I am using iText for PDF generation. I have some characters/symbols to print like ∈, ∩, ∑, ∫, ? (Mathematical symbols) and many others. How can I add them to a PDF?
I am using iText for PDF generation. I have some characters/symbols to print like ∈, ∩, ∑, ∫, ? (Mathematical symbols) and many others.
This is my code :
Document document = new Document(PageSize.A4, 60, 60, 60, 60); try { PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.getInstance(document, new FileOutputStream("/home/adeel/experiment.pdf")); document.open(); String str = "this string will contains special character like this ∈, ∩, ∑, ∫, ?"; BaseFont bfTimes = null; try { bfTimes = BaseFont.createFont(BaseFont.TIMES_ROMAN, BaseFont.CP1252, BaseFont.EMBEDDED); } catch (IOException e) { // TODO Auto-generated catch block e.printStackTrace(); } Font fontnormal = new Font(bfTimes, 12, Font.NORMAL, Color.BLACK); Paragraph para = new Paragraph(str, fontnormal); document.add(para); document.close(); System.out.println("Done!"); } catch (DocumentException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } catch (FileNotFoundException e) { e.printStackTrace(); }
In the above code I am putting all the symbols in str. Instead of symbols, I also tried putting unicode characters in str for the symbols, but It didn't worked either.
Posted on StackOverflow on Jul 7, 2015 by Adeel Ahmad
Please take a look at the MathSymbols example.
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First you need a font that supports the symbols you need. Incidentally, FreeSans.ttf is such a font. Then you need to use the right encoding.
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You're using UNICODE, so you need
Identity-Has the encoding. -
You should also use notations such as
\u2208,\u2229,\u2211,\u222b,\u2206. That's not a must, but it's good practice.
This is how it's done:
public static final String DEST = "results/fonts/math_symbols.pdf"; public static final String FONT = "resources/fonts/FreeSans.ttf"; public static final String TEXT = "this string contains special characters like this \u2208, \u2229, \u2211, \u222b, \u2206"; public void createPdf(String dest) throws IOException, DocumentException { Document document = new Document(); PdfWriter.getInstance(document, new FileOutputStream(dest)); document.open(); BaseFont bf = BaseFont.createFont(FONT, BaseFont.IDENTITY_H, BaseFont.EMBEDDED); Font f = new Font(bf, 12); Paragraph p = new Paragraph(TEXT, f); document.add(p); document.close(); }
The result looks like this: math_symbols.pdf
Symbols in a PDF file