TCPDF Fonts

TCPDF supports TrueTypeUnicode (UTF-8 Unicode), OpenTypeUnicode, TrueType, OpenType, Type1, CID-0 and Core (standard) fonts.

There are two ways to use a new font: embedding it in the PDF or not. When a font is not embedded, it is searched in the system. The advantage is that the PDF file is lighter; on the other hand, if it is not available, a substitution font is used. So it is preferable to ensure that the needed font is installed on the client systems. If the file is to be viewed by a large audience, it is recommended to embed.

The fonts that could be not embedded are only the standard core fonts and CID-0 fonts.

The PDF Core (standard) fonts are:

    * courier : Courier
    * courierb : Courier Bold
    * courierbi : Courier Bold Italic
    * courieri : Courier Italic
    * helvetica : Helvetica
    * helveticab : Helvetica Bold
    * helveticabi : Helvetica Bold Italic
    * helveticai : Helvetica Italic
    * symbol : Symbol
    * times : Times New Roman
    * timesb : Times New Roman Bold
    * timesbi : Times New Roman Bold Italic
    * timesi : Times New Roman Italic
    * zapfdingbats : Zapf Dingbats

Setting up a font for usage with TCPDF requires the following steps:

   1. Convert all font filenames to lowercase and rename using the following schema:
          * [basic-font-name-in-lowercase].ttf for regular font
          * [basic-font-name-in-lowercase]b.ttf for bold variation
          * [basic-font-name-in-lowercase]i.ttf for oblique variation
          * [basic-font-name-in-lowercase]bi.ttf for bold oblique variation

   2. Generate the font's metrics file.
          * For Type1 font files this first step is not necessary because the AFM file is usually shipped with the font. In case you have only a metric file in PFM format, use the pfm2afm utility (fonts/utils/pfm2afm) to get the AFM file. If you own a Type1 font in ASCII format (.pfa), you can convert it to binary format with Type 1 utilities.
          * For TrueTypeUnicode or TrueType font files, use the the provided ttf2ufm utility (fonts/utils/ttf2ufm):

            $ ttf2ufm -a -F myfont.ttf

          * For OpenTypeUnicode or OpenType font files, use the the provided ttf2ufm utility (fonts/utils/ttf2ufm):

            $ ttf2ufm -a -F myfont.otf

   3. Run makefont.php script.
          * For TrueTypeUnicode:

            $ php -q makefont.php myfont.ttf myfont.ufm

          * For OpenTypeUnicode:

            $ php -q makefont.php myfont.otf myfont.ufm

          * For TrueType:

            $ php -q makefont.php myfont.ttf myfont.afm

          * For OpenType:

            $ php -q makefont.php myfont.otf myfont.afm

          * For Type1:

            $ php -q makefont.php myfont.pfb myfont.afm

      You may also specify additional parameters:

      MakeFont(string $fontfile, string $fmfile [, boolean $embedded [, $enc="cp1252" [, $patch=array()]]])

          * $fontfile : Path to the .ttf or .pfb file.
          * $fmfile : Path to the .afm file for Type1 and TrueType or .ufm for TrueTypeUnicode.
          * $embedded : Set to false to not embed the font, true otherwise (default).
          * $enc : Name of the encoding table to use. Default value: cp1252. Omit this parameter for TrueType Unicode, OpenType Unicode and symbolic fonts like Symbol or ZapfDingBats. The encoding defines the association between a code (from 0 to 255) and a character. The first 128 are fixed and correspond to ASCII. The encodings are stored in .map files. Those available are:
                o cp1250 (Central Europe)
                o cp1251 (Cyrillic)
                o cp1252 (Western Europe)
                o cp1253 (Greek)
                o cp1254 (Turkish)
                o cp1255 (Hebrew)
                o cp1257 (Baltic)
                o cp1258 (Vietnamese)
                o cp874 (Thai)
                o iso-8859-1 (Western Europe)
                o iso-8859-2 (Central Europe)
                o iso-8859-4 (Baltic)
                o iso-8859-5 (Cyrillic)
                o iso-8859-7 (Greek)
                o iso-8859-9 (Turkish)
                o iso-8859-11 (Thai)
                o iso-8859-15 (Western Europe)
                o iso-8859-16 (Central Europe)
                o koi8-r (Russian)
                o koi8-u (Ukrainian)
            Of course, the font must contain the characters corresponding to the chosen encoding. The encodings which begin with cp are those used by Windows; Linux systems usually use ISO.
          * $patch : Optional modification of the encoding. Empty by default. This parameter gives the possibility to alter the encoding. Sometimes you may want to add some characters. For instance, ISO-8859-1 does not contain the euro symbol. To add it at position 164, pass array(164=>'Euro').

   4. Edit and copy resulting files by case:
          * For embedded fonts: copy the resulting .php, .z and .ctg.z (if available) files to the TCPDF fonts directory.
          * For CID-0 fonts (not embeddeed) you have to edit the .php file:
                o change the font type to: $type='cidfont0';
                o set the default font width by adding the line: $dw=1000;
                o remove the $enc, $file and $ctg variables definitions
                o add one of the following blocks of text at the end of the file (depends by the language you are using - see the arialunicid0.php file for a working example):
                      + // Chinese Simplified
                        $enc='UniCNS-UTF16-H';
                        $cidinfo=array('Registry'=>'Adobe', 'Ordering'=>'CNS1','Supplement'=>0);
                        include(dirname(__FILE__).'/uni2cid_ac16.php');

                      + // Chinese Traditional
                        $enc='UniGB-UTF16-H';
                        $cidinfo=array('Registry'=>'Adobe', 'Ordering'=>'GB1','Supplement'=>2);
                        include(dirname(__FILE__).'/uni2cid_ag15.php');

                      + // Korean
                        $enc='UniKS-UTF16-H';
                        $cidinfo=array('Registry'=>'Adobe', 'Ordering'=>'Korea1','Supplement'=>0);
                        include(dirname(__FILE__).'/uni2cid_ak12.php');

                      + // Japanese
                        $enc='UniJIS-UTF16-H';
                        $cidinfo=array('Registry'=>'Adobe', 'Ordering'=>'Japan1','Supplement'=>5);
                        include(dirname(__FILE__).'/uni2cid_aj16.php');

                o copy the .php file to the TCPDF fonts directory.
   5. Rename php font files variations using the following schema:
          * [basic-font-name-in-lowercase].php for regular font
          * [basic-font-name-in-lowercase]b.php for bold variation
          * [basic-font-name-in-lowercase]i.php for oblique variation
          * [basic-font-name-in-lowercase]bi.php for bold oblique variation

