PDF font multibyte character display

The display of multibyte characters in the print to PDF mode has some limitations.

The languages for which these limitations apply:

  • Arabic
  • Greek
  • Hebrew
  • Russian
  • Turkish
  • Polish
  • Baltic
  • Chinese
  • Korean
  • Japanese
  • Other languages that do not display correct.

To show characters from these languages correctly in your PDF file, use these two options:

  1. Use arialuni.ttf

    The ttf-files arialuni.ttf and/or arial.ttf font files must be present on a certain location. These font files are Windows TrueType fonts, and usually present on a Windows environment in the folder $WINDIR/Fonts.

    If the file(s) is not present, it must be installed to this location from the Windows installation medium. These fonts work on any other environment if they are placed in the correct folder.

    For these environments the correct folder is:

    For Solaris: /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType/

    For Linux: /usr/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType/

    For UNIX: /usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType/

    If the converter cannot determine the environment, the converter tries the UNIX folder. Sometimes it was required to place ttf-files in the UNIX-folder for Solaris.)

    This font folder can also be set in PDF.properties by adding ttf-font-path property. On Windows systems ensure the path-separator is / or \\.

    For example: ttf-font-path = C:ttf-files/

    If you place the arialuni.ttf and/or arial.ttf file in this folder, for example by copying it from a Windows system, the characters from the specified languages are shown correctly.

    For monospaced reports the cour.ttf file is required in the folder mentioned earlier, to ensure an optimal layout.

    If the cour.ttf file is not present, all the characters show up correctly, but the layout of different lines in the pdf file with respect to each other may not be optimal.

  2. Use a folder containing ttf and/or otf files

    The font that supports the most languages is probably the Noto-font made by Google. The converter supports this font if these steps are completed:

    1. Download the noto-font from https://www.google.com/get/noto/
    2. Store NotoSans*-Regular.ttf and NotoSans*-Regular.otf in a local folder, for example c:/fonts/notosans.
    3. Add default-proportional-font=c:/fonts/notosans/ to PDF.properties

    The same procedure is also valid for other fonts. Ensure this folder does not contain multiple different fonts, but only the different internationalized files for a single font.