PDF with Arabic

[Tobin Harris]

Hi there,

Anyone know what my best choice of library is for generating multilingual
PDFs in Ruby. The PDFs will need to output English, Arabic, Dutch and Danish
text.

Thanks

Tobin

 

[Andreas Schwarz]

Hi there,

Anyone know what my best choice of library is for generating multilingual
PDFs in Ruby. The PDFs will need to output English, Arabic, Dutch and Danish
text.

I don't know any of the ruby PDF libraries, but I've been using Latex to
generate PDF from Ruby with good results.

 

[Tobin Harris]

Hi Andreas

Sounds like an interesting approach. Would you be able to give me some
pointers as to the libraries you use. If you wouldn't mind, I have a couple
of questions:

- Is there a lib for Ruby that is considered best for integrating with
Latex?
- Could the libs be used on a shared server, without sysadmin intervention?
- What's the best way for me to start playing with LaTex/Ruby to see if it
will work?

Much appreciated

Tobin

 

[Austin Ziegler]

Hi there,

Anyone know what my best choice of library is for generating multilingual
PDFs in Ruby. The PDFs will need to output English, Arabic, Dutch and Dan= ish
text.

Long term, this will be PDF::Writer. Right now, we've just *barely*
gotten Japanese working thanks to the diligence of Noritsugu Nakamura.

I have a number of font issues to figure out, but I expect sometime
early next year we will have full multilingual PDF.

-austin

 

[Andreas S.]

Hi Andreas

Sounds like an interesting approach. Would you be able to give me some
pointers as to the libraries you use. If you wouldn't mind, I have a couple
of questions:

- Is there a lib for Ruby that is considered best for integrating with
Latex?
- Could the libs be used on a shared server, without sysadmin intervention?
- What's the best way for me to start playing with LaTex/Ruby to see if it
will work?

Hi,

you don't need a library. Just create a Latex template file with
embedded ruby (ERb), compile it to a latex file and run "pdflatex
yourfile.tex". You need a full latex installation on the server, though.
On a shared web server I wouldn't count on that.

Andreas

 

[Andreas S.]

Long term, this will be PDF::Writer. Right now, we've just *barely*
gotten Japanese working thanks to the diligence of Noritsugu Nakamura.

I have a number of font issues to figure out, but I expect sometime
early next year we will have full multilingual PDF.

Including support for right-to-left text?

 

[Austin Ziegler]

Including support for right-to-left text?

That's the intent. I believe that it's pretty easy to do that part
already, although I don't have any code that directly enables it in
the PDF, because the font issues (the *main* problem) aren't yet
resolved.

-austin