Missing characters

[Niproblema]

Hello i am using part of your code. FfdfFile class with following code(only the part with characters):

   if ($directory === null) {
        $directory = sys_get_temp_dir();
    }
    $filename = $filename;
    $fields = '';
    foreach ($data as $key => $value) {

        $utf16Value = mb_convert_encoding($value,'UTF-16BE', $encoding);

        // Escape parenthesis
        $utf16Value = strtr($utf16Value, array('(' => '\\(', ')' => '\\)'));
        $fields .= "<</T($key)/V(" . chr(0xFE) . chr(0xFF) . $utf16Value . ")>>\n";
    }

Problem is that some characters are missing like "čćđ", on the other hand there are "šž", which is nice but i need them all... I have tried few things but i can't quite get more characters working. If i open created .fdf file in notepad i can see an empty space where "č" should be. I am using .fdf file to fill out pdf and at the places with missing characters there is a blank spot..

[Niproblema]

For example đšasdčalsÖ appears as (ţ˙���a a s d�
a l s Ö) in the .fdf file and as " šasd alsÖ" on the pdf file

[mikehaertl]

Hmm. I'll have a closer look later. But I've used this library with cyrillic letters and it worked fine. Note, that you can't view the content of the FDF file in a text editor: It contains different encodings in one file so the characters will be messed up.

One thing: Did you make sure, that you've in your PDF you've used fonts, that contain the missing characters? This was once an issue for me.

[Niproblema]

Heh ok thanks so much for your response. I viewed it in notepad, so as you mentioned thats why i can't view it properly . The fonts I am using are helvetica, but I dont think thats the problem, since it worked fine with fpdf. I had other problems with fpdf so i switched to pdftk. I am using only FdfFile of your library, but I don't think thats the problem. Once again here is my code in case you might examine it :

> >> endobj trailer <> %%EOF FDF; ``` public function __construct($data, $filename, $suffix = null, $prefix = null, $directory = null, $encoding = 'UTF-8') { if ($directory === null) { $directory = sys_get_temp_dir(); } $filename = $filename; $fields = ''; foreach ($data as $key => $value) { $utf16Value = mb_convert_encoding($value,'UTF-16BE', $encoding); $utf16Value = strtr($utf16Value, array('(' => '\\(', ')' => '\\)')); $fields .= "<>\n"; } $fp = fopen($filename, 'w'); fwrite($fp, self::FDF_HEADER); fwrite($fp, $fields); fwrite($fp, self::FDF_FOOTER); fclose($fp); } ``` } I have found some very similar problems on stackoverflow site. I will post them in a min once I find them all again. If you manage to solve this, you will benefit alot of people, since as far as i have noticed many are having problems with pdfs and there aren't many solid solutions... Greeting

[Niproblema]

I can't find exact the stackoverflow topic where a guy had exactly the same problem. All letters working except for čČćĆđĐ. If you manage to get this working please let me know. I will try changing fonts, but I doubt that's the problem...Can you meanwhile test mentioned characters..? if they work for you, that means there is bugg in my code or outdated pdftk
greetings

[mikehaertl]

I've tested it with your characters and it works for me. As I said: I only had a font issue. You can also have a look at the test case here:

https://github.com/mikehaertl/php-pdftk/blob/master/tests/PdfTest.php#L253

It's not exactly your characters - but that should not be a big difference. I've locally added your characters for a quick test and it worked. The characters there all require correct unicode encoding. The resulting filled PDF form is here (not your characters!):

https://github.com/mikehaertl/php-pdftk/blob/master/tests/files/filledform.pdf

You may notice, that some characters aren't displayed at first - but they usually appear when you click the field. This is an issue with the embedded fonts, that I wasn't able to fix yet. But it has nothing to do with the filled form data.

So I'll close this issue for now unless you can convince me that there's really a problem.

BTW why don't you use my FdfFile class right away? There's a little example for how to use it here:
https://github.com/mikehaertl/php-pdftk#create-a-fdf-file-from-a-php-array

[Niproblema]

Sorry but i cant quite understand what you mean here.. in test case
https://github.com/mikehaertl/php-pdftk/blob/master/tests/PdfTest.php#L253
you are inputing " ')ÄÜÖ äüö мирано čárka' ", however in pdf
https://github.com/mikehaertl/php-pdftk/blob/master/tests/files/filledform.pdf
the filled data I see is :
notice the part before letter "á", where "č" should be. Thats the letter I am missing too with my code.
Without letter č my project is useless.
What am I missing here? Can you give me a bit more explanation on that?

I am not using your class because i had some difficulties running the "use" command on the namespace, so i just took FdfFile class and modified it, since I didn't need other classes anyway..

[mikehaertl]

notice the part before letter "á", where "č" should be. Thats the letter I am missing too with my code.
Can you give me abit more explanation on that?

That's exactly what I meant with font issue. The data is there! It's just the font that has problems to display them.

I'll try to update the PDF forms in the test cases today, so that this issue is fixes. So there's no bug in the FDF code .

[mikehaertl]

Ok, there really seem to be an issue with pdftk. I wasn't able to fix what I thought was a font issue. It probably isn't. Some characters are left blank until i click on the form field. This sounds related:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12198742/pdf-form-text-hidden-unless-clicked

But the actual FDF data seems to be fine. I can open a form that I have filled with pdftk in Acrobat, than export and reimport the form data. Everything is fine then.

The only workaround for now is to flatten your forms atfter you have filled them. Apart from that I'm afraid that we can't do much.

[Niproblema]

hmm, that's my conclusion also. Somehow I hoped you might have an idea how to re-introduce missing letters. Flattening pdf with pdftk does not help with missing letters either. Any solid alternative to pdftk to merge pdf and fdf and flatten it?
And thanks for your time

[mikehaertl]

Hmm. I've used an xfdf approach before. This worked, but here you always need 2 files: The original PDF and the XFDF file. You then have to open the XFDF in acrobat which combines the two.

Actually this issue gives me some headaches now, too. I started this project because of the unicode problem, but now it seems we're stuck again. Will let you know if I find a solution. Please also post anything you find out here.

[mikehaertl]

This page is really a good source for our problem. In fact, the tenor seems to be that it is possible to fill unicode data into PDF forms with pdftk. I still feel like it's an issue with missing fonts. What I now did:

• create a filled form from Acrobat Professional e.g. filledform.pdf
• Used pdftk to fill the same file filledform.pdf again

I inspected the embedded fonts with pdffonts. Here's what I've found:

Fonts in the file created by Acrobat Professional:

name                                 type              encoding         emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
KHGYWB+Helvetica-Bold                TrueType          WinAnsi          yes yes yes     52  0
JFZIWB+MyriadPro-Regular             CID Type 0C       Identity-H       yes yes yes     39  0
Helvetica                            Type 1            Custom           no  no  no      40  0

After filling the same file again with pdftk:

name                                 type              encoding         emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
KHGYWB+Helvetica-Bold                TrueType          WinAnsi          yes yes yes     13  0
Helvetica                            Type 1            Custom           no  no  no       2  0

So suddenly that "JFZIWB+MyriadPro-Regular" is missing. Seems like pdftk removes a font! Next step: I try to figure out, how to bring that font back into the PDF to verify that this is the problem.

[mikehaertl]

Ok, this is the problem!!

Here's what I did:

• Copied the missing fonts from my Windows machine
• Added the fonts back with ghostscript

gs \
    -o acrobat_form.pdf \
    -sDEVICE=pdfwrite \
    -dEmbedAllFonts=true \
    -sFONTPATH="./fonts" \
    pdftk_form.pdf

After this the missing fonts where there again, and if I open this file, all characters display just fine.