Arabic Language Support ? about questpdf

[MarcinZiabek]

Hello 😁

Unfortunately, you are right. Currently, QuestPDF offers limited support for languages that require more advanced text shaping capability. I am planning to improve this in one of the nearest updates (possibly Q1/Q2 2022) by integrating the SkiaSharp.HarfBuzz nuget. I have never worked with Arabic (or equally complex languages). Therefore, I don't know yet how complex this feature is.

Would you like to help me explore this domain (requirements / use cases) and test the experimental releases? If everything goes well, it may be the February or March release 😁

[MarcinZiabek]

@MarcinZiabek any update on supporting Arabic language?

This feature is on the roadmap. In the nearest future I am planning to take care of more advanced text related capabilities, including Arabic language support and text shaping. In fact, this is my highest priority at this moment.

Lately, a lot is happening in my personal life (positive yet time-consuminn events) and some plans become slightly delayed. I develop QuestPDF in my spare time so it is usually first to be put on hold whenever needed. However, it is still being fully supported from my side, no need to worry!

[MarcinZiabek]

@mustafamagdy @megamanhxh @GeeSuth Great news! I have just finished integrating the text-shaping algorithm in QuestPDF. It uses the HarfBuzz library and supports many different languages, including Arabic of course, all depends on the font used. I think this is much more stable and reliable solution, with a very little performance cost.

Please download the QuestPDF 2022.6.0-prerelease, test it in your solutions and let me know if everything is all right 😁

Also, I am hoping to take care of the RTL mode in the next release. I hope that we can cooperate on it. I have a general idea about this mode, not sure about all details involved.

[GeeSuth]

@megamanhxh @mustafamagdy
there are a clear different between twice
`

Method	Mean	Error	StdDev	Gen 0	Allocated
AraibcPdfExtentionName	17.448 us	0.8517 us	2.4710 us	6.5002	13 KB
ArabicFixerName	7.483 us	0.2679 us	0.7729 us	2.0905	4 KB
`

tested for "بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم"

@MarcinZiabek I don't know if that possible to combine best class to your Library ?

[MarcinZiabek]

Make sure that your IDE searches also packages with the prerelease tag. For example, there a special checkbox in Visual Studio 😁

[GeeSuth]

Great Job 👍

[blockhunts]

Will this case also applied to chinese/japanese characters?

[MarcinZiabek]

Will this case also applied to chinese/japanese characters?

As far as I understand, Chinese/Japanese characters are not connected with each other and do not need to be shaped. Therefore, you should be okey. If anyone knows better and wants to share the knowledge, please do 😀

[blockhunts]

@MarcinZiabek Apparently it cannot properly Japanese characters, possibly will be same with Chinese characters.

[girlpunk]

@blockhunts Does the font you're using contain those characters? That looks like it could be the unicode replacement character getting swapped in, which suggests the Japanese codepages aren't included.

[blockhunts]

@girlpunk ahhh, that may be the case. I just tried to follow the getting started tutorial. And haven't fiddle with the other aspects like fonts.

[MarcinZiabek]

@blockhunts Does the font you're using contain those characters? That looks like it could be the unicode replacement character getting swapped in, which suggests the Japanese codepages aren't included.

I agree, this may be a potential reason. Unfortunately, QuestPDF does not support font fallback at this moment 😅 I am planning to cover it in one of the future updates but there are a lot of priorities to cover.

[blockhunts]

@MarcinZiabek I see, I will patiently wait then 😄
Keep up the good works and cheers 🥂

[ehajri]

@MarcinZiabek any update on supporting Arabic language?

[mustafamagdy]

@MarcinZiabek Any plans when Arabic support will be available? can you guide us to do a workaround if it will take time for you to add Arabic support natively in the library?. Much appreciated the great work.

[megamanhxh]

@mustafamagdy You may do a workaround at the moment to solve this issue. A script by @Konash used in Unity & Xamarin managed to apply a unicode fixes to any arabic text. Check out his script on his github repo: https://github.com/Konash/arabic-support-unity/blob/master/Assets/ArabicSupport/Scripts/ArabicSupport.cs

You may import the ArabicSupport.cs to your project and use it statically:

using ArabicSupport;
...
  page.Header().Text(text =>
  {
      text.Span("أهلاً وسهلاً");
      text.Span("\n");
      text.Span(ArabicFixer.Fix("أهلاً وسهلاً"));
      text.AlignCenter();
  });
...

You may have to look for ArabicFixer.Fix overrides to know how to enable "Tanween" and other arabic features. This is only for Arabic workaround, I don't know about other languages.

[mustafamagdy]

@megamanhxh Thanks a lot. That is a good workaround. I also found simpler one, I had to test it, though.

[GeeSuth]

@MarcinZiabek I think QuestPDF 2022.6.0-prerelease is not uploaded yet ?
I searching about it in tag but not found!

[mseada94]

I find this package which still in development that support better text rendering with SkiaSharp
https://github.com/toptensoftware/RichTextKit

[MarcinZiabek]

I find this package which still in development that support better text rendering with SkiaSharp
https://github.com/toptensoftware/RichTextKit

You are correct, the RichTextKit library handles text in a superior way. That being said, improved text handling is one of the most important areas of improvement in the current QuestPDF roadmap. I hope that the recently introduced dual-licensing model will provide some funding and allow me to focus more on those crucial things 😀