HTML to PDF with cyrillic characters

Question

I'm making a Spring Boot application. I want to generate PDF from HTML code:

        String htmlString = "<!DOCTYPE html>\n" +
                "<html lang=\"ru\">\n" +
                "<head>\n" +
                "    <meta charset=\"UTF-8\"/>\n" +
                "    <meta http-equiv=\"X-UA-Compatible\" content=\"IE=edge\"/>\n" +
                "    <meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0\"/>\n" +
                "</head>\n" +
                "<body>\n" +
                "    <h3>ПРЕДСТАВЛЕНИЕ</h3>\n" +
                "</body>\n" +
                "</html>";

        ByteArrayOutputStream byteArrayOutputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        String path = FileSystemView.getFileSystemView().getDefaultDirectory().getPath() + "/A.pdf";
        OutputStream outputStream = new FileOutputStream(path);

        ITextRenderer renderer = new ITextRenderer();
        renderer.setDocumentFromString(htmlString);
        renderer.layout();
        renderer.createPDF(outputStream);

        byteArrayOutputStream.writeTo(outputStream);

As you can see there is a h3 tag with cyrillic symbols. The problem is that after conversion and saving the symbols are not presented in PDF (it's simply empty, because there is nothing more in html code to be visible). Other symbols are being displayed properly btw.

For html-to-pdf conversion i use:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.xhtmlrenderer</groupId>
    <artifactId>flying-saucer-pdf-itext5</artifactId>
    <version>9.0.1</version>
</dependency>

I suppose there is a problem with charset, fonts etc. How can I fix it?

I've been close. I think the problem is setting the font that will support Cyrillic characters. If you change the Russian letters to something in English, it works fine. — hfontanez, Feb 08 '22 at 22:55
@hfontanez How can we set a font here in exactly this solution with byte streams? I faced that issue too some time ago — Hleb Shypula, Feb 08 '22 at 23:00
@HlebShypula I am not exactly sure, but I ran into some information while researching this. I just can't do this right now. I will get back later tonight though. — hfontanez, Feb 09 '22 at 00:53
@hfontanez OK, I hope you will solve it. I'm trying today too. — Max Bobr, Feb 09 '22 at 10:49
@MaxBobr I think I am officially throwing the towel. The way you set the font is something like this `renderer.getFontResolver().addFont("c:/windows/fonts/cour.ttf",false);`, but even that doesn't seem to be working for me. — hfontanez, Feb 09 '22 at 14:53
I couldn't let it go and finally got it to work. The font on the CSS **must** match the font on the PDF. I tried Verdana and Arial. Both times, when the fonts didn't match, nothing was rendered, but rendered just fine when they did. — hfontanez, Feb 09 '22 at 15:29

hfontanez · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-09T15:25:55.850

This worked for me!

public static void main(String[] args) throws DocumentException, IOException, SAXException, ParserConfigurationException {
        String htmlString = "<!DOCTYPE html>\n" + "<html lang=\"ru\">\n" + "<head>\n"
                + "    <meta charset=\"UTF-8\"/>\n" + "    <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html\"/>\n"
                + "    <meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0\"/>\n" 
                + "    <style type='text/css'> "
                + "        * { font-family: Verdana; }/n"
                + "    </style>/n"
                + "</head>\n"
                + "<body>\n" + "    <h3>ПРЕДСТАВЛЕНИЕ</h3>\n" + "</body>\n" + "</html>";


    String path = FileSystemView.getFileSystemView().getDefaultDirectory().getPath() + "/A.pdf";
    OutputStream os = new FileOutputStream(path);
    ITextRenderer renderer = new ITextRenderer();
    renderer.getFontResolver().addFont("c:/windows/fonts/verdana.ttf", BaseFont.IDENTITY_H, BaseFont.NOT_EMBEDDED);
    renderer.setDocumentFromString(htmlString);
    renderer.layout();
    renderer.createPDF(os);
    os.close();
}

I think the trick is to add the CSS to the HTML and the font must match what you set on the PDF.

@MaxBobr sometimes I obsess over technical problem and it is REALLY hard for me to just let go. LOL This was one of those times. — hfontanez, Feb 09 '22 at 17:07

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 09 '22 at 15:08

You must add a font that support Cyrillic to the renderer. (For example Deja Vu.)

String htmlString = getHtml();
ITextRenderer renderer = new ITextRenderer();
renderer.getFontResolver().addFont("font/dejavu-sans/DejaVuSans.ttf", BaseFont.IDENTITY_H, BaseFont.NOT_EMBEDDED);
OutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(new File("so.pdf"));
renderer.setDocumentFromString(html);
renderer.layout();
renderer.createPDF(out);
out.close();

And in your HTML, you should set the font-family to use:

<html>
<head>
    <style>
        body{font-family: "DejaVu Sans", Arial, sans-serif }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
Лорем ипсум долор сит амет, цу вел оратио постеа импедит
</body>
</html>

HTML to PDF with cyrillic characters

2 Answers2