TCPDF UTF-8 symbols not showing up - php

Question

Im using latest TCPDF version(5.9). But have some strange problems with encoding. I need Lithuanian language symbols like: ąčęėįšųūž. But get only few of it. Other remain like ?????
So what should I do ? I use default times font(it comes with TCPDF download).
Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

TCPDF is quite tricky with utf8. Best way to achieve what you want is to embed the font in generated PDF file itself. You can use freeserif font from the TCPDF package, it contains all the utf8 symbols, shows absolutely any character of any language, but adds ~700kb to the output file. That's probably the easiest way to get symbols you need if file size doesn't matter.
You could also make your own font to embed, containing the characters you need. That's probably the best solution, keeping it universal and small in size, but is more complex.
Alternatively, you can relay on core fonts, which are taken from the system, and if not found, replaced by a substitute. This makes output file extremely light, but adds the necessity of font subsetting to obtain exotic chars. Personally I haven't had a success with this, so I still think embedding font is the best solution, which also happens to be more universal..

Answer 2

there is a font included in the CPDF core fonts - dejavusans, it shows all the lithuanian characters. Just add the following:
$pdf->setHeaderFont(Array('dejavusans', '', 10, '', false));
$pdf->setFooterFont(Array('dejavusans', '', 8, '', false));
$pdf->SetFont('dejavusans', '', 10, '', false);

Answer 3

Set the $unicode parameter on the TCPDF constructor to false and the $encoding parameter to 'ISO-8859-1' or some other character map.
This will help you:
Default for UTF-8 unicode:
$pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8', false);
Example of constructor for European charset:
$pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, false, 'ISO-8859-1', false);

Answer 4

Set font to freeserif it will work.
I tested.
$pdf->SetFont('freeserif', '', 14, '', true);

Answer 5

Just discovered this same situation when trying to render Romanian text using the default Helvetica font. In doing some investigation I found that the tcpdf library treats it's default fonts (referred to as "core" fonts) as Latin1 characters so even if you tell it to use UTF-8 encoding and set the unicode flag, it will literally translate your text to Latin1 equivalents prior to rendering. The default behavior of the library is, if it finds a Latin1 equivalent, to translate each character that it can find an equivalent for otherwise it translates the character as '?'.
This can be found inside the TCPDF class in the following method chain:
Write() -> Cell() -> getCellCode() -> _escapetext().
Inside of _escapetext() you can see it is checking for $this->isunicode then checking the selected font to see if it's type is core|TrueType|Type1. If it is, it will take the string an "latinize" it for you by way of the UTF8ToLatin1() method. This is where the '?' translations are taking place.
My recommendation would be to use a custom unicode font (like Deja Vu Sans) that is similar to the default font you are after. That worked for me in my current situation.

Answer 6

To use TCPDF with special characters like ฿, 포 or others
you need to use a unicode font:
download the font here:
ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/unix/X11/multimedia/MPlayer/contrib/fonts/arialuni.ttf.bz2
create a test pdf file and load this font into TCPDF
example:
$fontname = $pdf->addTTFfont('/var/www/app/images/fonts/arialuni.ttf', 'TrueTypeUnicode', '', 32);
this will create the fonts like:
application/libraries/tcpdf/fonts/arialuni.ctg.z
application/libraries/tcpdf/fonts/arialuni.php
application/libraries/tcpdf/fonts/arialuni.z
now you can set the new font with :
$pdf->SetFont('arialuni', '', 10.5);
and now you can use special unicode characters like ฿ and more....
Source :
http://myridia.com/dev_posts/view/852

Answer 7

You u have problem to read character like Karnātaka from database and display like this karn?taka I mean "?" which we don't want then do following things :
Define charset for the connection (mysql_set_charset()):
$con = mysql_connect("localhost","root","");
if (!$con)
{
die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
}
mysql_select_db("database_name", $con) or die(mysql_error());
mysql_set_charset('utf8',$con);
Use $pdf->SetFont('DejaVuSerif', '', 10); instead of $pdf->SetFont('helvetica', 'B', 12);
For TCPDF Library of the PHP read character like Rājasthān instead of R?jasth?n from database

Answer 8

IIRC, you can define an encoding when you create a new font, as described here. Otherwise, you have to use the encoding that was defined when the font was created. It sounds like the fonts that ship with TCPDF all use WinAnsiEncoding... a.k.a. code page 1252.
Clunky, but effective.

Answer 9

With default TCPDF package tested dejavusans and freeserif and both fonts works with lithuanian characters. I also typed few russian characters and they worked too. I used this code to test it:
$this->pdf = new \TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8', false);
$this->pdf->AddPage();
$this->pdf->SetFont('dejavusans', 'B', 20); // UTF8 fonts with lithuanian support: freeserif, dejavusans
$this->pdf->Write(0, 'ąžūčšęėųįĄŽŪČŠĘĖŲĮ Превед Кросавчег!', '', 0, 'C', true, 0, false, false, 0);

Answer 10

With dejavusans font it worked fine for both Russian and Latvian letters.

Answer 11

With me it was a font problem. I used the font timesand my local multibyte chras wouldn't show up properly. When I changed it to freeserif they were working normally :)

Answer 12

For this use the following code of the parameter TCPDF constructor
$pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, false, 'ISO-8859-1', false);
It will help you.

Answer 13

$fontname = $pdf->addTTFfont('C:\xampp\htdocs\copyshop\fonts\07-TH-Sarabun-PSK\THSarabun.ttf', 'TrueTypeUnicode', '', 32);
$pdf->SetFont($fontname, '', 16,'',FALSE); //Working

Answer 14

I had the same issue with Romanian characters and the problem wasn't the encoding, LC_CTYPE or other setting from TCPDF, but the font I used.
I mention that I used TWIG templating with Courier font.
You can try to change your font to freeserif

Answer 15

change the font to show normally ₹ and Lithuanian symbols
$pdf->SetFont('cid0cs', '', 12);

Answer 16

To faced this issue and I had to use dejavusans font which is a UTF-8 Unicode font. This help fix the encoding issue when render UTF-8 words like ąčęėįšųūž.
However, I was using helvetica font which is standard ASCII font, and changing document's font to dejavusans make it ugly.
To fix this I set two fonts to be loaded in the document and specified a part of the document to use dejavusans font
$pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8', false);
/*
......
set margins and other options
......
*/
// Set font
// dejavusans is a UTF-8 Unicode font,
// if you only need to print standard ASCII chars,
// you can use core fonts like helvetica or times to reduce file size.
$pdf->SetFont('dejavusans', '', 12, '', true);
$pdf->SetFont('helvetica', '', 12, '', true);
$html = '<div style="font-family: helvetica;">' . $clientName . '</div><div style="font-family: dejavusans;">' . $clientAddress . '</div>';
// Print text using writeHTMLCell()
$pdf->writeHTMLCell($w=0, $h=0, $x='', $y='', $html, $border=0, $ln=1, $fill=0, $reseth=true, $align='', $autopadding=true);
$pdf->Output('invoice.pdf', 'I');