Put Strings into RTF-Format

Question

I want to generate a RTF-Document with my program. I use an RTFEditor which gives me the edited text in a rtfformat, but I also have TextFields and I should take Strings from the TextFields into the RTF Documeent. I have tried to edit the rtf document text, but i got this annoying encoding problem with ANSI and UTF-8 i think. If my TextFields got strings with an "äöüß" ... and so on i get this encoding stuff like "ö" My target is to get a good looking RTF-Document without encoding-issues.

What is the best way to handle this issue?

Here is my class which outputs the rtf document: NOTE: Please focus into the important things in this code. I hope the german terms in my code dont confuse you :).

/**
 * Handles the Saving of a Protokoll to a .rtf file.
 * The .executeSaving() method executes the process of saving.
 * @author me
 */
public class WordExport {

    // other methods...

    /**
     * Executes the saving-progress by the given file.
     * Structure of the rtf-File:
     * -------------------------
     * HeadString               |
     * -------------------------
     * Content                  |
     * ..                       |  
     * ..                       |
     * ..                       |
     * ..                       |
     * -------------------------
     * @param file points to the target where the .rtf should be saved.
     * @param protokoll The protokoll which you want to save.
     * @throws IOException Thrown when something is not okay with the IO.
     */
    public void executeSaving(File file, Protokoll protokoll) throws IOException
    {
        //I want to insert my HeaderString into a specific position so i have to split etc...
        String content = new String();
        content = protokoll.getInhalt();
        String[] split = content.split("}", 3);
        for(int i = 0; i < split.length ; i++)
        {
            if(!split[i].contains("}"))
            {
                split[i] += "}";

            }
        }

        String teilnehmer = new String();
        for (Profil p : protokoll.getTeilnehmer())
        {
            teilnehmer += p.toString() + "\\par\n ";
        }
        String headString = new String();
        //HERE IS THE IMPORTANT CODE --> here i put my strings bare into the rtf-format and i dont know how to handle the encoding.
        headString = "\\f1\\fs44\\i0\\b0\\ul\\cf1\\ "+ protokoll.getTitel() +" \\par\n" +
                  "\\par\n" +
                  "\\fs24\\ul0 Raum: "+ protokoll.getRaum() +"\\par\n" +
                  "Zeitraum: "+ protokoll.getZeitraum() +"\\par\n" +
                  "Datum: "+ protokoll.getErstellungsdatum().toString() +"\\par\n" +
                  "\\par\n" +
                  "Teilnehmer: \\par\n" +
                  teilnehmer +
                  "\\ul0\\par ";

        split[2] = headString+ split[2];

        //Converts the String[] from above to the string, which you need to write into the .rtf file.
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
        for(String s : split)
        {
            builder.append(s);
        }
        content = builder.toString();
      if(!file.exists())
      {
           file.createNewFile();
      }
      FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(file.getAbsoluteFile());
      BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(fw);
      bw.write(content);
      bw.close();
    }
}

Answer 1

I hate character encodings... I believe the following blog might help you here

i will post the code here just in case that site has issues in the future though, NOTE I DID NOT WRITE THIS NOR DO I TAKE CREDIT.

// Create a hashtable to hold the characters to convert
Hashtable<String, String> replace = new Hashtable<String, String>();

// The String to convert
String str = "The Māori Macron";

// Values we'll use in the loop
int value;
String bit;
for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) {
    // Get the character value
    bit = str.substring(i, i + 1);
    value = str.codePointAt(i);

    // If the character value is above the
    // 7-bit range of RTF ASCII
    if (value > 127) {
        replace.put(bit, "\\\\u" + value + "\\\\'  ");
    }
}

// Now replace all the characters we found
Enumeration e = parameters.keys();
String key, value;
while (e.hasMoreElements()) {
    // Get the key
    key = (String)e.nextElement();

    // Get the value
    value = (String)parameters.get(key);

    // Make the substitution
    str = str.replaceAll(key, value);
}

Answer 2

Use ISO-8859-1 encode. This encode format will support that characters too.