how I can get
> the PDFs printing prettily again?

I'm guessing it has to do with embedding of fonts (or lack thereof), and
some fonts OpenOffice can find that your command-line printing can't.  By
default there are a set of 15 or so fonts that PDFs assume are always
available, and thus never embed.

There's a specific PDF variant (used by people who are fanatical about
archival) that embeds *all* fonts: PDF/A-1a.  My version of Openoffice
(3.1.1 / Fedora 11) has an option in the "Export as PDF" dialog to save in
this format.

Alternatively, I'm guessing you can tune the Cups-pdf driver to generate
A-1a PDFs.

HTH,
Matt