How to configure iText to support Asian characters?

Question

My Java application creates PDF files using iText. Sometimes the content is Asian, which does not work. Asian characters are not visible.

I found iTextAsian.jariText on the download page, but don't know how to use it.

The goal is to use my favorite default font. But when a character is unavailable, a different font is used for that character. I read, iText can automatically select fonts this way, but how to configure this?

I also want all the necessary fonts to be included in the PDF, so users do not need to install Asian fonts on their computers.

Answer 1

• You can define "FontSelector" and then add fonts (fontSelector.AddFont). Now iText will select the inaccessible char from the next specific font using the fontSelector.Process method.
• Asian characters are usually Unicode, so you need to set "BaseFont.IDENTITY_H" instead of Ansi (for example, FontFactory.GetFont ("tahoma", BaseFont.IDENTITY_H)).
• If this is RTL, you need to wrap the text in elements that have the direction direction property and set it to rtl.