PDF Text - Poor Quality

[unterm]

The text in my PDFs is quite fuzzy and hard to read, and the thinner the text the worse it gets. This does not appear to be as much of a problem in other applications and I've uploaded a browser page (left) and a pdf (right) to show the difference. This makes me suspect it's something specific to the way PDFs are being displayed. I have checked using different PDF viewers and the problem is the same.

Font settings: Subpixel smoothing (LCDs)
Ubuntu Mate 16.10
Mate Desktop environment: 1.16.0

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Klimate]

Bonjour, je pense que la compression des pdf est trop importante et donc les pdf apparaissent plus ou moins flou.
cordialement

Hello, I think the compression of the pdf is too important and therefore the pdf appear more or less blur.
cordially

[alpinejohn]

Hallo

We need more to go on.

• How were the pdf files produced (software)?
• What settings were used?
• Could you list the “properties” of some examples?
• Are they images converted to pdf or text converted to pdf (and OCR’d)?
• Which pdf readers have you tried?

The more information you can provide the greater the chance that one of us may be able to help.

[unterm]

Here is more info:

1. The PDF results are the same regardless of the production method. The example shown above was downloaded from the internet but I also get this problem when compiling latex files to PDF.
2. The PDF viewer settings have been left at their default. I did try changing Okular's backend to "Enhance thin lines" but no effect.
3. 2 PDF properties examples below. Left for the Lorem Ipsum downloaded PDF and the right for a latex generated pdf by me.
4. Text to PDF
5. Atril, Okular, MuPDF - all give the same problem

Thanks

[alpinejohn]

This sounds like a “font rendering” problem.

• try opening the pdf files in firefox. Is there any improvement?
• what “graphics acceleration” features have you active (compiz or the like)? What happens when you turn them off (and re-boot)?
• how does you computer handle graphics (intel-on-board or grapics card)?
• if you have a graphics card, have you installed the “proprietary drivers”? If not try that, what happens?

I’m more or less out of ideas here, can anyone else help?

P.S.
Did you have these problems when using Ubuntu-Mate 16.04.2 ?

[unterm]

1. Surprisingly opening the PDF in Firefox is better than the system PDF viewers! Any idea why that would be?

2. Window manager: Macro (Compton GPU compositor) - changes have no effect on Atril viewer PDF

3. Graphics card - I’ve checked and it’s using the Radeon driver

4. “proprietary drivers” option is not available in the menu for the graphics card

5. Yes - problem existed in 16.04.-latest in March

Thanks

[alpinejohn]

Hallo

Have you seen this:

AMD/ATI owners read this before upgrading to 16.04

EDIT: POSSIBLE SOLUTION FOR SOME WHO HAVE A CARD ON THE LIST HERE: http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMD-Radeon-GPU-PRO-Linux-Beta-Driver–Release-Notes.aspx Take a look here if you have an AMD/ATI graphics card/chip if you intend to upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04: IF YOU ARE LUCKY YOU WILL FIND YOUR AMD CARD ON THE FOLLOWING LIST BUT PLEASE BE CAREFUL AND DON’T CHANCE YOUR ARM!: https://support.amd.com/en-us/download/linux

Your problem may possibly be at this level - it might be worth trying 17.04 (I've no information to suggest that this will help though).

Is replacing the graphics card an option?

I hope you manage to solve your problem.

[unterm]

Thanks for checking back

I didn’t know about that but it does help explain why I couldn’t find the proprietary drivers for my card!

To-date I’ve resorted to enlarging PDFs to get around the poor text display and will try upgrading to the new version.

Did you have any idea why Firefox would display text in PDFs better than the system PDF viewers?

It’s quite a nice graphics card so I’d rather not!