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Asked: 2026-05-10T15:41:58+00:00

My program generates relatively simple PDF documents on request, but I’m having trouble with

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My program generates relatively simple PDF documents on request, but I’m having trouble with unicode characters, like kanji or odd math symbols. To write a normal string in PDF, you place it in brackets:

(something)

There is also the option to escape a character with octal codes:

(\527)

but this only goes up to 512 characters. How do you encode or escape higher characters? I’ve seen references to byte streams and hex-encoded strings, but none of the references I’ve read seem to be willing to tell me how to actually do it.

Edit: Alternatively, point me to a good Java PDF library that will do the job for me. The one I’m currently using is a version of gnujpdf (which I’ve fixed several bugs in, since the original author appears to have gone AWOL), that allows you to program against an AWT Graphics interface, and ideally any replacement should do the same.

The alternatives seem to be either HTML -> PDF, or a programmatic model based on paragraphs and boxes that feels very much like HTML. iText is an example of the latter. This would mean rewriting my existing code, and I’m not convinced they’d give me the same flexibility in laying out.

Edit 2: I didn’t realise before, but the iText library has a Graphics2D API and seems to handle unicode perfectly, so that’s what I’ll be using. Though it isn’t an answer to the question as asked, it solves the problem for me.

Edit 3: iText is working nicely for me. I guess the lesson is, when faced with something that seems pointlessly difficult, look for somebody who knows more about it than you.

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1 Answer

  1. The simple answer is that there’s no simple answer. If you take a look at the PDF specification, you’ll see an entire chapter — and a long one at that — devoted to the mechanisms of text display. I implemented all of the PDF support for my company, and handling text was by far the most complex part of exercise. The solution you discovered — use a 3rd party library to do the work for you — is really the best choice, unless you have very specific, special-purpose requirements for your PDF files.

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