html_entity_decode in FPDF(using tFPDF extension)

Question

I am using tFPDF to generate a PDF. The php file is UTF-8 encoded. I want © for example, to be output in the pdf as the copyright symbol.

I have tried iconv, html_entity_decode, htmlspecialchars_decode. When I take the string I am trying to decode and hard-code it in to a different file and decode it, it works as expected. So for some reason it is not being output in the PDF. I have tried output buffering. I am using DejaVuSansCondensed.ttf (true type fonts).

Link to tFPDF: http://fpdf.org/en/script/script92.php

I am out of ideas. I tried double decoding, I checked everywhere to make sure it was not being encoded anywhere else.

Answer 1

you need this:

iconv('UTF-8', 'windows-1252', html_entity_decode($str));

the html_entity_decode decodes the html entities. but due to any reason you must convert it to utf8 with iconv. i suppose this is a fpdf-secret... cause in normal browser view it is displayed correctly.

Answer 2

Actully, fpdf project FAQ has an explanation for it:

http://www.fpdf.org/~~V/en/FAQ.php#q7

Don't use UTF-8 encoding. Standard FPDF fonts use ISO-8859-1 or Windows-1252. It is possible to perform a conversion to ISO-8859-1 with utf8_decode():

$str = utf8_decode($str); 

But some characters such as Euro won't be translated correctly. If the iconv extension is available, the right way to do it is the following:

$str = iconv('UTF-8', 'windows-1252', $str);

So, as emfi suggests, a combination of iconv() and html_entity_decode() PHP functions is the solution to your question:

$str = iconv('UTF-8', 'windows-1252', html_entity_decode("©"));