ghostscript cannot find fonts (such as Times)

[andrewhw (Andrew Wright)]

When running ghostscript on simple files (example attached), I receive "Can't find (or can't open) font file" errors.

This error occurs in dependent ghostscript tools (gv and xdvi for instance).

Error message here:

% gs McNemar-Delta-Plot.eps 
GPL Ghostscript 9.10 (2013-08-30)
Copyright (C) 2013 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
Loading StandardSymL font from /opt/local/share/ghostscript/9.10/Resource/Font/StandardSymL... 3676508 2201424 4439120 2782307 2 done.
Can't find (or can't open) font file /opt/local/share/ghostscript/9.10/Resource/Font/Times.
Can't find (or can't open) font file Times.
Querying operating system for font files...
Error: /typecheck in /findfont
Operand stack:
   Times
Execution stack:
   %interp_exit   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   false   1   %stopped_push   1916   1   3   %oparray_pop   1915   1   3   %oparray_pop   --nostringval--   1899   1   3   %oparray_pop   1787   1   3   %oparray_pop   --nostringval--   %errorexec_pop   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--   1868   1   4   %oparray_pop
Dictionary stack:
   --dict:1171/1684(ro)(G)--   --dict:0/20(G)--   --dict:83/200(L)--   --dict:184/256(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Last OS error: Invalid argument
Current file position is 17091
GPL Ghostscript 9.10: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

The lack of anything Times related in the font directory seems suspicious to me:

% ls /opt/local/share/ghostscript/9.10/Resource/Font/
CenturySchL-Bold                NimbusSanL-ReguCond
CenturySchL-BoldItal            NimbusSanL-ReguCondItal
CenturySchL-Ital                NimbusSanL-ReguItal
CenturySchL-Roma                StandardSymL
Dingbats                        URWBookmanL-DemiBold
NimbusMonL-Bold                 URWBookmanL-DemiBoldItal
NimbusMonL-BoldObli             URWBookmanL-Ligh
NimbusMonL-Regu                 URWBookmanL-LighItal
NimbusMonL-ReguObli             URWChanceryL-MediItal
NimbusRomNo9L-Medi              URWGothicL-Book
NimbusRomNo9L-MediItal          URWGothicL-BookObli
NimbusRomNo9L-Regu              URWGothicL-Demi
NimbusRomNo9L-ReguItal          URWGothicL-DemiObli
NimbusSanL-Bold                 URWPalladioL-Bold
NimbusSanL-BoldCond             URWPalladioL-BoldItal
NimbusSanL-BoldCondItal         URWPalladioL-Ital
NimbusSanL-BoldItal             URWPalladioL-Roma
NimbusSanL-Regu

[andrewhw (Andrew Wright)]

Sample eps file using Times

[andrewhw (Andrew Wright)]

I should additionally mention that this .eps file reads fine using other tools, and using ghostscript on a FreeBSD machine.

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

Cc Me!

[Ionic (Mihai Moldovan)]

Potential duplicate of #41895.

[andrewhw (Andrew Wright)]

I'm not so sure that this is a duplicate of the issue in #41895 -- that ticket deals with a missing letter within a loaded font; this one has to do with a complete failure to load any font whatsoever.

One important item related to the discussion in #41895 is the idea of falling back to a default font set. Times (as well as Helvetica and I believe the Dingbats) are meant to be the defined "always there" fonts to which a font search can fall back. The issue I noted here is the failure to find Times -- so therefore there is nowhere to go in the fallback sequence.

I briefly thought that this issue was resolved -- gv version 3.7.4 can load and display the file, but direct use of ghostscript still fails as above.

Addendum:

Although it still seems odd to me that there is no Times related font installed in the font dir, thing are working now:

% ls /opt/local/share/ghostscript/9.10/Resource/Font/
CenturySchL-Bold                NimbusSanL-ReguCond
CenturySchL-BoldItal            NimbusSanL-ReguCondItal
CenturySchL-Ital                NimbusSanL-ReguItal
CenturySchL-Roma                StandardSymL
Dingbats                        URWBookmanL-DemiBold
NimbusMonL-Bold                 URWBookmanL-DemiBoldItal
NimbusMonL-BoldObli             URWBookmanL-Ligh
NimbusMonL-Regu                 URWBookmanL-LighItal
NimbusMonL-ReguObli             URWChanceryL-MediItal
NimbusRomNo9L-Medi              URWGothicL-Book
NimbusRomNo9L-MediItal          URWGothicL-BookObli
NimbusRomNo9L-Regu              URWGothicL-Demi
NimbusRomNo9L-ReguItal          URWGothicL-DemiObli
NimbusSanL-Bold                 URWPalladioL-Bold
NimbusSanL-BoldCond             URWPalladioL-BoldItal
NimbusSanL-BoldCondItal         URWPalladioL-Ital
NimbusSanL-BoldItal             URWPalladioL-Roma
NimbusSanL-Regu

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

I checked ghostscript-fonts-std-8.11.tar.gz, but there is no font with a name Times in it either. There are plenty of similar bug reports on linux forums, but it's not clear to me what the solution to their problem was.

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

takanori has retired. See #47537.