👀 Views: 48 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-20

php fpdf utf-8 pdf-generation PHP

I'm trying to figure out I'm relatively new to this, so bear with me. I'm working with a question while using the FPDF library to generate PDFs in PHP 8.1. The scenario arises when I try to include UTF-8 characters in the text, particularly characters like 'ñ' or 'ü'. The text appears as question marks or empty boxes in the generated PDF. I've attempted to use the `FPDF`'s `AddFont` method to add a custom font that supports UTF-8, and I included the font file in the `font` directory. Here’s a snippet of what I've tried: ```php require('fpdf.php'); $pdf = new FPDF(); $pdf->AddPage(); $pdf->AddFont('MyCustomFont', '', 'MyCustomFont.php'); $pdf->SetFont('MyCustomFont', '', 14); $pdf->Cell(0, 10, 'Texto con caracteres especiales: ñ, ü', 0, 1); $pdf->Output(); ``` Despite ensuring that the font file is present and correctly referenced, the output does not render the special characters as expected. I've also checked that the content I'm passing is indeed UTF-8 encoded by using `mb_check_encoding($text, 'UTF-8')`, which returns true. Additionally, I tried using the `SetTextColor` method to ensure the color isn't affecting visibility, but that didn't help either. Is there a known limitation with FPDF regarding UTF-8 characters in PHP 8.1, or is there something I'm missing in the setup? Any insights or alternative approaches would be greatly appreciated. Has anyone else encountered this? I'm on Linux using the latest version of Php. Am I approaching this the right way? I'm working in a Ubuntu 22.04 environment. What would be the recommended way to handle this?