Create PDF Table from HTML String with UTF-8 encofing

Question

I want to create PDF table from HTML string. I can create that table, but instead of Text, I'm getting question marks. Here is my code:

public class ExportReportsToPdf implements StreamSource {
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

private ByteArrayOutputStream byteArrayOutputStream;

public static final String FILE_LOC = "C:/Users/KiKo/CasesWorkspace/case/Export.pdf";

private static final String CSS = ""
        + "table {text-align:center; margin-top:20px; border-collapse:collapse; border-spacing:0; border-width:1px;}"
        + "th {font-size:14px; font-weight:normal; padding:10px; border-style:solid; overflow:hidden; word-break:normal;}"
        + "td {padding:10px; border-style:solid; overflow:hidden; word-break:normal;}"
        + "table-header {font-weight:bold; background-color:#EAEAEA; color:#000000;}";

public void createReportPdf(String tableHtml, Integer type) throws IOException, DocumentException {

    // step 1
    Document document = new Document(PageSize.A4, 20, 20, 50, 20);

    // step 2
    PdfWriter.getInstance(document, new FileOutputStream(FILE_LOC));

    // step 3
    byteArrayOutputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.getInstance(document, byteArrayOutputStream);
    if (type != null) {
        writer.setPageEvent(new Watermark());
    }

    // step 4
    document.open();

    // step 5
    document.add(getTable(tableHtml));

    // step 6
    document.close();
}

private PdfPTable getTable(String tableHtml) throws IOException {

    // CSS
    CSSResolver cssResolver = new StyleAttrCSSResolver();
    CssFile cssFile = XMLWorkerHelper.getCSS(new ByteArrayInputStream(CSS.getBytes()));
    cssResolver.addCss(cssFile);

    // HTML
    HtmlPipelineContext htmlContext = new HtmlPipelineContext(null);
    htmlContext.setTagFactory(Tags.getHtmlTagProcessorFactory());

    // Pipelines
    ElementList elements = new ElementList();
    ElementHandlerPipeline pdf = new ElementHandlerPipeline(elements, null);
    HtmlPipeline html = new HtmlPipeline(htmlContext, pdf);
    CssResolverPipeline css = new CssResolverPipeline(cssResolver, html);

    // XML Worker
    XMLWorker worker = new XMLWorker(css, true);
    XMLParser parser = new XMLParser(worker);

    InputStream inputStream = new byteArrayInputStream(tableHtml.getBytes());
    parser.parse(inputStream);

    return (PdfPTable) elements.get(0);
}

private static class Watermark extends PdfPageEventHelper {

    @Override
    public void onEndPage(PdfWriter writer, Document document) {
        try {
            URL url = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResource("/images/memotemp.jpg");
            Image background = Image.getInstance(url);
            float width = document.getPageSize().getWidth();
            float height = document.getPageSize().getHeight();
            writer.getDirectContentUnder().addImage(background, width, 0, 0, height, 0, 0);
        } catch (DocumentException | IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

@Override
public InputStream getStream() {
    return new ByteArrayInputStream(byteArrayOutputStream.toByteArray());
}

}

This code is working, and I'm getting this:

I've try to add UTF-8,

InputStream inputStream = new byteArrayInputStream(tableHtml.getBytes("UTF-8"));

but than I'm getting this:

I want to get something like this:

I think the problem is with the encoding, but I don't know how to solve this bug. Any suggestions...?

Answer 1

To get bytes from a (Unicode) String in some encoding, specify it, otherwise the default system encoding is used.

tableHtml.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8)

In your case however "Windows-1251" seems a better match as the PDF does not seem to use UTF-8.

Maybe the original tableHTML String was read with the wrong encoding. Might check that, if it came from file or database.

Answer 2

You need to tell iText what encoding to use by creating an instance of the BaseFont class. Then in your document.add(getTable(tableHtml)); you can add a call to the font. Example at http://itextpdf.com/examples/iia.php?id=199 .

I can't tell how you create a table but the class PdfPTable has a method addCell(PdfCell) and one constructor for PdfCell takes a Phrase . The Phrase can be constructed with a String and a Font . The font class takes a BaseFont as a constructor argument.

If you look around the Javadoc for iText you will see various classes take a Font as a constructor argument.