pdf file consists of 'F' after convert from doc on self built libreoffice-4.4.0.3

users
#1

After spent many days of struggling, finally I built libreoffcie-4.4.0.3 on
Arch linux.

I run the command line on new built software: soffice --headless
--convert-to pdf my.docx
(here my.docx is a regular English document with size 19K)

my.pdf has been created successfully. but the display in Adobe Reader looks
strange: The structure of pdf resembles original docx format. but all
characters in pdf are display as [], in Adobe Reader.

I did the compare with the libreoffice installed on Mac. Here is the
summury:

                                                    Original file size
(.docx) size of pdf after convert (.pdf)
using software built on linux box: 19K
8.5K
using software installed on Mac: 19K
98K

You see that the size after converting using new built was much smaller that
the one built from installed software.
I used online tool to extract txt from pdf. it consists of only data
'FFFFF...'

Any idea how this happened or how to debug the issue?

I attached the configuration flags I used to build libreoffice:
--without-java
                --disable-cups
                --with-doxygen=no
                --with-build-version="${_LOver} Arch Linux build-${pkgrel}"
--with-vendor="Arch Linux"
                --prefix=/usr
                --exec-prefix=/usr
                --sysconfdir=/etc
                --libdir=/usr/lib
                --mandir=/usr/share/man
              --enable-split-app-modules
              --with-parallelism=${MAKEFLAGS/-j/}
              --with-system-openssl
              --enable-fetch-external
              --enable-verbose
              --enable-release-build
              --enable-crashdump
              --disable-coinmp
              --disable-avahi
              --disable-dbus
              --disable-evolution2
              --disable-gio
              --disable-gnome-vfs
              --disable-lockdown
              --disable-odk
              --dis
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able-orcus
              --enable-python=system
              --disable-scripting-javascript
              --disable-telepathy
              --enable-ext-nlpsolver=no
              --without-fonts
              --with-system-apr
              --with-myspell-dicts
              --with-system-libcmis
              --with-system-libexttextcat
              --with-system-orcus
              --with-system-liblangtag
              --with-system-jfreereport
              --without-system-apache-commons
              --with-system-libatomic-ops
              --with-system-dicts
              --with-system-graphite
              --with-system-glm
              --with-system-redland
              --with-system-serf
              --without-system-npapi-headers
              --without-system-libgltf
              --with-system-poppler
              --without-system-sane
              --with-system-boost
              --with-system-icu
              --with-system-cairo
              --with-system-libs
              --with-system-mythes
              --with-system-headers
              --with-system-hsqldb
              --with-alloc=system
              --with-system-clucene
              --with-system-jpeg
              --with-system-lcms2
              --with-system-nss
                --without-krb5
                --with-gssapi
                --with-system-vigra
                --with-system-odbc
                --disable-gconf
                --disable-liblangtag
                --with-system-liblangtag
                --disable-postgresql-sdbc
                --disable-firebird-sdbc
                --with-system-clucene
                --with-system-libebook
                --with-system-libetonyek
                --with-system-libfreehand
                --with-system-libcdr
               --disable-dependency-tracking
               --disable-gltf
               --disable-gtk
               --disable-gstreamer-1-0
                --disable-gstreamer-0-10
              --enable-hardlink-deliver

Thanks ahead for any help

#2

Hi :slight_smile:
No idea. Have you tried contacting the Dev's irc channel or mailing list
or whatever they use?

Is this some sort of fonts issue? Is it just a case of having the right
fonts or figuring out the paths it uses to look for fonts? I have no idea
how to do that from a coding angle but through the gui the paths are
configurable through;

Tools - Options - Paths

(or something like that (Macs are different at the start but end up in the
same configuration menus))
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#3

There is a newer version at https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/libreoffice-fresh/ which is libreoffice-fresh 4.4.1-2

It might help resolve your problem.

Not an Arch user myself so I don't understand the build process.

Did you run LibreOffice the normal way and export as pdf to see if it creates [].

#4

Thanks Tom.

I built the package without UI support. The only reason we are using
LIbreoffice is for the convert office documents to pdf format.

So I don't have the ability to try UI to make sure that it has all the fonts
or print save as pdf.

I did the test though to convert a txt document, which only has one char in
it, to pdf. The result is the same (though the pdf file size is hundreds
byte big).

But I have no issue to convert docx to txt or html. so the inout part sounds
ok. just output to pdf has issue.

I continue to look at this issue and will post to developer list to see any
one could help.

fdong

#5

I built the package with debug enable. and I got more warning message when
running the command.

I built the package with debug enable; Here is the log I got (more than
release build). I don't know whether it is helpful to find the issue.

./soffice --headless --convert-to pdf onebyte.txt
warn:configmgr:17250:1:configmgr/source/xcuparser.cxx:300: unknown component
"org.openoffice.Office.UI.DbReportWindowState" in
"file:///ssd/b/home/fuchun/libreoffice/libreoffice_source/instdir/program/../share/registry/res/registry_en-US.xcd"
warn:configmgr:17250:1:configmgr/source/xcuparser.cxx:300: unknown component
"org.openoffice.Office.UI.ReportCommands" in
"file:///ssd/b/home/fuchun/libreoffice/libreoffice_source/instdir/program/../share/registry/res/registry_en-US.xcd"
warn:configmgr:17250:1:configmgr/source/xcuparser.cxx:912: ignoring modify
of unknown set member node "StarOffice XML (Base) Report" in
"file:///ssd/b/home/fuchun/libreoffice/libreoffice_source/instdir/program/../share/registry/res/fcfg_langpack_en-US.xcd"
warn:configmgr:17250:1:configmgr/source/xcuparser.cxx:912: ignoring modify
of unknown set member node "StarOffice XML (Base) Report Chart" in
"file:///ssd/b/home/fuchun/libreoffice/libreoffice_source/instdir/program/../share/registry/res/fcfg_langpack_en-US.xcd"
warn:desktop.deployment:17250:1:desktop/source/deployment/manager/dp_manager.cxx:1421:
Could not read file
file:///ssd/b/home/fuchun/libreoffice/libreoffice_source/instdir/program/../share/extensions/dict-gd/LICENSES-en.txt
warn:configmgr:17364:1:configmgr/source/xcuparser.cxx:300: unknown component
"org.openoffice.Office.UI.DbReportWindowState" in
"file:///ssd/b/home/fuchun/libreoffice/libreoffice_source/instdir/program/../share/registry/res/registry_en-US.xcd"
warn:configmgr:17364:1:configmgr/source/xcuparser.cxx:300: unknown component
"org.openoffice.Office.UI.ReportCommands" in
"file:///ssd/b/home/fuchun/libreoffice/libreoffice_source/instdir/program/../share/registry/res/registry_en-US.xcd"
warn:configmgr:17364:1:configmgr/source/xcuparser.cxx:912: ignoring modify
of unknown set member node "StarOffice XML (Base) Report" in
"file:///ssd/b/home/fuchun/libreoffice/libreoffice_source/instdir/program/../share/registry/res/fcfg_langpack_en-US.xcd"
warn:configmgr:17364:1:configmgr/source/xcuparser.cxx:912: ignoring modify
of unknown set member node "StarOffice XML (Base) Report Chart" in
"file:///ssd/b/home/fuchun/libreoffice/libreoffice_source/instdir/program/../share/registry/res/fcfg_langpack_en-US.xcd"
convert
/ssd/b/home/fuchun/libreoffice/libreoffice_source/instdir/program/onebyte.txt
->
/ssd/b/home/fuchun/libreoffice/libreoffice_source/instdir/program/onebyte.pdf
using writer_pdf_Export

I create one byte size file and run the command. and in return got a pdf
file with size 3.5K. But the display is a single [].

#6

Hi, Paul: Thanks for your response.

It is a daunting task to build libreoffice. I did learn a quite a lot to
build it, but not enough to solve the issue.

I am going to try the latest version to build it. I will post the question
to developer list and hope to get some help.

I built it without x support and our arch linux distribution doesn't have UI
either (so the purpose is for server in data center).
So I can't check those features using UI.

fdong

#7

Hi,

I notice you are using Arch linux. Is this why you are building rather than just installing from the repos?

Would it be easier to try a different distro (I use fedora but there are a number of people using Ubuntu/Mint) and establish whether the same problems occur? IE. take out the uncertainty of building?

cheers

#8

Hi :slight_smile:
Yes :slight_smile: Good point. That might be a good stepping-stone towards the goal.
Is there a machine you could use as a desktop/client machine and set-up
either;
1. a dual-boot so that you can have a nice gui desktop to see how things
work
2. a virtual machine (VirtualBox tends to be in the repos of most distros
and is plenty good enough for experimenting with odd things)
3. a "LiveUsb" session (or Cd or Dvd)
4. just a different machine, such as a netbook or old machine rescued from
a cupboard or basement or attic or skip or something.

Most nice gui distros have LibreOffice installed by default these days.
Some of the extremely light ones, such as SliTaz, can add it fairly easily
- even to a LIveCd session (as long as you don't bother to try to fully
update the entire distro for this 'quick' test). Also many distros can run
on 'really old' machines that other people kinda stop using but never quite
seem to throw away completely.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#9

We don't have systemd library but have eudev. The package for arch linux is
using systemd ( or more clearly mesa library is depend on systemd). So we
have to build mesa for sure. I haven't tried to install the built mesa
first. Then just install the libreoffice without build it. This might be a
solution.