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I'm trying to get a better sense of how the "Print to File" option works on Linux Mint. Basically, when I open a PDF with Evince and print it to PDF, the output is different from the original, and typically quirks in the original file are cleaned up in the output. If I pipe the original file through Ghostscript instead, the output is closer to the original. How do I figure out how "Print to File" works differently from Ghostscript?

lobati
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  • Strace would be one way -- http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/18872/117549 – Jeff Schaller Apr 09 '16 at 23:16
  • I played around with strace for a while but it looks like that shows low level system calls. I'm more interested in the various applications/processes that get triggered by a particular process. I've still got some to learn about it, though. Is there a way to get this information using strace? – lobati Apr 09 '16 at 23:21
  • Look for exec calls. Also, -f follow children processes. – Jeff Schaller Apr 09 '16 at 23:21
  • Hmm, no exec calls in the output. I tacked on a -f, too. A lot of read, write and random other system calls. – lobati Apr 09 '16 at 23:30
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    It may be that they are standalone, independent processes (and code bases) that simply do it differently. – Jeff Schaller Apr 09 '16 at 23:54
  • Yeah, I think that's probably true, but I'm trying to get a better idea of what those look like. Ghostscript is easy enough to come by, but how would I go about finding the printer stuff? – lobati Apr 09 '16 at 23:56
  • I'm out of my depth, but if I were you I'd probably dig into the source for evince. Also, consider editing your Q's title to reflect your actual goal (pdf differences) to avoid red herring chases (like strace) – Jeff Schaller Apr 10 '16 at 00:01

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