I've just completed the first exercise for using inkscape, which is to draw a Swedish flag. I saved it as a PDF and emailed it to a Swedish friend, but all he got when he viewed the image was an empty rectangle. It seems the trouble is that somewhere in the mail system, probably in their Windows mail reader, text lines in the PDF were converted from Unix style NL termination to DOS style CR/NL termination. Sure enough when I converted the file on my system using the command:
unix2dos -n -f SwedishFlag.pdf SwedishFlag+cr.pdf
the output file displays as an empty box, using either okular or acroread.
Does anyone know what's going on here, or how to send such a file to a Windows machine without it's being trashed?
Many Thanks - jon
On 03/20/13 14:41, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
I've just completed the first exercise for using inkscape, which is to draw a Swedish flag. I saved it as a PDF and emailed it to a Swedish friend, but all he got when he viewed the image was an empty rectangle. It seems the trouble is that somewhere in the mail system, probably in their Windows mail reader, text lines in the PDF were converted from Unix style NL termination to DOS style CR/NL termination. Sure enough when I converted the file on my system using the command:
unix2dos -n -f SwedishFlag.pdf SwedishFlag+cr.pdfthe output file displays as an empty box, using either okular or acroread.
Does anyone know what's going on here, or how to send such a file to a Windows machine without it's being trashed?
At this point all I know is this....
Any PDF file to which I apply the conversion results in what you describe. A PDF file contains binary information. As such, I don't think the experiment is valid.
From the man page...
The Dos2unix package includes utilities "dos2unix" and "unix2dos" to convert plain text files in DOS or Mac format to Unix format and vice versa.
A PDF isn't a plain text file.
I would ask the recipient to check the file size they have received.
On Wed, 2013-03-20 at 14:52 +0800, Ed Greshko wrote:
On 03/20/13 14:41, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
I've just completed the first exercise for using inkscape, which is
to draw a Swedish flag. I saved it as a PDF and emailed it to a Swedish friend, but all he got when he viewed the image was an empty rectangle. It seems the trouble is that somewhere in the mail system, probably in their Windows mail reader, text lines in the PDF were converted from Unix style NL termination to DOS style CR/NL termination. Sure enough when I converted the file on my system using the command:
unix2dos -n -f SwedishFlag.pdf SwedishFlag+cr.pdfthe output file displays as an empty box, using either okular or acroread.
Does anyone know what's going on here, or how to send such a file to
a Windows machine without it's being trashed?
At this point all I know is this....
Any PDF file to which I apply the conversion results in what you describe. A PDF file contains binary information. As such, I don't think the experiment is valid.
From the man page...
The Dos2unix package includes utilities "dos2unix" and "unix2dos" to convert plain text files in DOS or Mac format to Unix format and vice versa.A PDF isn't a plain text file.
I would ask the recipient to check the file size they have received.
This much I know already. The "-f" option is required to force the conversion for binary files. The file I get after the unix2dos conversion is exactly the same as the file my recipient emailed back to me, and suffers exactly the same problem as the one I convert on my own system. Which is how I know that it's carriage return conversion that is causing the trouble with email and not something else.
The **real** question is: Why is it that when I email a PDF file to a Windows machine it usually can be read without difficulty? What's the trouble with the Swedish flag?
--
From now on, at least during winter time, Im going to blame all
spelling an grammar erros on the cat sitting on my chest every time I sit down at the computer....
I suspect the cat has been on your chest (8-).
All the best - jon
On 03/20/13 15:21, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
This much I know already. The "-f" option is required to force the conversion for binary files. The file I get after the unix2dos conversion is exactly the same as the file my recipient emailed back to me, and suffers exactly the same problem as the one I convert on my own system. Which is how I know that it's carriage return conversion that is causing the trouble with email and not something else.
The **real** question is: Why is it that when I email a PDF file to a Windows machine it usually can be read without difficulty? What's the trouble with the Swedish flag?
What I would do, to see if it makes any difference, it to take the original file (no conversion) zip it and send the zip file.
On Wed, 2013-03-20 at 15:25 +0800, Ed Greshko wrote:
On 03/20/13 15:21, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
This much I know already. The "-f" option is required to force the conversion for binary files. The file I get after the unix2dos conversion is exactly the same as the file my recipient emailed back to me, and suffers exactly the same problem as the one I convert on my own system. Which is how I know that it's carriage return conversion that is causing the trouble with email and not something else.
The **real** question is: Why is it that when I email a PDF file to a Windows machine it usually can be read without difficulty? What's the trouble with the Swedish flag?
What I would do, to see if it makes any difference, it to take the original file (no conversion) zip it and send the zip file.
Done. Lets see what my Swedish friend has to say.
-- From now on, at least during winter time, Im going to blame all spelling an grammar erros on the cat sitting on my chest every time I sit down at the computer....
On 03/20/13 15:21, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
I suspect the cat has been on your chest (8-).
Oh, now that the weather has turned warmer I am out of excuses. :-)
On Tue, 2013-03-19 at 23:41 -0700, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
I've just completed the first exercise for using inkscape, which is to draw a Swedish flag. I saved it as a PDF and emailed it to a Swedish friend, but all he got when he viewed the image was an empty rectangle. It seems the trouble is that somewhere in the mail system,
Check the MIME type that your mailer is sending it as. It should be a binary one specific to the actual file type. And the file should be not be converted, in any way, at either end.
However, if you're mistakenly sending it as a text/plain attachment, mail systems may do whatever they usually do as text files go through them, which can include translating line endings.
Likewise, if their end doesn't properly handle the type of attachment that it's receiving. Some systems label PDF files as simply being application/octet-stream, which just means generic non-specific binary, and some systems mishandle such files.
When you say you saved it as a PDF, are you actually saving as a PDF filetype, or just tacking PDF onto the end of the filename? Related to that, are you sending a PDF file type without giving it a PDF filename?
How did you email it? What mail program did you use?
On Wed, 2013-03-20 at 20:05 +1030, Tim wrote:
On Tue, 2013-03-19 at 23:41 -0700, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
I've just completed the first exercise for using inkscape, which is to draw a Swedish flag. I saved it as a PDF and emailed it to a Swedish friend, but all he got when he viewed the image was an empty rectangle. It seems the trouble is that somewhere in the mail system,
Check the MIME type that your mailer is sending it as. It should be a binary one specific to the actual file type. And the file should be not be converted, in any way, at either end.
However, if you're mistakenly sending it as a text/plain attachment, mail systems may do whatever they usually do as text files go through them, which can include translating line endings.
Likewise, if their end doesn't properly handle the type of attachment that it's receiving. Some systems label PDF files as simply being application/octet-stream, which just means generic non-specific binary, and some systems mishandle such files.
When you say you saved it as a PDF, are you actually saving as a PDF filetype, or just tacking PDF onto the end of the filename? Related to that, are you sending a PDF file type without giving it a PDF filename?
I'm a little perplexed. Linux doesn't mark files with their type, as Mac systems do. The file has a .pdf extension, and the file command shows it as PDF type. $ file SwedishFlag.pdf SwedishFlag.pdf: PDF document, version 1.5
How did you email it? What mail program did you use?
The email program is evolution. I clicked "Send".
Here is the start of the section of the message containing the attachment in question: Content-Type: application/pdf; name="SwedishFlag.pdf" Content-Description: Content-Disposition: inline; filename="SwedishFlag.pdf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
I've attached a copy of SwedishFlag.pdf. Also SwedishFlag.zip, as suggested in an earlier posting. Let's see what the mail system does to them in Linux systems.
Thanks - jon
Am 20.03.2013 16:57, schrieb Jonathan Ryshpan:
I'm a little perplexed. Linux doesn't mark files with their type, as Mac systems do. The file has a .pdf extension, and the file command shows it as PDF type. $ file SwedishFlag.pdf SwedishFlag.pdf: PDF document, version 1.5
linux does not need to mark a file nor a extension and the ressource-fork concept of OSX is broken by design
[harry@rh:~/Desktop]$ file rpm.pdf rpm.pdf: PDF document, version 1.4
[harry@rh:~/Desktop]$ mv rpm.pdf rpm.what-do-i-know
[harry@rh:~/Desktop]$ file rpm.what-do-i-know rpm.what-do-i-know: PDF document, version 1.4
Am 20.03.2013 16:57, schrieb Jonathan Ryshpan:
I've attached a copy of SwedishFlag.pdf. Also SwedishFlag.zip, as suggested in an earlier posting. Let's see what the mail system does to them in Linux systems.
well and our dbmail-server does not trash anything double-klick in thunderbird and it opens in okular
so it must be your incoming mailserver or your client or your IMAP server if you are referring to the sent folder which get pushed the messages via IMAP-append
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 08:57:29AM -0700, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
On Wed, 2013-03-20 at 20:05 +1030, Tim wrote:
On Tue, 2013-03-19 at 23:41 -0700, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
I've just completed the first exercise for using inkscape, which is to draw a Swedish flag. I saved it as a PDF and emailed it to a Swedish friend, but all he got when he viewed the image was an empty rectangle. It seems the trouble is that somewhere in the mail system,
Check the MIME type that your mailer is sending it as. It should be a binary one specific to the actual file type. And the file should be not be converted, in any way, at either end.
However, if you're mistakenly sending it as a text/plain attachment, mail systems may do whatever they usually do as text files go through them, which can include translating line endings.
Likewise, if their end doesn't properly handle the type of attachment that it's receiving. Some systems label PDF files as simply being application/octet-stream, which just means generic non-specific binary, and some systems mishandle such files.
When you say you saved it as a PDF, are you actually saving as a PDF filetype, or just tacking PDF onto the end of the filename? Related to that, are you sending a PDF file type without giving it a PDF filename?
I'm a little perplexed. Linux doesn't mark files with their type, as Mac systems do. The file has a .pdf extension, and the file command shows it as PDF type. $ file SwedishFlag.pdf SwedishFlag.pdf: PDF document, version 1.5
How did you email it? What mail program did you use?
The email program is evolution. I clicked "Send".
Here is the start of the section of the message containing the attachment in question: Content-Type: application/pdf; name="SwedishFlag.pdf" Content-Description: Content-Disposition: inline; filename="SwedishFlag.pdf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
I've attached a copy of SwedishFlag.pdf. Also SwedishFlag.zip, as suggested in an earlier posting. Let's see what the mail system does to them in Linux systems.
Thanks - jon
the pdf file displays as a swedish flag, here, on Centos 6.4, using mutt.
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Swedish flag here using Adobe reader 9.5.1 on Linux rwells-lnx 3.7.9-104.fc17.x86_64 #1 SMP Sun Feb 24 19:19:12 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
received via Thunderbird 17.0.4
HTH roger
On 03/20/2013 01:46 PM, Patrick Lists wrote:
On 03/20/2013 05:12 PM, Fred Smith wrote: [snip]
the pdf file displays as a swedish flag, here, on Centos 6.4, using mutt.
Same for me on F17 x86_64 using Thunderbird.
Regards, Patrick
On Wed, 2013-03-20 at 14:03 -0400, Roger K. Wells wrote:
Swedish flag here using Adobe reader 9.5.1 on Linux rwells-lnx 3.7.9-104.fc17.x86_64 #1 SMP Sun Feb 24 19:19:12 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
received via Thunderbird 17.0.4
HTH roger
On 03/20/2013 01:46 PM, Patrick Lists wrote:
On 03/20/2013 05:12 PM, Fred Smith wrote: [snip]
the pdf file displays as a swedish flag, here, on Centos 6.4, using mutt.
Same for me on F17 x86_64 using Thunderbird.
Regards, Patrick
Swedish flag here using Fedora 14 x86_64, Evolution and Adobe Reader
Charlie
On 03/20/2013 11:57 AM, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
On Wed, 2013-03-20 at 20:05 +1030, Tim wrote:
On Tue, 2013-03-19 at 23:41 -0700, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
I've just completed the first exercise for using inkscape, which is to draw a Swedish flag. I saved it as a PDF and emailed it to a Swedish friend, but all he got when he viewed the image was an empty rectangle. It seems the trouble is that somewhere in the mail system,
Check the MIME type that your mailer is sending it as. It should be a binary one specific to the actual file type. And the file should be not be converted, in any way, at either end.
However, if you're mistakenly sending it as a text/plain attachment, mail systems may do whatever they usually do as text files go through them, which can include translating line endings.
Likewise, if their end doesn't properly handle the type of attachment that it's receiving. Some systems label PDF files as simply being application/octet-stream, which just means generic non-specific binary, and some systems mishandle such files.
When you say you saved it as a PDF, are you actually saving as a PDF filetype, or just tacking PDF onto the end of the filename? Related to that, are you sending a PDF file type without giving it a PDF filename?
I'm a little perplexed. Linux doesn't mark files with their type, as Mac systems do. The file has a .pdf extension, and the file command shows it as PDF type. $ file SwedishFlag.pdf SwedishFlag.pdf: PDF document, version 1.5
How did you email it? What mail program did you use?
The email program is evolution. I clicked "Send".
Here is the start of the section of the message containing the attachment in question: Content-Type: application/pdf; name="SwedishFlag.pdf" Content-Description: Content-Disposition: inline; filename="SwedishFlag.pdf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
I've attached a copy of SwedishFlag.pdf. Also SwedishFlag.zip, as suggested in an earlier posting. Let's see what the mail system does to them in Linux systems.
Thanks - jon
Opens and displays correctly in CentOS 6.4 using default document viewer.
On 03/20/13 23:57, Jonathan Ryshpan wrote:
Here is the start of the section of the message containing the attachment in question: Content-Type: application/pdf; name="SwedishFlag.pdf" Content-Description: Content-Disposition: inline; filename="SwedishFlag.pdf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
It would be hard to believe.... But, one plausible explanation is that the MTA of the receiving side, or an in between hop, isn't 8bit clean.
If the zip, which is base64 encoded, makes it and all displays well then it most likely the case.
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 9:57 AM, Jonathan Ryshpan jonrysh@pacbell.netwrote:
I've attached a copy of SwedishFlag.pdf. Also SwedishFlag.zip, as suggested in an earlier posting. Let's see what the mail system does to them in Linux systems.
Thanks - jon
Using view from within google mail (Via Firefox on Fedora18) on the .pdf
attachment I see a blank square. Using view on the zip attachment I get a new page with the zip contents were I can select view again on the contained file and then am presented with a proper Swedish flag.
Murry
Allegedly, on or about 20 March 2013, Jonathan Ryshpan sent:
I'm a little perplexed. Linux doesn't mark files with their type, as Mac systems do. The file has a .pdf extension, and the file command shows it as PDF type. $ file SwedishFlag.pdf SwedishFlag.pdf: PDF document, version 1.5
When you attach a file to an email, the mail headers identify the type of file that's being attached, to *help* the recipient handle it (it particularly helps in the cases where it's useful to know what the file is before it's un-encoded from the message). This is an email issue, not an OS issue.
On the whole, Linux identifies types of files by examining their content. Applications can ask the system to identify the file for them, then use that information. Applications could also use another technique. For example, the Apache webserver does use the filename suffixes as a filetype identifier.
How did you email it? What mail program did you use?
The email program is evolution. I clicked "Send".
I'm using Evolution, too. I should probably have asked those questions a bit better. I was thinking along the lines of was it "attached" or just dumped into a message editor. Or, a mail program (like Evolution) or a webmail service. But you've answered that, by now.
Here is the start of the section of the message containing the attachment in question: Content-Type: application/pdf; name="SwedishFlag.pdf" Content-Description: Content-Disposition: inline; filename="SwedishFlag.pdf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
That looks normal. However, some seriously out-of-date clients might expect older descriptions, and be looking for something else. That's their problem, though, not yours.
e.g. "application/x-pdf"
I've attached a copy of SwedishFlag.pdf. Also SwedishFlag.zip, as suggested in an earlier posting. Let's see what the mail system does to them in Linux systems.
I received the PDF with appropriate headers, and it's viewable in the PDF viewer. Likewise with the ZIP file, and the PDF inside it.
Interestingly, the PDF file is sent as 8-bit. It's sent "as-is" and not further encoded. But the ZIP file has been base64 encoded. I suppose there is the chance that your recipient has received the mail through one of those broken services which (allegedly) "helpfully" transcode 8-bit data on the way through them, and mangle it in the process. Again, that would be something out of your control, and not your problem.
I'd ask your problem recipient to send one your mails back to you, with all its attachments intact. e.g. Forward your message as an attachment to one of theirs. Then you can have a look at the message source, to see if they've received it in the same manner that you sent it.
I don't think you mentioned what the recipient was using. Linux, something else? Would they know what they're doing, would they expect the computer to do everything for them automatically?
-
Charlie McVeigh -
Ed Greshko -
Fred Smith -
Jonathan Ryshpan -
Mark LaPierre -
Murry McEntire -
Patrick Lists -
Reindl Harald -
Roger K. Wells -
Tim