[NTG-context] LMTX generates PDFs with non-working fonts on real printers

[Max Chernoff]

Hi Leah,


> > Leah and I are zooming in on the issue. It might relate to wrong font
> > matrix default behavior in the pdf printer driver, and GS got a fix
> > for that long ago, so maybe old printers with not-updated drivers can
> > be affected.
> >
> > Once we're confident that we can catch it Leah (who does the low level
> > introspective testing with viewers, printers and tools) likely will
> > report on it and there will be a test file for users to test if what
> > we do is okay before we apply the safeguard.
> 
> There's a write up now on the issue:
> https://leahneukirchen.org/blog/archive/2022/10/50-blank-pages-or-black-box-debugging-of-pdf-rendering-in-printers.html

Great write up! I was expecting the issue to be something quite simple,
but it's actually fairly complicated. Especially considering that the
issue only happens with a few printer models, I'm pretty impressed that
you managed to find the problem. At least the fix appears quite easy.

Seeing that you're modifying the font encoding, could you perhaps
reconsider supporting hinting in LMTX? 

   https://mailman.ntg.nl/pipermail/ntg-context/2022/106311.html

Even with a high resolution screen, I can still see a difference, and
the issue can show up in print too:

   
   https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/q/5874
   
I'm fairly confident that these issues are all hinting-related:

   https://mailman.ntg.nl/pipermail/ntg-context/2022/106874.html
   https://mailman.ntg.nl/pipermail/ntg-context/2022/105212.html
   
Considering that all of the fonts included with ConTeXt are hinted, it
seems like a shame to not include any of that data in the generated
PDFs.

Thanks,
-- Max