Some test text!

Discord Logo

Chat with us

PDFTron is now Apryse, learn more here.

Create Unicode text or embed composite fonts in PDF files using PHP

More languages

More languages
Java (Android)
C++
C#
C# (.NET Core)
Go
Java
Kotlin
Obj-C
JS (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Swift
C# (UWP)
VB
C# (Xamarin)

Sample PHP code for using PDFTron SDK to create Unicode text and embed composite fonts in PDF files. Learn more about our PHP PDF Library.

Get Started Samples Download

To run this sample, get started with a free trial of Apryse SDK.

<?php
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Copyright (c) 2001-2022 by PDFTron Systems Inc. All Rights Reserved.
// Consult LICENSE.txt regarding license information.
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if(file_exists("../../../PDFNetC/Lib/PDFNetPHP.php"))
include("../../../PDFNetC/Lib/PDFNetPHP.php");
include("../../LicenseKey/PHP/LicenseKey.php");

// Relative path to the folder containing the test files.
$input_path = getcwd()."/../../TestFiles/";
$output_path = $input_path."Output/";

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// This example illustrates how to create Unicode text and how to embed composite fonts.
// 
// Note: This demo assumes that 'arialuni.ttf' is present in '/Samples/TestFiles' 
// directory. Arial Unicode MS is about 24MB in size and it comes together with Windows and 
// MS Office.
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
function main()
{
    global $input_path, $output_path, $LicenseKey;

	PDFNet::Initialize($LicenseKey);
	PDFNet::GetSystemFontList();    // Wait for fonts to be loaded if they haven't already. This is done because PHP can run into errors when shutting down if font loading is still in progress.

	$doc = new PDFDoc();

	$builder = new ElementBuilder();
	$writer = new ElementWriter();	

	// Start a new page ------------------------------------
	$page = $doc->PageCreate(new Rect(0.0, 0.0, 612.0, 794.0));

	$writer->Begin($page);	// begin writing to this page

	// Embed and subset the font
	$font_program = $input_path."ARIALUNI.TTF";
	if (!file_exists($font_program)) {
		if (strtoupper(substr(PHP_OS, 0, 3)) === 'WIN') {
			$font_program = "C:/Windows/Fonts/ARIALUNI.TTF";
		}
	}
	$fnt = NULL;
	try {
		$fnt = Font::CreateCIDTrueTypeFont($doc->GetSDFDoc(), $font_program, true, true);
	}
	catch(Exception $e){

	}
	if($fnt)
	{
		echo(nl2br("Note: using " . $font_program . " for unshaped unicode text\n"));
	}
	else
	{
		echo(nl2br("Note: using system font substitution for unshaped unicode text\n"));
		$fnt = Font::Create($doc->GetSDFDoc(), "Helvetica", "");		
	}

	$element = $builder->CreateTextBegin($fnt, 1.0);
	$element->SetTextMatrix(10.0, 0.0, 0.0, 10.0, 50.0, 600.0);
	$element->GetGState()->SetLeading(2);		 // Set the spacing between lines
	$writer->WriteElement($element);

	// Hello World!
	$hello = array( 'H','e','l','l','o',' ','W','o','r','l','d','!');
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateUnicodeTextRun($hello, count($hello)));
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateTextNewLine());

	// Latin
	$latin = array(   
		'a', 'A', 'b', 'B', 'c', 'C', 'd', 'D', 0x45, 0x0046, 0x00C0, 
		0x00C1, 0x00C2, 0x0143, 0x0144, 0x0145, 0x0152, '1', '2' // etc.
	);
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateUnicodeTextRun($latin, count($latin)));
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateTextNewLine());

	// Greek
	$greek = array(   
		0x039E, 0x039F, 0x03A0, 0x03A1,0x03A3, 0x03A6, 0x03A8, 0x03A9  // etc.
	);
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateUnicodeTextRun($greek, count($greek)));
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateTextNewLine());

	// Cyrillic
	$cyrillic = array(   
		0x0409, 0x040A, 0x040B, 0x040C, 0x040E, 0x040F, 0x0410, 0x0411,
		0x0412, 0x0413, 0x0414, 0x0415, 0x0416, 0x0417, 0x0418, 0x0419 // etc.
	);
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateUnicodeTextRun($cyrillic, count($cyrillic)));
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateTextNewLine());

	// Hebrew
	$hebrew = array(
		0x05D0, 0x05D1, 0x05D3, 0x05D3, 0x05D4, 0x05D5, 0x05D6, 0x05D7, 0x05D8, 
		0x05D9, 0x05DA, 0x05DB, 0x05DC, 0x05DD, 0x05DE, 0x05DF, 0x05E0, 0x05E1 // etc. 
	);
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateUnicodeTextRun($hebrew, count($hebrew)));
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateTextNewLine());

	// Arabic
	$arabic = array(
		0x0624, 0x0625, 0x0626, 0x0627, 0x0628, 0x0629, 0x062A, 0x062B, 0x062C, 
		0x062D, 0x062E, 0x062F, 0x0630, 0x0631, 0x0632, 0x0633, 0x0634, 0x0635 // etc. 
	);
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateUnicodeTextRun($arabic, count($arabic)));
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateTextNewLine());

	// Thai 
	$thai = array(
		0x0E01, 0x0E02, 0x0E03, 0x0E04, 0x0E05, 0x0E06, 0x0E07, 0x0E08, 0x0E09, 
		0x0E0A, 0x0E0B, 0x0E0C, 0x0E0D, 0x0E0E, 0x0E0F, 0x0E10, 0x0E11, 0x0E12 // etc. 
	);
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateUnicodeTextRun($thai, count($thai)));
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateTextNewLine());

	// Hiragana - Japanese 
	$hiragana = array(
		0x3041, 0x3042, 0x3043, 0x3044, 0x3045, 0x3046, 0x3047, 0x3048, 0x3049, 
		0x304A, 0x304B, 0x304C, 0x304D, 0x304E, 0x304F, 0x3051, 0x3051, 0x3052 // etc. 
	);
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateUnicodeTextRun($hiragana, count($hiragana)));
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateTextNewLine());

	// CJK Unified Ideographs
	$cjk_uni = array(
		0x5841, 0x5842, 0x5843, 0x5844, 0x5845, 0x5846, 0x5847, 0x5848, 0x5849, 
		0x584A, 0x584B, 0x584C, 0x584D, 0x584E, 0x584F, 0x5850, 0x5851, 0x5852 // etc. 
	);
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateUnicodeTextRun($cjk_uni, count($cjk_uni)));
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateTextNewLine());

	// Simplified Chinese
	$chinese_simplified = array(
		0x4e16, 0x754c, 0x60a8, 0x597d
	);
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateUnicodeTextRun($chinese_simplified, count($chinese_simplified)));
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateTextNewLine());

	echo("Now using text shaping logic to place text\n");

	// Create a font in indexed encoding mode 
	// normally this would mean that we are required to provide glyph indices
	// directly to CreateUnicodeTextRun, but instead, we will use the GetShapedText
	// method to take care of this detail for us.
	$indexed_font = Font::CreateCIDTrueTypeFont($doc->GetSDFDoc(), $input_path . "NotoSans_with_hindi.ttf", true, true, Font::e_Indices);
	$element = $builder->CreateTextBegin($indexed_font, 10.0);
	$writer->WriteElement($element);

	$line_pos = 350.0;
	$line_space = 20.0;

	// Transform unicode text into an abstract collection of glyph indices and positioning info 
	$shaped_text = $indexed_font->GetShapedText("Shaped Hindi Text:");

	// transform the shaped text info into a PDF element and write it to the page
	$element = $builder->CreateShapedTextRun($shaped_text);
	$element->SetTextMatrix(1.5, 0.0, 0.0, 1.5, 50.0, $line_pos);
	$writer->WriteElement($element);

	# read in unicode text lines from a file 
	$f = fopen($input_path . "hindi_sample_utf16le.txt", "r");
	$i = 0;
	while($hindi_text = fgets($f)){$i++;}
	fclose($f);
	echo("Read in " . $i . " lines of Unicode text from file\n");

	$f = fopen($input_path . "hindi_sample_utf16le.txt", "r");
	$i = 0;
	while($hindi_text = fgets($f)){
		if ($i == 0)
			$tmp1 = substr($hindi_text,0,-1);
		else if($i == 1)
			$tmp1 = substr($hindi_text,1,-2); // remove the first and the last 2 characters so encoding to UTF-8 looks correct in PHP 
		$tmp = iconv($in_charset = "UTF-16LE", $out_charset="UTF-8", $tmp1);
		$shaped_text = $indexed_font->GetShapedText($tmp);
		$element = $builder->CreateShapedTextRun($shaped_text);
		$element->SetTextMatrix(1.5, 0.0, 0.0, 1.5, 50.0, $line_pos-$line_space*($i+1));
		$writer->WriteElement($element);
		echo("Wrote shaped line to page\n");
		$i++;

	}
	fclose($f);

	// Finish the block of text
	$writer->WriteElement($builder->CreateTextEnd());

	$writer->End();  // save changes to the current page
	$doc->PagePushBack($page);

	$doc->Save($output_path."unicodewrite.pdf", SDFDoc::e_remove_unused | SDFDoc::e_hex_strings);
	PDFNet::Terminate();
	echo "Done. Result saved in unicodewrite.pdf...\n";
}

main();
?>