BIRT PDF Khmer Unicode (Hanuman Font) Not Rendering Correctly

[sinsarath]

Hello everyone,

I'm using Eclipse BIRT Report Designer on macOS to generate reports in PDF format, but I’m facing issues with rendering Khmer Unicode (Hanuman Font). The Khmer characters either:

• Appear as blank or missing text, or
• Show incorrect khmer characters.

What I’ve Tried:

1. Installed Khmer Hanuman Font on macOS and confirmed it works in other applications.
2. Set Khmer Hanuman Font in BIRT: In the report design, I applied Hanuman under Font properties of text elements.
3. Modified fontsConfig.xml:

• Located the file in my BIRT runtime folder and added:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<font>
	<font-aliases>
		<mapping name="serif" font-family="Times-Roman" />
		<mapping name="sans-serif" font-family="Helvetica" />
		<mapping name="monospace" font-family="Courier" />
		<mapping name="cursive" font-family="Times-Roman" />
		<mapping name="fantasy" font-family="Times-Roman" />
	</font-aliases>

	<search-sequences>
		<sequence locale="zh_CN">
			<catalog name="Western" />
			<catalog name="Chinese_S" />
			<catalog name="Chinese_T" />
			<catalog name="Chinese" />
			<catalog name="Japanese" />
			<catalog name="Korean" />
		</sequence>
		<sequence locale="zh">
			<catalog name="Western" />
			<catalog name="Chinese_T" />
			<catalog name="Chinese_S" />
			<catalog name="Chinese" />
			<catalog name="Japanese" />
			<catalog name="Korean" />
		</sequence>
		<sequence locale="ja">
			<catalog name="Western" />
			<catalog name="Japanese" />
			<catalog name="Chinese" />
			<catalog name="Korean" />
		</sequence>
		<sequence locale="ko">
			<catalog name="Western" />
			<catalog name="Korean" />
			<catalog name="Chinese" />
			<catalog name="Japanese" />
		</sequence>
	</search-sequences>

	<composite-font name="all-fonts" font-family="Times-Roman">
	</composite-font>

	<font-paths>
		<path path="C:/windows/fonts" />
		<path path="d:/windows/fonts" />
		<path path="e:/windows/fonts" />
		<path path="f:/windows/fonts" />
		<path path="g:/windows/fonts" />
		<path path="C:/WINNT/fonts" />
		<path path="d:/WINNT/fonts" />
		<path path="e:/WINNT/fonts" />
		<path path="f:/WINNT/fonts" />
		<path path="g:/WINNT/fonts" />
		<path path="/usr/X/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/euro_fonts/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso_8859_2/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso_8859_5/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso_8859_7/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso_8859_8/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso_8859_9/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso_8859_13/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/iso_8859_15/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/ar/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/hi_IN.UTF-8/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/ja/X11/fonts/TT" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/ko/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/ko.UTF-8/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/KOI8-R/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/ru.ansi-1251/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/th_TH/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/zh_TW/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/zh_TW.BIG5/X11/fonts/TT" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/zh_HK.BIG5HK/X11/fonts/TT" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/zh_CN.GB18030/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/zh/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/openwin/lib/locale/zh.GBK/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype" />
		<path path="/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/tt" />
		<path path="/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF" />
		<path path="/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/OTF" />
		<path path="/usr/share/fonts/ja/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/share/fonts/truetype" />
		<path path="/usr/share/fonts/ko/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/share/fonts/zh_CN/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/share/fonts/zh_TW/TrueType" />
		<path path="/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType" />
		<path path="/usr/share/fonts/TTF" />
		<path path="/usr/share/fonts/OTF" />
                <path path="/Applications/Eclipse.app/Contents/Eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.fonts_4.18.0.v202409161007/Fonts" />
	</font-paths>
</font>

• Restarted Eclipse after making the changes.

4. Checked PDF Output Encoding:

• Tried setting UTF-8 encoding in BIRT preferences.
• But I don’t see the "Embed Fonts" option in the Eclipse UI.

5. Database Encoding: My database (SQL Server) is set to UTF-8 to support Khmer characters.

Questions:

1. How can I properly embed Khmer Unicode fonts (Hanuman) in BIRT PDF output on macOS?
2. Why is the "Embed Fonts" option missing in Eclipse BIRT Report Designer?
3. Is there a better PDF Emitter for BIRT that supports Khmer Unicode?
4. Are there any macOS-specific configurations needed for font embedding in BIRT?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[speckyspooky]

All available fonts will be embedded but this is only for all defined fonts at report level and which are available for the font engine.
Replacement fonts like a fallback won't be embedded.

There is a different handling of fonts because there are mutiple font-files for the engine and for the pdf emitter.
You can try to setup the configuration at configuration file "fontsConfig_pdf.xml" beside "fontsConfig.xml".
The font must be a true type font.

[sinsarath]

Thank you for your response!

I have updated both fontsConfig.xml and fontsConfig_pdf.xml to embed the Hanuman font, but the issue is still not resolved. Here’s what I did:

1. Verified that Hanuman is a TrueType Font (TTF).
2. Updated both configuration files and restarted Eclipse.
3. Checked the report-level font settings to ensure Hanuman is explicitly set.
4. Tried different PDF emitters, but the Khmer characters are still missing or appear incorrectly.

Current Issue:

• Khmer characters still render not correctly in the PDF output.
• Even after explicitly embedding the font, it does not seem to take effect.

Questions:

1. How can I confirm that the PDF emitter is using the embedded Hanuman font?
2. Are there logs or debug steps to verify if BIRT is loading the font correctly?
3. Do I need any additional configuration specific to macOS for font embedding to work?

I appreciate your further guidance!

[hvbtup]

What BIRT version are you using?

To exclude conversion errors, you should first test a report which contains nothing more than a label (static text) containing some Khmer text. If that works, but text from DB does not, then it's a configuration issue of the DB or DB driver.

What exactly are the steps you use to generating the PDF?

To answer some of your questions:

TTF fount are embedded automatically, if they can be found using the font paths in the fontsConfig*.xml files. To be more precise, they are "subsetted".
If a font is embededd or not can be checked using the document properties in Adobe Reader.

[sinsarath]

Thank you for your response!

I am using BIRT version 4.18.0.

• The table header text is a static value, not coming from the database.
• I have ensured that Hanuman is a TrueType Font (TTF) and set up both fontsConfig.xml and fontsConfig_pdf.xml to include it.
• I generate the PDF via an API call. but I just preview it from Eclipse IDE as PDF format

Yes as you said It already embedded

[hvbtup]

And is the static header rendered correctly or wrong?
If it is wrong, then I can only guess that either the TTF font uses some special TTF features or the Khmer language uses some special Unicode features which either Java or OpenPDF do not support.
And then my gut feeling is that none of the BIRT committers is able to solve this.
But if you can find out where exactly things go wrong, and why, and provide a solution in code: A pull request is always welcome.

[merks]

Note that the current version of BIRT is using

https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/github/librepdf/openpdf/2.0.3/

I think this is the place to go for that:

https://github.com/LibrePDF/OpenPDF

[sinsarath]

Thank you for your prompt response. I’ve created an issue for this problem as suggested:
#2043.

and also create one at OpenPdf : LibrePDF/OpenPDF#1264

I’d greatly appreciate it if you could take a look or guide me on how to escalate this further to get a resolution soon. Your support means a lot.

Thanks again for your assistance!

[claesrosell]

@sinsarath, you will need to file that issue in the LibrePDF/OpenPDF issue tracker.

[sinsarath]

@claesrosell Yes I did

LibrePDF/OpenPDF#1264

[claesrosell]

Sorry, I missed that you field it there as well. My bad.