Tcpdf issue with display hindi language font

Question

I am using Tcpdf PHP library to generate PDF. I got issue with display in Hindi language fonts in generated PDF. I have all things like fonts characters standards etc.. properly but my generated PDF contains ?????? instead of Hindi fonts. please have a look I have included my code here.

<?php
//============================================================+
// File name   : example_001.php
// Begin       : 2008-03-04
// Last Update : 2013-05-14
//
// Description : Example 001 for TCPDF class
//               Default Header and Footer
//
// Author: Nicola Asuni
//
// (c) Copyright:
//               Nicola Asuni
//               Tecnick.com LTD
//               www.tecnick.com
//               info@tecnick.com
//============================================================+

/**
 * Creates an example PDF TEST document using TCPDF
 * @package com.tecnick.tcpdf
 * @abstract TCPDF - Example: Default Header and Footer
 * @author Nicola Asuni
 * @since 2008-03-04
 */

// Include the main TCPDF library (search for installation path).
require_once('tcpdf_include.php');

// create new PDF document
$pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8', false);

// set document information
$pdf->SetCreator(PDF_CREATOR);
$pdf->SetAuthor('Nicola Asuni');
$pdf->SetTitle('TCPDF Example 001');
$pdf->SetSubject('TCPDF Tutorial');
$pdf->SetKeywords('TCPDF, PDF, example, test, guide');

// set default header data
$pdf->SetHeaderData(PDF_HEADER_LOGO, PDF_HEADER_LOGO_WIDTH, PDF_HEADER_TITLE.' 001', PDF_HEADER_STRING, array(0,64,255), array(0,64,128));
$pdf->setFooterData(array(0,64,0), array(0,64,128));

// set header and footer fonts
$pdf->setHeaderFont(Array(PDF_FONT_NAME_MAIN, '', PDF_FONT_SIZE_MAIN));
$pdf->setFooterFont(Array(PDF_FONT_NAME_DATA, '', PDF_FONT_SIZE_DATA));

// set default monospaced font
//$pdf->SetDefaultMonospacedFont(PDF_FONT_MONOSPACED);

// set margins
$pdf->SetMargins(PDF_MARGIN_LEFT, PDF_MARGIN_TOP, PDF_MARGIN_RIGHT);
$pdf->SetHeaderMargin(PDF_MARGIN_HEADER);
$pdf->SetFooterMargin(PDF_MARGIN_FOOTER);

// set auto page breaks
$pdf->SetAutoPageBreak(TRUE, PDF_MARGIN_BOTTOM);

// set image scale factor
$pdf->setImageScale(PDF_IMAGE_SCALE_RATIO);



TCPDF_FONTS::addTTFfont('../fonts/Devanagari/Devanagari.ttf', 'TrueTypeUnicode', "", 32);
// ---------------------------------------------------------

// set default font subsetting mode
$pdf->setFontSubsetting(true);

// Set font
// dejavusans is a UTF-8 Unicode font, if you only need to
// print standard ASCII chars, you can use core fonts like
// helvetica or times to reduce file size.
$pdf->SetFont('Devanagari', '', 14, '', true);

// Add a page
// This method has several options, check the source code documentation for more information.
$pdf->AddPage();

// set text shadow effect
$pdf->setTextShadow(array('enabled'=>true, 'depth_w'=>0.2, 'depth_h'=>0.2, 'color'=>array(196,196,196), 'opacity'=>1, 'blend_mode'=>'Normal'));

// Set some content to print
$html = "प्रविष्टि कर कुल बिक्री मूल्य वेट के साथ
भार(ग्रा) टिन मात्रा(सं) भुगतान का प्रकार विवरण जारीकर्ता कार्ड";

// Print text using writeHTMLCell()
$pdf->writeHTMLCell(0, 0, '', '', $html, 0, 1, 0, true, '', true);

// ---------------------------------------------------------

// Close and output PDF document
// This method has several options, check the source code documentation for more information.
$pdf->Output('example_001.pdf', 'I');

//============================================================+
// END OF FILE
//============================================================+

please help to solve my issue.

Answer 1

Set UTF-8 like this

$pdf = new \TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8', false);

Answer 2

After killing my 2 days I found that TCPDF lacks support for Open Type Layout (OTL)

Hence don't waste time on TCPDF for printing Hindi sentences. https://github.com/tecnickcom/TCPDF/issues/199

To parse hindi/devanagari fonts properly support for The Glyph Substitution (GSUB) table and GPOS — Glyph Positioning Table is required.

eg : proper : संग्रह TCPDF will output: संग्ररह

you can save your time by using library supporting Open Type Layout (OTL) eg : MPDF

Answer 3

Use the following code and execute...

<?php
require_once 'tcpdf/tcpdf.php';
$pdf=new TCPDF('p','mm','A4',TRUE,'UTF-8',false);
$pdf->setPrintHeader(FALSE);
$pdf->setPrintFooter(FALSE);
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont('Helvetica','',24);
$pdf->Cell(190,10,'Unicode Test',0,1,'C');
$pdf->SetFont('freesans','',24);
$pdf->Cell(190,10,'Hindi Sans : आपका स्वागत है',0,1);
$pdf->SetFont('freeserif','',24);
$txt="एवेंजर्स एंडगेम";
$pdf->MultiCell(190,10,$txt,0,1);
$pdf->SetFillColor(255, 235, 235);
$pdf->Output();

Answer 4

<?php
//============================================================+
// File name   : example_001.php
// Begin       : 2008-03-04
// Last Update : 2013-05-14
//
// Description : Example 001 for TCPDF class
//               Default Header and Footer
//
// Author: Nicola Asuni
//
// (c) Copyright:
//               Nicola Asuni
//               Tecnick.com LTD
//               www.tecnick.com
//               info@tecnick.com
//============================================================+

/**
 * Creates an example PDF TEST document using TCPDF
 * @package com.tecnick.tcpdf
 * @abstract TCPDF - Example: Default Header and Footer
 * @author Nicola Asuni
 * @since 2008-03-04
 */

// Include the main TCPDF library (search for installation path).
require_once('TCPDF/tcpdf.php');

// create new PDF document
$pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8', false);

// set document information
$pdf->SetCreator(PDF_CREATOR);
$pdf->SetAuthor('Nicola Asuni');
$pdf->SetTitle('TCPDF Example 001');
$pdf->SetSubject('TCPDF Tutorial');
$pdf->SetKeywords('TCPDF, PDF, example, test, guide');

// set default header data
$pdf->SetHeaderData(PDF_HEADER_LOGO, PDF_HEADER_LOGO_WIDTH, PDF_HEADER_TITLE.' 001', PDF_HEADER_STRING, array(0,64,255), array(0,64,128));
$pdf->setFooterData(array(0,64,0), array(0,64,128));

// set header and footer fonts
$pdf->setHeaderFont(Array(PDF_FONT_NAME_MAIN, '', PDF_FONT_SIZE_MAIN));
$pdf->setFooterFont(Array(PDF_FONT_NAME_DATA, '', PDF_FONT_SIZE_DATA));

// set default monospaced font
//$pdf->SetDefaultMonospacedFont(PDF_FONT_MONOSPACED);

// set margins
$pdf->SetMargins(PDF_MARGIN_LEFT, PDF_MARGIN_TOP, PDF_MARGIN_RIGHT);
$pdf->SetHeaderMargin(PDF_MARGIN_HEADER);
$pdf->SetFooterMargin(PDF_MARGIN_FOOTER);

// set auto page breaks
$pdf->SetAutoPageBreak(TRUE, PDF_MARGIN_BOTTOM);

// set image scale factor
$pdf->setImageScale(PDF_IMAGE_SCALE_RATIO);



// TCPDF_FONTS::addTTFfont('../fonts/Devanagari/Devanagari.ttf', 'TrueTypeUnicode', "", 32);
// ---------------------------------------------------------

// set default font subsetting mode
$pdf->setFontSubsetting(true);

// Set font

$pdf->SetFont('freesans', '', 10);


// MAKE ARRAY WITH UTF LANGUAGE IDENTIFIER
$lg = Array();
$lg['a_meta_charset'] = 'UTF-8';
$lg['a_meta_dir'] = 'ltr';
$lg['a_meta_language'] = 'hi'; // I think you can change this to HI or IN for hindi
$lg['w_page'] = 'page';

// CHANGE SETTINGS IN TCPDF
$pdf->setLanguageArray($lg);



// Add a page
// This method has several options, check the source code documentation for more information.
$pdf->AddPage();

// set text shadow effect
$pdf->setTextShadow(array('enabled'=>true, 'depth_w'=>0.2, 'depth_h'=>0.2, 'color'=>array(196,196,196), 'opacity'=>1, 'blend_mode'=>'Normal'));

// Set some content to print
$html = '<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title></title>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="hi">
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>

</body>
</html>
<p lang="hi">

    प्रविष्टि कर कुल बिक्री मूल्य वेट के साथ
भार(ग्रा) टिन मात्रा(सं) भुगतान का प्रकार विवरण जारीकर्ता कार्ड 
</p>';

// Print text using writeHTMLCell()
$pdf->WriteHTML($html, true, 0, true, 0);

// ---------------------------------------------------------

// Close and output PDF document
// This method has several options, check the source code documentation for more information.
$pdf->Output('example_001.pdf', 'I');

//============================================================+
// END OF FILE
//============================================================+

Answer 5

$pdf->SetFont('mangal', '', 10);

you need to convert ttf to tcpdf font using following link

http://fonts.snm-portal.com/

Answer 6

Try this:

$pdf->writeHTMLCell(0, 0, '', '', utf8_encode($html), 0, 1, 0, true, '', true);