Why can't I use č,ć,đ charters in TCPDF table?

Question

I'm building a tcpdf file for my web site, in that tcpdf file ther is a table with some data, But I cant get this charters to work properly. for encoding I'm using windows-1250. The charters witch are not working : č,ć,đ. I have tried with utf-8 but still not geting this charters is there something wrong with tcpdf?

here is my php:

    <?php

require_once('tcpdf_files/config/lang/hrv.php');
require_once('tcpdf_files/tcpdf.php');

// create new PDF document
$pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, false, 'windows-1250', false);

// set document information
$pdf->SetCreator(PDF_CREATOR);
$pdf->SetAuthor('Nicola Asuni');
$pdf->SetTitle('TCPDF Example 061');
$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.' 061', PDF_HEADER_STRING);

// 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);

//set some language-dependent strings
$pdf->setLanguageArray($l);

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

// set font
$pdf->SetFont('times', '', 10);

// add a page
$pdf->AddPage();

//START OF DATA FOR PDF DOSJE


         $ime = "šiš čevap";
         $prezime = "čušpaiz";
         $rodjenje = "čakardič";
         $odjel = "četnik";
         $radno_mjesto = "čaćijađ";
         $poduzece = "čitluk";
         $putovnica = "čošak";
         $vozacka = "pićkica";


$html = <<<EOF
<!-- EXAMPLE OF CSS STYLE -->
<table width="100%" style="padding:3px;">
<tr>

<td>

    <table border="1" style="border:1px solid grey; width:60%;">

            <tr>

                <td rowspan="3">
                <p style="margin-top:-38px;">POSLODAVAC:</p>
                </td>

                <td>
                Ime firme
                </td>
            </tr>

            <tr>        


                <td>
                    adresa firme
                </td>
            </tr>

            <tr>        

                <td>
                    oib firme
                </td>
            </tr>
    </table><br>

    <table  border="1" style="border:1px solid #dddddd; width:60%;">    
            <tr>            
                <td>
                RADNIK: 
                </td>

                <td>
                $ime $prezime
                </td>
            </tr>

            <tr>        
                <td>
                Oib
                </td>

                <td>
                $rodjenje
                </td>
            </tr>

            <tr>        
                <td>
                Spol
                </td>

                <td>
                $odjel
                </td>
            </tr>

            <tr>        
                <td>
                Dan, mjesec i godina rođenja
                </td>

                <td>
                $radno_mjesto
                </td>
            </tr>

            <tr>        
                <td>
                Državljanstvo
                </td>

                <td>
                $radno_mjesto
                </td>
            </tr>
        </table><br>






EOF;

// output the HTML content
$pdf->writeHTML($html, true, false, true, false, '');


// reset pointer to the last page
$pdf->lastPage();


//Close and output PDF document
$pdf->Output('example_061.pdf', 'I');

Answer 1

It will not work with times font. Our letters works with this font:

$pdf->SetFont('dejavusans', '', 11, '', true);

And UTF-8

EDIT After some time, I think that this is better:

$pdf->SetFont('freeserif', '', 11, '', true);

Answer 2

I'm not sure if it will work, but try iconv. I had to use it when I was making Japanese PDFs. I don't know what your encoding needs to be, but this is what I used:

$newtext = iconv("UTF-8", "SJIS", $oldtext);

Obviously change 'SJIS' to whatever encoding you are using.

EDIT

Just repeating what I said in the comments below, but hopefully it is easier to read up here:

Try changing the fourth constructor variable to TRUE, so it uses UTF-8:

$pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, false, 'windows-1250', false);
                                                                    ⇓
$pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'windows-1250', false);

If that doesn't work, I don't know what to tell you :-/

EDIT (again)

Probably a silly question, but did you look at the examples?

http://www.tcpdf.org/examples/example_018.phps

Is there nothing there that can help you?

YET ANOTHER EDIT

Okay, hopefully this should do it:

<?php 

require_once('tcpdf/config/lang/hrv.php'); 
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 061'); 
$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.' 061', PDF_HEADER_STRING); 

// 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); 

//set some language-dependent strings 
$pdf->setLanguageArray($l); 

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

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

// add a page 
$pdf->AddPage(); 

//START OF DATA FOR PDF DOSJE 

  $ime = "šiš čevap";
  $prezime = "čušpaiz";
  $rodjenje = "čakardič";
  $odjel = "četnik";
  $radno_mjesto = "čaćijađ";
  $poduzece = "čitluk";
  $putovnica = "čošak";
  $vozacka = "pićkica";

$html = <<<EOF
<!-- EXAMPLE OF CSS STYLE --> 
<table width="100%" style="padding:3px;"> 
  <tr>
    <td>
      <table border="1" style="border:1px solid grey; width:60%;"> 
        <tr>
          <td rowspan="3"> 
            <p style="margin-top:-38px;">POSLODAVAC:</p> 
          </td>
          <td>
            Ime firme
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td>
            adresa firme
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td>
            oib firme
          </td>
        </tr>
      </table>
      <br>
      <table  border="1" style="border:1px solid #dddddd; width:60%;">     
        <tr>             
          <td> 
            RADNIK:  
          </td>
          <td> 
            $ime $prezime 
          </td> 
        </tr>
        <tr>         
          <td> 
            Oib
          </td>
          <td>
            $rodjenje
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td> 
            Spol 
          </td>
          <td>
            $odjel
          </td> 
        </tr>
        <tr>         
          <td>
            Dan, mjesec i godina rođenja 
          </td>
          <td>
            $radno_mjesto
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td>
            Državljanstvo
          </td>
          <td>
            $radno_mjesto 
          </td>
        </tr>
      </table>
      <br> 
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

EOF;

// output the HTML content 
$pdf->writeHTML($html, true, false, true, false, ''); 


// reset pointer to the last page 
$pdf->lastPage(); 


//Close and output PDF document 
$pdf->Output('example_061.pdf', 'I');

?>

If you are using values from your 1250-encoded database, you will need to convert them like this:

$db = mysql_connect('localhost', 'user', 'password');
mysql_select_db('databasename', $db);
mysql_set_charset("cp1250");

$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `yourtable`");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)) {
  $converted_value = iconv("windows-1250", "utf-8", $row['column_name']);
}

I made a test table with 1250 collation in my own database, and used the words you supplied. This worked for me. Let me know if it helps!