GhostScript merge PDFS get error /undefined in findresource on CentOS 6.3

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GhostScript merge PDFS get error /undefined in findresource

What's wrong?

I am trying to merge two PDFs together using gs, the following command does the job:

gs -q -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=/tmp/output.pdf input1.pdf input2.pdf

I got error:

Error: /undefined in findresource
Operand stack:
   --dict:11/11(L)--   1.0   0.999999   --dict:11/11(L)--   1   10   Sota-Regular   56.8   --dict:6/6(L)--   --dict:6/6(L)--   Sota-Regular   --dict:10/12(ro)(G)--   --nostringval--   CIDFontObject   --dict:7/7(L)--   --dict:7/7(L)--   Arial
Execution stack:
   %interp_exit   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   false   1   %stopped_push   1862   1   3   %oparray_pop   1861   1   3   %oparray_pop   1845   1   3   %oparray_pop   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   1   1   --nostringval--   %for_pos_int_continue   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   %array_continue   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   1810   7   11   %oparray_pop   --nostringval--   false   1   %stopped_push   1809   7   11   %oparray_pop   --nostringval--   (gstatetype)   --dict:0/0(L)--   --nostringval--   false   1   %stopped_push   --nostringval--   %loop_continue   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   %array_continue   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   %loop_continue
Dictionary stack:
   --dict:1152/1684(ro)(G)--   --dict:1/20(G)--   --dict:75/200(L)--   --dict:75/200(L)--   --dict:106/127(ro)(G)--   --dict:285/300(ro)(G)--   --dict:22/25(L)--   --dict:4/6(L)--   --dict:22/40(L)--   --dict:20/25(L)--   --dict:1/1(ro)(G)--   --dict:8/15(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Last OS error: 2
GPL Ghostscript 8.70: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

Troubleshooting

Doing some googling, and I found this bug http://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=691345. Great! At least I think I have some clue now.

Reading the stacktrace shows that:

--dict:11/11(L)--   1.0   0.999999   --dict:11/11(L)--   1   10  Sota-Regular   56.8   --dict:6/6(L)--   --dict:6/6(L)--   Sota-Regular   --dict:10/12(ro)(G)--   --nostringval--   CIDFontObject   --dict:7/7(L)--   --dict:7/7(L)--   Arial

The Sota-Regular font is missing, thus gs will try to fallback to Arial font which is not yet installed by default on Centos 6.3 So I decided to google again for the RPM, and I found this blog post http://oimon.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/msttcorefonts-on-rhel6-centos-6-sl6/.

Create msttcorefonts RPM for Centos 6.3

To summarize all the steps in that blog post, here are main steps to create the msttcorefonts.rpm:

sudo yum install rpm-build
sudo yum install cabextract
sudo yuim install ttmkfdir

# Download spec file into /tmp
cd /tmp
wget http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec

Then use your favorite text editor and create msttcorefonts.rhel6.patch file with content:

--- msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec	2011-09-05 11:09:57.206756336 +0100
+++ msttcorefonts-2.0-1.1.spec	2011-09-05 11:23:56.925761649 +0100
@@ -19,8 +19,8 @@
 BuildPrereq: %{ttmkfdir}
 BuildPrereq: wget
 BuildPrereq: cabextract
-Prereq: /usr/sbin/chkfontpath
-Packager: Noa Resare <noa@resare.com>
+#Prereq: /usr/sbin/chkfontpath
+#Packager: Noa Resare <noa@resare.com>
 
 %description
 The TrueType core fonts for the web that was once available from
@@ -152,7 +152,7 @@
 %post
 if test $1 -eq 1
 then
-	/usr/sbin/chkfontpath --add %{fontdir}
+	ln -s /usr/share/fonts/msttcorefonts/ /etc/X11/fontpath.d/msttcorefonts
 fi
 # something has probably changed, update the font-config cache
 if test -x /usr/bin/fc-cache
@@ -163,7 +163,7 @@
 %preun
 if test $1 -eq 0
 then
-	/usr/sbin/chkfontpath --remove %{fontdir}
+	/bin/rm -f /etc/X11/fontpath.d/msttcorefonts
 fi
 
 %files

and we patch the spec file:

patch < msttcorefonts.rhel6.patch

then build and install it:

rpmbuild -bb msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec
cd ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch
sudo yum localinstall msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec

and now you can verify by checking the /usr/share/fonts/msttcorefonts/

Tell ghostscript to look for substitution font

Please edit /etc/ghostscript/8.70/cidfmap.local and add following content:

/Arial << /FileType /TrueType /Path (/usr/share/fonts/msttcorefonts/arial.ttf) /SubfontID 0 /CSI [(Artifex) (Unicode) 0] >> ;

That's it. It should fix the problem now for you :)