Print to PDF not allowing selectable text on some sites

[tpcsanh]

So iow your pdf printers rejected a bad font and converted them to shapes, and mine did not.
I still don't see how that is our problem. I think typekit.net needs to fix their fonts and not rely on browsers to sanitize them for them.

Agree.

Just went to a site that has created non selectable text in the past. Looked for CSS errors. There they were. Deleted the CSS creating the font issues. Selectable text.

The PDF printer doesn't seem to be receiving the fonts from the browser, yes?

I believe the PDF printers are receiving the fonts, but the fonts are messed up and some PDF printers default to image instead of making more of a mess. The same PDF printers work when one disables "Allow pages to choose ..." or when one deletes the CSS causing the errors.

[TMINY]

Checking in on this... I'd still love to get a searchable PDF out of PaleMoon. It's been a problem that I can't select or search text. Any ideas? I'm willing to offer a bounty for a fix.

[Moonchild]

So, completely ignoring everything that's been said previously in this thread.

[TMINY]

Not really... I identified a problem that wasn't present in Win-32. And disabling custom fonts each time to generate a searchable PDF doesn't seem like a viable workaround. Can you explain/elaborate on what the roadblock might be?

[Moonchild]

Not really...

Well if I can answer your question with quotes from my previous posts then what would you call that?

Can you explain/elaborate on what the roadblock might be?

So iow your pdf printers rejected a bad font and converted them to shapes, and mine did not.
I still don't see how that is our problem.

It is not an inherent problem with the OS or the browser, as far as I can tell.

(and as such it's pointless to offer a bounty here because we can't fix something that's not within our scope)

I do enable downloadable fonts by default because they are part of webdesign.

(giving me selectable text)

Just having brief snippets of text won't have the fonts embedded because it would be wasteful to do so. I don't think you can blame PDF printers for employing best effort to keep file sizes small and be efficient in that case.

PDF is primarily a visual output format.

In other words: an interaction with the PDF printer of choice given specific environment restrictions like memory sizes and how much "custom font" text is involved. The PDF printing software (out of scope for us) making decisions whether to include an entire font table or not is irrelevant for the PDF output format because it is not supposed to be editable and accurate reproduction of the content trumps editability every time.

[TMINY]

Looks like FF and Edge offer a Save as PDF option in their Print windows to get a searchable PDF out of the browser. Is that a feature you can implement to solve this problem?

Any idea why this was working previously in Win-32?

[Moonchild]

Writing out a foreign, complex file format is not within scope of the web browser. I'm not going to add that kind of complexity to Pale Moon.
The answer is no.
If you want this, then feel free to examine the code Mozilla added to have this feature and create an extension to do the same.

[TMINY]

Printing or saving to a usable PDF seems like it should be part of the core functionality for a modern browser, but if it's not a feature you want in PM, so be it.

I am not a programmer, but just a PM user seeking support. Hence, I am willing to offer a bounty for a solution to this.

[Moonchild]

Printing or saving to a usable PDF seems like it should be part of the core functionality for a modern browser

You can print to PDF just fine! And the PDF is perfectly usable for what PDFs are for, which is primarily output/display (sounding like a broken record here).
Exporting PDF-formatted data, meaning converting rendered html to PDF and saving it out, is most definitely NOT something that belongs in any web browser. If you think it does, then you are redefining what a web browser is supposed to be based on the fact that some mainstream ones have that particular tool as part of their line-up.

I am not a programmer, but just a PM user seeking support. Hence, I am willing to offer a bounty for a solution to this.

Then pay someone to make a browser extension that does what you need. It doesn't belong in the core.