dvips: ! Bad PK file

Question

Here is my latex code:

\documentclass{ctexart}
\begin{document}
中文宏包测试
\end{document}

I install the ctex and zhmetrics with Texlive, but I still get the error message:
dvips: ! Bad PK file /home/jerry/texmf/fonts/pk/modeless/zhmetrics/gbksong/gbksong51.9640pk: unexpected eof
I cannot find the where it goes wrong. Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

As a developer of ctex package, I'd say: ctex does NOT support latex+dvips approach by default. And zhmetrics does not provide mapping files for ttf2pk to create PK fonts on the fly.

When compiling with latex command, ctex package uses zhmetrics with default zhmap option. Then zhwinfonts.tex is used and TrueType font mappings are configured for dvipdfmx only. And when compiling with pdflatex command, TureType font mappings are configured for pdfTeX. Dvips do not support this, and we do not support dvips.

You can only use one of these to compile your documents:

• latex + dvipdfmx
• pdflatex
• xelatex

---

If you insist on dvips, you must use ttf2pt1 or fontforge to convert the TrueType fonts to type 1 format. Then write a font mapping file and use updmap utility to install them.

Or, you can write proper ttfonts.map to get bitmap fonts on the fly.

After that, you can use ctexart with nozhmap option to use type 1 or PK fonts. (It is illegal as I know.)

Type 1 Chinese fonts are only useful for MetaPost. It is not recommended to use type 1 fonts.

Answer 2

The error message:

dvips: ! Bad PK file /home/jerry/texmf/fonts/pk/modeless/zhmetrics/gbksong/gbksong51.9640pk: unexpected eof

indicates that the mentioned file is not complete, i.e. some part is missing at the end of the file (eof). This could easily happened when the copy process of the file was interrupted during installation. Simply reinstall the file and it should work.