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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-20T14:21:05+00:00

I’m trying to print Arabic in some PDF documents using the Java code found

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I’m trying to print Arabic in some PDF documents using the Java code found here :
http://www.java2s.com/Code/Java/PDF-RTF/ArabicTextinPDF.htm

The example works great, except that the text comes out backwards. For example, changing the example slightly :

String txt = "\u0623\u0628\u062c\u062f\u064a\u0629 \u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a\u0629";
System.out.println(txt);
g2.drawString(txt, 100, 30);

What is printed on the screen are the same characters but in the opposite direction, compared to the PDF. The console output is correct, the PDF is not.

I don’t want to simply reverse the characters because otherwise I would lose bi-directional support …

Thanks much

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    IIRC, iText supports Arabic shaping at a highler level than drawString. Lets see here…

    Ah! ColumnText.showTextAligned(PdfContentByte canvas, int alignment, Phrase phrase, float x, float y, float rotation, int runDirection, int arabicOptions)

    Alignment is one of Element.ALIGN_*. Run direction is one of PdfWriter.RUN_DIRECTION_*. Arabic options are bit flags, ColumnText.AR_*

    That should do the trick, with one caveat: I’m not sure that it’ll handle multiple directions in the same phrase. Your test string has CJKV, Arabic, and Latin characters, so there should be two direction changes.

    Good luck.

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