Misaligned, fragmented pdfs (aggravated in Sumatra pdf viewer)

goyalyashpal commented 2 years ago

Update:

This issue is not observed with other pdf viewers, only with Sumatra viewers
I think that the issue is still there in the pdf, but other pdf reader's pdf engine (or whatever 'ts called) actively handles that correctly,
... while Sumatra's engine being minimal, just proceeds with what it got
... hence the title of this issue says "... aggravated in ..."
Read some additional side details at https://github.com/mkulesh/microMathematics/issues/118#issuecomment-1100875962

Summary

The pdf file of documentation contains extremely fragmented text

Reproduction

Steps

Open documentation's pdf microMathematics-v2.22.0.pdf
Select a paragraph of text
Copy it, and then test using some clipboard viewer
Try to "Find" any word in the pdf digitally, that is, by using the find in document functionality of the pdf viewer
All these details shown in the video below:

Expectations

On selection, the selection highlight is consistent with visually shown text
On copying it, a reasonably continuous block of text is copied
Words should be searched/found properly

Reality

The selection highlight doesnt match with visual rendering of the text
The copied text is excessively fragmented, words are separated by linebreak, most all letters even within a word are separated by space
Direct consequence of above, since there ARE NO words, how will they be found

Screenshot

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/19423063/163712397-bfef86ea-d7e0-4cd5-aab9-eb452b4f67e3.mp4

goyalyashpal commented 2 years ago

Details

What

The .pdf of documentation is generated by building from .tex by pdflatex FILE.tex
Though the pdf looks perfectly fine visually on surface, but
... the text it contains in the background does NOT correspond to the visuals and
... is extremely fragmented, even letters of words are fragmented as well

Affects

The main affected functionality is the search/find functionality
A minor side effect is reputation based, i.e. can be considered poorly produced document if formally submitted somewhere

Comments

I suspect that it is closely related to the issue of font auto expansion i faced last time (ref: comment), and
... is ill-effect of some of the used LaTeX's package
However, I have not investigated it further yet
Though, being a beginner in LaTeX, I dont think i will be able to fix it or find an alternate package, but
... i hope to be able to pinpoint the offending package/command

goyalyashpal commented 2 years ago

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}

My suspicion above regarding this being related issue was correct, the offending command are given above
The second command \usepackage{lmodern} is what i introduced in 13a8c058e62269d60056249781eefbd664f28346
but the issue is present in original pdf which was made before this commit, so, this command alone is not the culprit

^

Removing just \usepackage{lmodern} results in not being able to compile
Removing just \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} doesnt resolve the issue
Removing both these resolves the issue, and the rendering is not much affected either.
The new generated pdf with correction applied: microMathematics.pdf
The pdf without corrections: microMathematics-v2.22.0.pdf (same link as in description)

So,

why did you use this package \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} ?
or am i missing some render weirdness in the "new pdf"?
should i open PR for this?

Fixing patch and demonstration video

Patch created by copying CLI output of `git diff` on the local git repo ```diff diff --git a/microMathematics.sty b/microMathematics.sty index a7333aa..937e462 100644 --- a/microMathematics.sty +++ b/microMathematics.sty @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ \usepackage{lipsum} % Package to create dummy text \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} -\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} -\usepackage{lmodern} +%\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} +%\usepackage{lmodern} \usepackage[protrusion=true,expansion=true]{microtype} % Better typography \usepackage{amsmath,amsfonts,amsthm} % Math packages \usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx} % Enable pdflatex ``` https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/19423063/163714401-e8710c60-903f-4e27-a1dc-bf1fc2f06c77.mp4

goyalyashpal commented 2 years ago

Earlier i was testing with sumatra pdf reader v3.2
Now, on retested with following pdf viewers i was not able to reproduce:
- google drive's viewer in browser
- Foxit reader Version: 9.3.0.10826
So, i am guessing this issue might be aggravated with sumatra pdf viewer.
Closing it for now from my side.
Feel free to reopen if u are able to reproduce the issue.

Related issue:

https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/2158
That issue had same premise, type of break is changed, different behaviour observed on selection/copying etc

mkulesh / microMathematics