Arabic font in Web UI and itextsharp - asp.net-mvc-3

Question

I'm not able to find a reason why my MVC 3 web site shows arabic font correctly and my pdf not.
I use a bliss font in my web site;
#font-face {
font-family: 'blissregular';
src: url('/Fonts/blissregular-webfont.eot');
src: url('/Fonts/blissregular-webfont.eot?#iefix') format('embedded-opentype'),
url('/Fonts/blissregular-webfont.ttf') format('truetype');
font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal;}
All working fine.
After that I want to create the pdf of the output but arabic fonts does not appears.
I've googled and understand that the font must have the arabic character to show up correctly. I've changed to arial font (that contains arabic character) and... pdf worked.
So... How is possible that with bliss font (that does NOT have arabic characters) I see arabic font in web site?
I'm really confused....
thanks a lot to everybody!

Answer 1

For every character your browser encounters it looks for a matching glyph in the current font. If the font doesn't have that glyph it looks for any fallback fonts to see if they have that glyph. Ultimately every browser has a core set of default fonts that are the ultimate fallback. When you specify the font Bliss but use Arabic characters you are probably just seeing your browser's fallback fonts.
PDFs don't work that way. If you say something is using font XYZ then it will try to render it using that font or fail.
The easiest way probably is to just add a font to your CSS that supports those characters.
.myclass{font-family: blissregular, Arial}
If that doesn't work you might need to inject the fonts manually. (Actually, I'm not 100% certain the iText support #font-face, either.) iText has a helper class that can figure things out for you that Bruno talks about it here but unfortunately the C# link isn't working anymore. It's very simple, you just create an instance of the FontSelector class, call AddFont in the order that you want characters to be looked up up in and then pass a string to the Process() method which spits back a Phrase that you can add. Below is basic sample code that shows this off. I apologize for my sample text, I'm English-native so I just searched for something to use, I hope I didn't mangle it or get it backwards.
You'll need to jump through a couple of extra hoops when processing the HTML but you should be able to work it out, hopefully.
//Sample string. I apologize, this is from a Google search so I hope it isn't backward
var testString = "يوم الاثنين \"monday\" in Arabic";
var outputFile = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop), "Test.pdf");
//Standard PDF setup
using (var fs = new FileStream(outputFile, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.None)) {
using (var doc = new Document()) {
using (var writer = PdfWriter.GetInstance(doc, fs)) {
doc.Open();
//This is a font that I know *does not* support Arabic characters, substitute with your own font if you don't have it
var gishaFontPath = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Fonts), "gisha.ttf");
var gishaBaseFont = BaseFont.CreateFont(gishaFontPath, BaseFont.IDENTITY_H, BaseFont.EMBEDDED);
var gishaFont = new iTextSharp.text.Font(gishaBaseFont, 20);
//Add our test string using just a normal font, this *will not* display the Arabic characters
doc.Add(new Phrase(testString, gishaFont));
//This is a font that I know *does* support Arabic characters
var arialFontPath = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Fonts), "ARIALUNI.TTF");
var arialBaseFont = BaseFont.CreateFont(arialFontPath, BaseFont.IDENTITY_H, BaseFont.EMBEDDED);
var arialFont = new iTextSharp.text.Font(arialBaseFont, 20);
//Create our font selector specifying our most specific font first
var Sel = new FontSelector();
Sel.AddFont(gishaFont);
Sel.AddFont(arialFont);
//Have the font selector process our text into a series of chunks wrapped in a phrase
var newPhrase = Sel.Process(testString);
//Add the phrase, this will display both characters
doc.Add(newPhrase);
//Clean up
doc.Close();
}
}
}