I am trying to display the "✔" character in a PDF using iTextSharp. However the character won't show up on the created PDF. Please help me on this.
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Phrase phrase = new Phrase("A check mark: ");
Font zapfdingbats = new Font(Font.FontFamily.ZAPFDINGBATS);
phrase.Add(new Chunk("\u0033", zapfdingbats));
phrase.Add(" and more text");
document.Add(phrase);

kuujinbo
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Per the PDF spec PDF renderers must support a common set of 14 fonts and Zapf Dingbats is one of them. This solution is probably the best because it doesn't require any additional font embedding. The only reason to actually embed a font would be if you don't like how this renders. – Chris Haas Apr 03 '12 at 15:24
1
Font Wingdings prints this character instead of "o". You need to connect this font to your application, then apply this font to letter and embedd the font into pdf for compatibility.
This is my function (not cleaned) that I have used in one of my projects a while back. please clean it up, but it has some essential features that you need. (I had my custom fonts (font1.ttf and font2.ttf) copied in the project directory)
I am hoping it will help you.
public void StartConvert(String originalFile, String newFile)
{
Document myDocument = new Document(PageSize.LETTER);
PdfWriter.GetInstance(myDocument, new FileStream(newFile, FileMode.Create));
myDocument.Open();
int totalfonts = FontFactory.RegisterDirectory("C:\\WINDOWS\\Fonts");
iTextSharp.text.Font content = FontFactory.GetFont("Pea Heather's Handwriting", 13);//13
iTextSharp.text.Font header = FontFactory.GetFont("assign", 16); //16
BaseFont customfont = BaseFont.CreateFont(@"font1.ttf", BaseFont.CP1252, BaseFont.EMBEDDED);
Font font = new Font(customfont, 13);
string s = " ";
myDocument.Add(new Paragraph(s, font));
BaseFont customfont2 = BaseFont.CreateFont(@"font2.ttf", BaseFont.CP1252, BaseFont.EMBEDDED);
Font font2 = new Font(customfont2, 16);
string s2 = " ";
myDocument.Add(new Paragraph(s2, font2));
try
{
try
{
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(originalFile))
{
// Read and display lines from the file until the end of
// the file is reached.
String line;
while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
{
String newTempLine = "";
String[] textArray;
textArray = line.Split(' ');
newTempLine = returnSpaces(RandomNumber(0, 6)) + newTempLine;
int counterMax = RandomNumber(8, 12);
int counter = 0;
foreach (String S in textArray)
{
if (counter == counterMax)
{
Paragraph P = new Paragraph(newTempLine + Environment.NewLine, font);
P.Alignment = Element.ALIGN_LEFT;
myDocument.Add(P);
newTempLine = "";
newTempLine = returnSpaces(RandomNumber(0, 6)) + newTempLine;
}
newTempLine = newTempLine + returnSpaces(RandomNumber(1, 5)) + S;
counter++;
}
Paragraph T = new Paragraph(newTempLine, font2);
T.Alignment = Element.ALIGN_LEFT;
myDocument.Add(T);
}
}
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine("The file could not be read:");
Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
}
}
catch (DocumentException de)
{
Console.Error.WriteLine(de.Message);
}
catch (IOException ioe)
{
Console.Error.WriteLine(ioe.Message);
}
try
{
myDocument.Close();
}
catch { }
}

Andrew
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6I have never seen so many GC.Collect() calls within a single method. – lurkerbelow Apr 02 '12 at 19:19
0
Define font at master
protected static Font ZAPFDINGBATS(float size, bool bold = false, bool italic = false, bool underline = false, Color color = null)
=> new(StandardFonts.ZAPFDINGBATS, size, bold, italic, underline, color);
declare font
private readonly Font ZapFont = ZAPFDINGBATS(10, bold: false, color: ColorConstants.BLACK);
private readonly Action<Cell> _cellRight = cell => cell.RemoveBorder().SetTextAlignment(TextAlignment.RIGHT);
Use
document.AddTable(
columns: new float[1]
{
100
},
table => table.SetWidth(document.GetPageEffectiveArea(PageSize).GetWidth())
.SetMargins(0, 0, 0, 0)
.AddCell(model.IsTrue ? "4" : "o", ZapFont, _cellRight );
-1
This worked for me:
pdfStamper.FormFlattening = true;

benhorgen
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Howie Krauth
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This of course requires that your pdf has a form definition with a checkbox containing a "✔" already, and this form definition may be flattened. This is not the situation the original poster of the question presented. – mkl Mar 09 '21 at 09:16