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<head>
<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label pkfix</title>
</head><body>
<h3>Replacing Type 3 fonts in PostScript</h3>
<p/>One often comes across a PostScript file generated by
<i>dvips</i> which contains embedded PK fonts; if you try
to generate PDF from such a file, the quality will be poor.
<p/>Of course, the proper solution is to regenerate the PostScript file,
but if neither the sources nor the DVI file are available, one
must needs resort to some sort of patching to replace the bitmap fonts
in the file by outline fonts.
<p/>The program <i>pkfix</i> (by Heiko Oberdiek) will do this
patching, for files created by &ldquo;not too old versions&rdquo; of
<i>dvips</i>: it finds the fonts to be replaced by examining the
PostScript comments <i>dvips</i> has put in the file.  For each
font, <i>pkfix</i> puts appropriate TeX commands in a file,
which it then processes and runs through <i>dvips</i> (with switch
<code>-Ppdf</code>) to acquire an appropriate copy of the font; these copies are
then patched back into the original file.
<p/>If your source file is older than <i>pkfix</i> can deal with,
there&rsquo;s still a modicum of hope: <i>pkfix-helper</i> examines the
bitmap fonts in a document, compares them with the metric
(<code>.tfm</code>) fonts on your system and comes to a view of which
font might be which.  The program reports on &ldquo;poor&rdquo; matches, and
there are options for confirming, or replacing, its guesses.  The
technique (which sounds implausible) is successful enough to be worth
a try.
<p/>A further option is Frank Siegert&rsquo;s (shareware)
<a href="http://www.pstill.com">PStill</a>, which is capable of processing
the PostScript it is distilling, and one option is to replace bitmap fonts
in the file with Type 1 versions.
<dl>
<dt><tt><i>pkfix</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/support/pkfix.zip">support/pkfix</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/support/pkfix/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>pkfix-helper</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/support/pkfix-helper.zip">support/pkfix-helper</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/support/pkfix-helper/">browse the directory</a>)
</dl>
<p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=pkfix">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=pkfix</a>
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