Japanese font issue (garbled text when opened&edited in another application)

[koide_r]

We are now seriously considering purchasing the licensed version of PDF-XChange Editor but we are having a sencond thought at the same time because we found some serious issue regarding Japanese fonts.

When you
1) insert a textbox and apply a Japanese font to the text inside it such as "MS Gothic" and save the file as PDF
2) and then re-open it with Acrobat reader and double click on the textbox,
the text inside will get garbled and turn into a bullet-like character.
Please see the attached image as to how to reproduce the problem.

Reproduction_process.png

It looks like this problem might be prevented by applying a non-Japanese font even to Japanese characters in a textbox but
I'm sure that's not the ideal solution. Is this issue solvable or should we just let it go as an inevitable compatibility issue
between PDF-XChange Editor and Acrobat Reader.

Thank you in advance for your support.

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello Koide_r,

Thank you for the report, There should not be any issues arising there unless Adobe is reading the Font information differently than it should be. We apply the fonts within windows just as any other text editing application would, so there should not be any compatibility issues, but this is certainly an odd issue. Might I ask you to first try restarting the Machine and see if the same issue is still present when opening our File in Adobe? It is possible that they simply haven't loaded the font information yet, so are unsure what to do with that font.

If a restart does not help, please send us both the original document, and a copy of the font you are having trouble with (you can find all your fonts by searching for "font settings" in your start menu). We can then install the font and test this on our end.

Kind regards,

[koide_r]

Thank you, Daniel, for your reply.

I restarted my PC and it didn't solve the problem so I have attached the original PDF that was created with PDF-XChange Editor. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to upload a font file from a license standpoint so I have not attached it here. But I'm positive that you can reproduce this problem with any common Japanese fonts such as "MS Gothic", which I'm sure is installed on your PC, too.

This problem occurred in the following Japanese environment and if possible, please try investigating in a Japanese evironment on your side as well.
- OS: Japanese Windows 10
- PDF-XChange Editor: Version 8.0, build 336.0
- Adobe Acrobat Reader DC: Version 2019.021.20061

By the way, I have another PC with English Windows 10 installed and when I tried to open the same file with Acrobat Reader there, I got the following message, which prevented me from editing the textbox.
An error has occurred that may be fixed by installing the latest version of the Japanese Language Support package.

I hope this post will help and if you need more information, please let me know.
Thank you.

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello Koide,

Thank you for the document, we have had our Dev team look this over and have some interesting findings for you.
As far as the document is concerned, it is fully compliant, and the font is embedded correctly to be used by other PDF readers. Unfortunately, for reasons we do not know, Adobe chooses to only use the embedded font while viewing. When editing, they instead substitute a font available in the Japanese language support package that you mentioned earlier. I am unsure why they do not use this font in the native Japanese installation, but unfortunately there is nothing that we are doing wrong in this case, and thus nothing we can change to make this work from our end.

In English installations of windows, installing that language pack allows Adobe to view and edit this document correctly. My advice is to try manually installing the Japanese Language Support package for Adobe on your machine (despite the fact that it should already be present) and then restart the machine and see if that helps. If it does not, you will want to contact Adobe's Support department to report a bug in their software.

Kind regards,

[koide_r]

Thank you, Daniel, for your input.

Sorry to bother you again but I have another finding I'd like to share with you despite the investigation done by your Dev team.

I forgot to mention that I have changed the default font to "MS Gothic" for a textbox in my PDF-XChange Editor.
And it looks like this Japanese font problem can occur in Acrobat Reader only when the textbox's default font is set to a Japanese one such as "MS Gothic."

As a matter of fact, after
1) I set the default font back to the original (Arial)
2) and then insert a textbox with some Japanese text
3) and select the inserted text and set the font to "MS Gothic" in the [Text Properties],
I do not see this problem happen when I try editing the textbox in Acrobat Reader.

screenshot.png

Just in case, I have attached the PDF that was created in the procedure mentioned above.
So, my guess is that this has something to do with the way PDF-XChange handles fonts when the textbox's default font is set to a Japanese font.

I hope your Dev team is still insterested
Thank you.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Thanks for the further feedback koide_r!

I am certain that the information you provided can only help our devs in their investigation, and yes - they are certainly still interested!

Regards,
Stefan

[koide_r]

Thank you, Stefan, for your reply.
May I ask if there is any update on this issue?

Best regards,

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello koide_r,

I've not personally received updates on this topic from our devs, but let me check with Dan, and we will post here as soon as we know more!

Regards,
Stefan

[koide_r]

Dear Stefan,

I'm still waiting for any update on this issue.
Thanks.

koide_r

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello koide_r,

I am afraid that Dan's statement from earlier in this topic still stands:
Unfortunately there is nothing that we are doing wrong in this case, and thus nothing we can change to make this work from our end.

And there isn't any further update that we can give.

Regards,
Stefan

[rakunavi]

Hello all,

I am interested in Daniel's comments below.

In English installations of windows, installing that language pack allows Adobe to view and edit this document correctly.

I have reported the same issue in another topic.

• https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/viewtopic.php?t=38554
  RT#6011: Comments in Acrobat are garbled when comments using Japanese font are added first in PDF-XChange Editor.

I wondered why the issue did not occur in Daniel's environment, but it did in our Japanese environment, so I first prepared an English environment to check the issue, just as Daniel had done. As Daniel confirmed, files created in Japanese Windows basically work fine when opened in English Windows. This means that no matter how serious this issue a user in Japanese-language environment reports about, it will not be understood by users in English-language environment.

However, I have found that creating the file in an English-language environment confirms the issue even in an English-language installation environment, so I provide the steps to reproduce the issue below. Also, I found that this issue occurs not only in Japanese, but also in Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. I have only confirmed garbled characters for languages other than Japanese by the same procedure described below. In other words, I did not actually test on each language version of Windows. However, evaluating the issue in the Japanese version of Windows, I assume that similar issues occur in other languages as well.

Preparation of the test environment

• I downloaded a tool from Microsoft's website, created Windows 10 installation media, and installed the English version of Windows on a virtual machine on VMware. No Windows Language Pack is installed.
  
    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
  
  For Acrobat Reader, I installed the 64-bit English version as well, and additionally installed the Font Pack and Spelling Dictionary.
  
    AcroRdrALSDx64_2200120085_all_DC.msi
    https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/font-pack-spelling-dictionary-64-bit-windows.html
  
  I also installed the latest version of PDF-XChange Editor.
  
  All of them are unified in the English environment, with the latest updates installed, and the settings are left as default. The only other thing I did was to install OBS Studio for video recording.
  
  
  • Windows 10 Pro 21H2 19044.1706 | 64bit US English
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (64bit) 2022.001.20117 | 64bit
  • PDF-XChange Editor Version 9.3 build 361.0

Verification for Japanese

• Please check the attached video for details.
  
  
  CapturedVideo.zip
  
  The reproduction procedure is as follows. The corresponding timecode in the video is also included.
  ([MM:SS] "MM" shows minutes, and "SS" shows seconds.)
  
  
  • [00:00] - [00:24]
    I opened the test.pdf uploaded by koide_r in Acrobat and confirmed that the comment section is displayed correctly when clicked on, and that the text can be selected and copied and pasted. Indeed, looking at this part alone, Daniei is right.
    
      https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/viewtopic.php?p=139588#p139588
  • [00:25] - [00:59]
    As mentioned above, I have not installed the Windows Language Pack in this verification, so I copied the Japanese text into Notepad.exe in advance and pasted it into a new document on the PDF-XChange Editor as a substitute for inputting Japanese text.
     
  • [01:00] - [01:17]
    Change the font to "MS Gothic". The file saved at this point is "test on English Windows.pdf".
  • [01:22] - [02:06]
    After opening a document in Acrobat Reader, when you click on the comment field and try to edit it, the text is garbled. Also, when adding a comment using Acrobat's annotation function, if the font is set to the same font used for the existing comment, the text is garbled. The file saved at this point is "test on English Windows after edited.pdf".
  
  The files created in the verification video are attached for your reference.
  
  
  SampleFiles.zip

Verification for Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese

• The verification videos for Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese are shown below. The verification procedure is the same as for Japanese, but the sample text is copied from the UI translations for each language of the PDF-XChange Editor stored in the folder C:\Program Files\Common Files\Tracker Software\Common\Languages. The fonts set for each language are typical fonts for the respective language versions of Windows listed below, and basically the same issue occurs with other fonts.
  
  
  • Korean ----> Malgun Gothic
  • Simplified Chinese ----> Microsoft YaHei
  • Traditional Chinese ----> Microsoft JhengHei
  CapturedVideo for ko-KR.zip
  
  
  CapturedVideo for zh-CN.zip
  
  
  CapturedVideo for zh-TW.zip
  
  
  SamplesFilesOtherLang.zip

Daniel's comment quoted at the beginning of this article says "view and edit," but nowhere does it say that he tried "add new" in an English environment, which I think is the key to better understanding.

Adobe's implementation may be quite specific and strange. However, unfortunately, the presence of Acrobat is still not negligible. Even if it's an odd implementation, it's been going on for more than a decade, maybe nearly two decades (maybe even longer). So, if you cut it off because it is a bug caused by Adobe, at least the impact on Asian language PDF-XChange Editor users will be enormous.

Of all the issues I have reported on this forum so far, this is the most serious, along with the following issue.

• https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/viewtopic.php?p=158203#p158203
  RT#5967: Bug - EOCR adds extra spaces in some languages

I hope one day I will be able to add text-based comments in PDF-XChange Editor without worrying about garbled text in Acrobat.

Hoping that the above information will be of some help to you.
Thank you so much for your continued support.

Best regards,
rakunavi

- PDF-XChange Editor Plus Version:9.3 build 361.0
- OS Version: Windows 10 Home/Pro 21H2 Build 19044.1706
- PC Model: Lenovo IdeaPad C340-15IWL / HP ProDesk 600G1

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello, rakunavi

Thank you for the detailed investigation and report, I have compiled the critical points, here, forwarded them to our Dev team. One of the devs after reviewing it all, is looking into it now as he "has some suspicions over what Acrobat may not like". I cannot promise right now that this is certainly something which we can resolve from our end, but I can assure you that the team is looking into it right now. If I get further updates from them on the Status of this, I will let you know here.

Kind regards,

[rakunavi]

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

I am not sure if this will be helpful, but I have attached sample files and verification videos that are created when the same operation is performed with the competing software (ABBYY FineReader and Foxit PDF Editor). This verification was performed on Japanese installations of Windows. PDF files commented with either application will display properly in Acrobat without any garbled characters.

• SampleFiles.zip
• CapturedVideo_ABBYY.zip
• CapturedVideo_Foxit.zip

Hoping that the above information will be of some help to you.
Thank you so much for your continued support.

Best regards,
rakunavi

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello, rakunavi

Thank you for sharing that, I will be sure that the Devs see this as well.

Kind regards,