bug#73161: 29.4; Exporting Org Agenda to PDF with Cyrillic Characters

bug#73161: 29.4; Exporting Org Agenda to PDF with Cyrillic Characters

[Serghei Iakovlev via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Hello,

Meta: This message was originally posted to the help-gnu-emacs
mailing list, but I suspect that it may have gone unanswered because
it wasn’t the right place for this kind of query.  Please feel free
to ignore this message here and reply on the mailing list if that’s
more appropriate.

I’m reaching out because I’ve hit a wall after spending many hours
debugging what seemed like a straightforward issue but turned out to
be a rabbit hole.  I’ve been working on customizing `org-agenda'
export to PDF and initially thought my problem was related to
`ox-texinfo'.  I spent half the night tweaking my Emacs
configuration, digging through documentation, and adjusting settings
in hopes of resolving the issue.  I went down a lot of wrong paths
before realizing that `org-store-agenda-views' doesn't actually call
`ox-texinfo'.  That was my first mistake - not diving into the source
code earlier.

Turns out, the function calls `org-agenda-write', which in turn
executes something entirely different.  Relevant part of
org-agenda.el:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(require 'ps-print)
(ps-print-buffer-with-faces
  (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".ps"))
(call-process "ps2pdf" nil nil nil
  (expand-file-name
    (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".ps"))
  (expand-file-name file))
(delete-file (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".ps"))
(message "PDF written to %s" file)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

So, after realizing this, I thought I could fix the issue by tweaking
`ps-print' and `ps2pdf' settings.  I’ve tried adjusting my
`org-agenda-exporter-settings' multiple times, setting various font
families and print headers, and I’ve seen some changes reflected in
the output.  For instance, I can see that the header is removed, and
the font face in the PDF actually changes when I tweak
`ps-font-family'.  But no matter what I try, Cyrillic characters
still show up as question marks or garbled symbols.

Here’s a snippet of my best try:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(setq org-agenda-exporter-settings
  '((ps-multibyte-buffer 'bdf-font-except-latin)
    (ps-print-header nil)
    (ps-print-color-p 'black-white)
    (ps-font-family 'Helvetica)
    (htmlize-output-type 'css)))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I’ve tried changing `ps-multibyte-buffer' to `bdf-font-except-latin',
thinking it would handle non-Latin characters, but that hasn’t
worked.  I’ve messed around with various `ps-font-family' values, tried
specifying paths to BDF fonts, and set up `bdf-directory-list', but
still no dice.  I’ve also been battling with `ps2pdf', which seems to
completely ignore the fonts I’m trying to set up, reverting to
something that just doesn’t support Cyrillic.

As far as I can tell, `ps-mule' expects me to install BDF fonts and set
the path to them in `bdf-directory-list'.  If this is indeed the reason
why I’m seeing garbled text instead of proper characters, then my
situation might be even worse.  The workstation I’m working on is
running macOS, and as far as I know, there's no native support for
pcf/bdf fonts in macOS.  At least, I've never heard of anyone using
these on macOS.  So, what started as a simple task to add a weekly
report generation function is turning into a bottomless rabbit hole,
and I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something fundamental
here.

Running pdffonts (a part of the poppler package on macOS) on the
generated document gives me the following output:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---

name                type       encoding   emb sub uni object ID
------------------- ---------- ---------- --- --- --- ---------
YJXYOF+Helvetica    Type 1C    WinAnsi    yes yes no       7  0

--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

From what I understand, WinAnsi is essentially cp1252.  I have
absolutely nothing related to cp1252 in my Emacs config.  Could this
be ghostscript that's involved in the conversion process messing
things up?  I’m really lost at this point.  Why is cp1252 even showing
up here when I’m not on Windows?

Many hours of debugging and trying different approaches, I’m still
stuck.  It feels like I’m missing something obvious, but at this
point, I’m exhausted and just need fresh eyes on this.  If anyone has
insights or suggestions on how to get ps-print to correctly handle
Cyrillic characters or ensure that `ps2pdf' doesn’t mess up the
fonts, I’d really appreciate your help.  This has been a frustrating
journey, and I’d love to hear how others have tackled similar issues.


                    Serghei

--

In GNU Emacs 29.4 (build 1, aarch64-apple-darwin21.6.0, NS
 appkit-2113.60 Version 12.6.6 (Build 21G646)) of 2024-08-02 built on
 armbob.lan
Windowing system distributor 'Apple', version 10.3.2487
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bug#73161: 29.4; Exporting Org Agenda to PDF with Cyrillic Characters

[Ihor Radchenko]

Serghei Iakovlev via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of
text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> writes:

> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> (require 'ps-print)
> (ps-print-buffer-with-faces
>   (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".ps"))
> (call-process "ps2pdf" nil nil nil
>   (expand-file-name
>     (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".ps"))
>   (expand-file-name file))
> (delete-file (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".ps"))
> (message "PDF written to %s" file)
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

(A comment to Eli and other Emacs maintainers)

I believe that what we observe here is a problem in `ps-print-buffer',
not in Org mode. In other words, it looks like Emacs bug, not Org mode
bug.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>

bug#73161: 29.4; Exporting Org Agenda to PDF with Cyrillic Characters

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Mon, 09 Sep 2024 22:38:13 +0000
> From:  Serghei Iakovlev via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs,
>  the Swiss army knife of text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> 
> I’m reaching out because I’ve hit a wall after spending many hours
> debugging what seemed like a straightforward issue but turned out to
> be a rabbit hole.  I’ve been working on customizing `org-agenda'
> export to PDF and initially thought my problem was related to
> `ox-texinfo'.  I spent half the night tweaking my Emacs
> configuration, digging through documentation, and adjusting settings
> in hopes of resolving the issue.  I went down a lot of wrong paths
> before realizing that `org-store-agenda-views' doesn't actually call
> `ox-texinfo'.  That was my first mistake - not diving into the source
> code earlier.
> 
> Turns out, the function calls `org-agenda-write', which in turn
> executes something entirely different.  Relevant part of
> org-agenda.el:
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> (require 'ps-print)
> (ps-print-buffer-with-faces
>   (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".ps"))
> (call-process "ps2pdf" nil nil nil
>   (expand-file-name
>     (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".ps"))
>   (expand-file-name file))
> (delete-file (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".ps"))
> (message "PDF written to %s" file)
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

IMO, Org should document that org-agenda-write uses ps-print and
ps2pdf, so that users could know where to look for cause of trouble
and which parts to customize to work around these problems.

> So, after realizing this, I thought I could fix the issue by tweaking
> `ps-print' and `ps2pdf' settings.  I’ve tried adjusting my
> `org-agenda-exporter-settings' multiple times, setting various font
> families and print headers, and I’ve seen some changes reflected in
> the output.  For instance, I can see that the header is removed, and
> the font face in the PDF actually changes when I tweak
> `ps-font-family'.  But no matter what I try, Cyrillic characters
> still show up as question marks or garbled symbols.
> 
> Here’s a snippet of my best try:
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> (setq org-agenda-exporter-settings
>   '((ps-multibyte-buffer 'bdf-font-except-latin)
>     (ps-print-header nil)
>     (ps-print-color-p 'black-white)
>     (ps-font-family 'Helvetica)
>     (htmlize-output-type 'css)))
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> I’ve tried changing `ps-multibyte-buffer' to `bdf-font-except-latin',
> thinking it would handle non-Latin characters, but that hasn’t
> worked.  I’ve messed around with various `ps-font-family' values, tried
> specifying paths to BDF fonts, and set up `bdf-directory-list', but
> still no dice.  I’ve also been battling with `ps2pdf', which seems to
> completely ignore the fonts I’m trying to set up, reverting to
> something that just doesn’t support Cyrillic.

I don't know about ps2pdf, but I did at one time, years ago, have a
working setup that was capable of using ps-print to print Cyrillic
text from Emacs to a PostScript printer.  I will try to describe what
I think I did back then, using my old files and archives to recollect
stuff I've long forgotten, in the hope it will help you.

> As far as I can tell, `ps-mule' expects me to install BDF fonts and set
> the path to them in `bdf-directory-list'.

Yes.  Here's what I had back when I printed Cyrillic text using
ps-print:

  (setq ps-multibyte-buffer 'bdf-font-except-latin)
  (setq bdf-directory-list (list (concat invocation-directory "../fonts/bdf")))

(The value of bdf-directory-list is just my personal choice back then:
you can have any directory there, just make sure the BDF fonts arfe
really in that directory.  But it must be a list, even if you just
have a single directory.)

> If this is indeed the reason why I’m seeing garbled text instead of
> proper characters, then my situation might be even worse.  The
> workstation I’m working on is running macOS, and as far as I know,
> there's no native support for pcf/bdf fonts in macOS.  At least,
> I've never heard of anyone using these on macOS.

The BDF fonts I used are from the GNU Intlfonts.  I think they are the
only ones that are guaranteed to work with ps-mule and ps-bdf, or at
least worked in the past (see below).  AFAICT, you can still download
them from here:

  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/intlfonts/intlfonts-1.2.1.tar.gz

When you unpack the tarball, chdir to the intlfonts-1.2.1 created by
unpacking, and type:

  $ make bdf INSTALLDIR=/path/to/where/to/install

This should install the BDF fonts in the specified directory, and you
should point bdf-directory-list to it.  (You can delete the
intlfonts-1.2.1 tree after you do the above.)

AFAIR, this was all I needed back then; I hope I don't misremember.

However: I last used this with Emacs 21, which is before Emacs was
converted to Unicode-based treatment of non-ASCII characters.  So it
is possible that the above will not work with the current codebase,
because ps-mule needs to decide which of the BDF fonts to use for each
script (in your case Cyrillic), and I just don't remember if this code
was adjusted to the changes we made in Emacs 23 (I think it was, but I
am not sure).

And finally: the situation with ps-print wrt non-ASCII text is not a
good one.  Even if BDF fonts still work, they are somewhat ugly, and
are nowadays almost unsupported by systems, so it is hard to find nice
BDF fonts.  And ps-mule doesn't support anything else.  There were
plans to write ps-type1 to support Type1 fonts, but it never happened.

Unfortunately, this basically means that any Lisp program that builds
on ps-print will only reasonably support ASCII and Latin-1 text, the
rest of scripts will need to use BDF fonts, and will probably not look
very nice.  IMO, Org should document this limitation as well.

What ps2pdf will do with the PS files created by ps-print under the
above setup, I don't know.  Don't hold your breath.

HTH, and sorry for your journey down this rabbit hole.

bug#73161: 29.4; Exporting Org Agenda to PDF with Cyrillic Characters

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: 73161@debbugs.gnu.org
> From: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>
> Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2024 06:19:41 +0000
> 
> Serghei Iakovlev via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of
> text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> > (require 'ps-print)
> > (ps-print-buffer-with-faces
> >   (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".ps"))
> > (call-process "ps2pdf" nil nil nil
> >   (expand-file-name
> >     (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".ps"))
> >   (expand-file-name file))
> > (delete-file (concat (file-name-sans-extension file) ".ps"))
> > (message "PDF written to %s" file)
> > --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> (A comment to Eli and other Emacs maintainers)
> 
> I believe that what we observe here is a problem in `ps-print-buffer',
> not in Org mode. In other words, it looks like Emacs bug, not Org mode
> bug.

It isn't an Org bug, but IMO Org should prominently document that the
above is only going to work for ASCII and maybe also Latin-1 text; any
other scripts, if they at all work, need ps-mule setup and BDF fonts.

bug#73161: 29.4; Exporting Org Agenda to PDF with Cyrillic Characters

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: 73161@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2024 16:51:28 +0300
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> 
> However: I last used this with Emacs 21, which is before Emacs was
> converted to Unicode-based treatment of non-ASCII characters.  So it
> is possible that the above will not work with the current codebase,
> because ps-mule needs to decide which of the BDF fonts to use for each
> script (in your case Cyrillic), and I just don't remember if this code
> was adjusted to the changes we made in Emacs 23 (I think it was, but I
> am not sure).

Bad news: I tried that, and it doesn't seem to work.  I guess
something is missing in ps-mule.el to do the job in the current Emacs,
sigh...

bug#73161: 29.4; Exporting Org Agenda to PDF with Cyrillic Characters

[Serghei Iakovlev via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

> IMO, Org should document that org-agenda-write uses ps-print and
> ps2pdf, so that users could know where to look for cause of trouble
> and which parts to customize to work around these problems.

I agree with you.  Things would have been a bit simpler, and perhaps
even friendlier, if I had stumbled upon this information right away.
I'd like to take this opportunity to address Ihor and kindly ask him
to consider reviewing and enhancing the documentation related to this
matter.

> When you unpack the tarball, chdir to the intlfonts-1.2.1 created by
> unpacking, and type:
>
>   $ make bdf INSTALLDIR=/path/to/where/to/install
>
> This should install the BDF fonts in the specified directory, and you
> should point bdf-directory-list to it.  (You can delete the
> intlfonts-1.2.1 tree after you do the above.)

Looks like it works something like this:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
% ./configure --prefix=~/.local
creating cache ./config.cache
checking for a BSD compatible install... /opt/homebrew/bin/ginstall -c
checking where fonts should go... ~/.local/share/emacs/fonts
checking whether to compress fonts or not... no
checking installing font types...  pcf bdf
updating cache ./config.cache
creating ./config.status
creating Makefile
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

and then just:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
% make bdf
% ls -1 ~/.local/share/emacs/fonts/bdf | wc -l
     137
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---


> And finally: the situation with ps-print wrt non-ASCII text is not a
> good one.  Even if BDF fonts still work, they are somewhat ugly, and
> are nowadays almost unsupported by systems, so it is hard to find nice
> BDF fonts.  And ps-mule doesn't support anything else.  There were
> plans to write ps-type1 to support Type1 fonts, but it never happened.

Oh my, they are indeed hideous! I suspected you were being quite
diplomatic by calling them "somewhat ugly," but I had no idea just
how bad they actually were!  It’s honestly so awful that my manager
would rather not know my weekly status than read it with these fonts

Jokes aside, the second thing I’d like to propose is to start a
discussion about reviving the Type1 font support project.  This seems
like an important and mature step forward, considering we’re in the
21st century, and the era of display resolutions reminiscent of a
microwave OLED screen is long behind us.

> Unfortunately, this basically means that any Lisp program that builds
> on ps-print will only reasonably support ASCII and Latin-1 text, the
> rest of scripts will need to use BDF fonts, and will probably not look
> very nice.  IMO, Org should document this limitation as well.

I'm curious how feasible it would be to extend Org to rework the PDF
generation flow, for example, to something like Org -> TeX -> PDF,
similar to how pandoc handles it.  This is my second question
addressed to Ihor.

> HTH, and sorry for your journey down this rabbit hole.

Thank you for your explanations and kind words of support—I really
appreciate it.

-- 
Serghei Iakovlev

bug#73161: 29.4; Exporting Org Agenda to PDF with Cyrillic Characters

[Ihor Radchenko]

Serghei Iakovlev via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of
text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> writes:

>> IMO, Org should document that org-agenda-write uses ps-print and
>> ps2pdf, so that users could know where to look for cause of trouble
>> and which parts to customize to work around these problems.
>
> I agree with you.  Things would have been a bit simpler, and perhaps
> even friendlier, if I had stumbled upon this information right away.
> I'd like to take this opportunity to address Ihor and kindly ask him
> to consider reviewing and enhancing the documentation related to this
> matter.

Would you be interested to prepare a patch updating the documentation?
Honestly, I feel confused about all the complications you have been
discussing here, so you might be a better person to explain the problem
at this point.

See https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contribute.html

Ideally, we need to switch to https://github.com/tecosaur/engrave-faces
that can handle pdf exports.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>