ITextPdf: Printing Arabic strings from Right To Left (RTL)

Question

I use iTextpdf on java in order to generate stamped PDFs, sometimes the generated PDF is in Arabic and I am facing a funny problem. To let the Arabic page being created from Right To Left (RTL) I use tables and cells which have the property PdfPCell.setRunDirection(PdfWriter.RUN_DIRECTION_RTL). When I use this property Arabic does not show at all, if I avoid the call to this property Arabic strings are correctly showed, this means I shouldn't have problems with fonts and I don't really know if this is an issue with iText or I'm just missing something.

Here a small piece of code which shows an Arabic string correctly:

BaseFont bf = BaseFont.createFont(Application.getBASEPATH() + "fonts/arabic.ttf",BaseFont.IDENTITY_H, BaseFont.EMBEDDED);
Font trebuchetSmaller = new Font(bf, 10, 0);

PdfPTable tbl = new PdfPTable(1); 
PdfPCell cell = new PdfPCell();
Paragraph paragraph = new Paragraph();
paragraph.add(new Phrase("ربط صفحة على شبكة الإنترنت"), trebuchetSmaller));
cell.addElement(paragraph);
tbl.addCell(cell);

Here the needed change which makes the Arabic string disappear:

BaseFont bf = BaseFont.createFont(Application.getBASEPATH() + "fonts/arabic.ttf",BaseFont.IDENTITY_H, BaseFont.EMBEDDED);
Font trebuchetSmaller = new Font(bf, 10, 0);

PdfPTable tbl = new PdfPTable(1); 
PdfPCell cell = new PdfPCell();
cell.setRunDirection(PdfWriter.RUN_DIRECTION_RTL);
Paragraph paragraph = new Paragraph();
paragraph.add(new Phrase("ربط صفحة على شبكة الإنترنت"), trebuchetSmaller));
cell.addElement(paragraph);
tbl.addCell(cell);

If I use PdfWriter.RUN_DIRECTION_RTL with an English string it shows correctly in the format it has supposed to be. If I use a string with mixed English and Arabic characters just the English ones are showed.

You can use Spannabe. [There is more information about it][1] [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/a/11612380/1278748 — Sardor Dushamov, Nov 25 '12 at 17:00

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 15 '12 at 19:50

6

Change your code to include the registered font:

new Phrase("آزمايش", font)

Also you can add the phrase directly:

PdfPCell pdfCell = new PdfPCell(new Phrase("آزمايش", font));  
pdfCell.setRunDirection(PdfWriter.RUN_DIRECTION_RTL);

answered Apr 15 '12 at 19:50

VahidN

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This is itext 5 sample. What about itext 7. How can we change direction in itext 7? – Mohammad Dayyan Jan 10 '18 at 06:10
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https://developers.itextpdf.com/examples/font-examples/clone-language-specific-examples – VahidN Jan 10 '18 at 10:52
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I've tested it, no changes, I see my text left to right with separated words! – Mohammad Dayyan Jan 10 '18 at 12:32
If you are looking for a .NET Core version with RTL support, try https://github.com/VahidN/iTextSharp.LGPLv2.Core – VahidN Jan 11 '18 at 10:19

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 17 '12 at 15:14

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Thanks a lot. Actually the problem was the font used that when switched in RTL was behaving bad. I found a lot of very interesting unicode arabic fonts at this address: http://cooltext.com/Fonts-Unicode-Arabic for whoever is interested.

answered Apr 17 '12 at 15:14

enrico.anello

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Hi there, can you help me?! I want to create a pdf in Arabic and wont to make text start from right to left, with the code above the arabic character is separated and vise versa also from LTR – Amal Kronz Mar 05 '18 at 19:08

ITextPdf: Printing Arabic strings from Right To Left (RTL)

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