Jivespace: View as PDF turns bullets into "???"...

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26 Replies Last post: Jan 7, 2009 8:51 AM by wolfpack

Jeff Crump

245 posts since
Nov 27, 2006

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Nov 11, 2008 7:09 PM

View as PDF turns bullets into "???" (CS 2.5.3)

Hi, We're on Clearspace 2.5.3.

We've found a bug in the PDF creator. After conversion to PDF bullets appear as "???". This happens with documents created IN the HTML editor (as well as if it was pasted originally from Word). It also happens in discussions, but we didn't test blogs.

Here's what the resulting PDF looks like:

As you can see numbered lists paste fine.

Thanks!

Jeff

Tags: pdfs, bullets, 2.5.3, view_as_pdf

Long Ton That

3,280 posts since
Apr 1, 2008

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Nov 12, 2008 8:41 AM

in response to: Jeff Crump

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into "???" (CS 2.5.3)

Hey Jeff,

I just tested on my local instance of 2.5.3 by copying and pasting a bullet list from Word, however I could not replicate the '?' issue:

VIDEO

Perhaps this is related to the previous Clearspace <-> Word conversion issue, can you verify which version of Word and OS are you using?

~Long

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Jeff Crump

245 posts since
Nov 27, 2006

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Nov 12, 2008 8:53 AM

in response to: Long Ton That

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into "???" (CS 2.5.3)

Hi Long,

We're using Word 2003. We're on Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 2.

Though for us, the PDF problem happens whether or not pasting is involved. Native HTML documents with bullets convert to PDF the same way.

Best,

Jeff

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Long Ton That

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Apr 1, 2008

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Nov 12, 2008 11:25 AM

in response to: Jeff Crump

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into "???" (CS 2.5.3)

Hey Jeff,

Regarding:

Though for us, the PDF problem happens whether or not pasting is involved. Native HTML documents with bullets convert to PDF the same way.

Just wanted to confirm, even the out-of-box bullets from Clearspace's rich text editor are being replaced with '?' when converted to PDF?

~Long

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Jeff Crump

245 posts since
Nov 27, 2006

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Nov 12, 2008 1:00 PM

in response to: Long Ton That

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into "???" (CS 2.5.3)

That's correct.

Best,

Jeff

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Jeff Crump

245 posts since
Nov 27, 2006

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Nov 12, 2008 9:03 AM

in response to: Long Ton That

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into "???" (CS 2.5.3)

Can I ask what OS you are using?

Thanks,

Jeff

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Long Ton That

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Apr 1, 2008

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Nov 12, 2008 9:20 AM

in response to: Jeff Crump

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into "???" (CS 2.5.3)

I'm not certain why I cannot replicate this issue, but this might be a known issue. I am going to discuss with our resident RTE developer to verify.

I'll post an update here if I find anything out.

~Long

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Jeff Crump

245 posts since
Nov 27, 2006

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Nov 12, 2008 9:30 AM

in response to: Long Ton That

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into "???" (CS 2.5.3)

Thanks again! In case it helps, 99% of our computers are on Windows XP SP2, but it also happens on Windows XP SP3.

Best,

Jeff

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Jeff Crump

245 posts since
Nov 27, 2006

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Nov 17, 2008 7:00 PM

in response to: Jeff Crump

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

Hi Long,

I'm just checking in on whether this is a known issue? This is a pretty big bug for us since it cannot be edited and fixed, being a PDF and all.

Do you need any additional information from me?

Thanks,

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Long Ton That

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Nov 18, 2008 4:54 PM

in response to: Jeff Crump

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

Hey Jeff,

I apologize for the delay, I'm still having issues getting ahold our developer that worked closely with the RTE and view PDF.

A couple of items that would be helpful in troubleshooting this would be:

The PDF output of a document with this bullets issue.
The documents HTML content (when in RTE, select HTML in top right corner). Could you copy and paste this to a text file.

Thanks again and I apologize for not providing an update.

~Long

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Jeff Crump

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Nov 27, 2006

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Nov 19, 2008 12:00 PM

in response to: Long Ton That

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

Hi Long,

No need to apologize. Your level of service is phenomenal.

I've attached the PDF output as well as the HTML in a text file. The document in question was created directly in the HTML editor.

Please let me know if you need anything else. This is a pretty ugly bug on our end.

Best regards,

Jeff

Attachments:

PDFbullets.txt (5.5 K)
DOC-4891.pdf (22.5 K)

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Long Ton That

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Apr 1, 2008

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Nov 19, 2008 2:42 PM

in response to: Jeff Crump

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

Jeff,

Even replicating the document exactly with the supplied HTML, I couldn't replicate the issue on my local instance which leads me to believe there is a missing variable.

I noticed that I could hit your site from one of the links in the documents, would it be possible for me to troubleshoot on your site directly? (Perhaps setting up an account, private community to test on, or just even a link to one of the trouble documents)

I completely understand if this isn't a possibility. If not, could you supply me with the following items about your enviroment:

Application server + version
- Is SSL enabled
Database
PDF View (application opened when viewing PDF's)
Any customizations / plugins (outside of theming)

~Long

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Ben Davis

169 posts since
Feb 20, 2003

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Nov 19, 2008 4:17 PM

in response to: Long Ton That

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

I'm seeing the same thing on Solaris

Clearspace Version:     2.5.3
JVM Version and Vendor:     1.5.0_14 Sun Microsystems Inc.
Application server:     Apache Tomcat/6.0.16
Operating System:     SunOS
Hardware:     sparc

                       Solaris 10 8/07 s10s_u4wos_12b SPARC
           Copyright 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
                        Use is subject to license terms.
                            Assembled 16 August 2007

It works fine on my development system. The only difference between the two is the OS release.

                       Solaris 10 5/08 s10s_u5wos_10 SPARC
           Copyright 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
                        Use is subject to license terms.
                             Assembled 24 March 2008

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Long Ton That

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Apr 1, 2008

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Nov 19, 2008 4:33 PM

in response to: Ben Davis

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

Hey Ben,

Thanks for the input, maybe we can isolate the issue if we can find a common element between Jeff and your environment.

This is a question for both you and Jeff: Which database are you using? and which character encoding is it configured to (UTF-8)? Finally, which character encoding is set in Clearspace (Admin Console > System > Locale)?

Note: Also Ben, a couple of items in your environment aren't officially supported in Clearspace 2.5.3 yet, Solaris 10 and Sun JDK 1.5 will be in version 2.5.5. Platform Support in Clearspace 2.5

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Ben Davis

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Nov 19, 2008 4:51 PM

in response to: Long Ton That

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

MySQL 5.0.45

MySQL-AB JDBC Driver mysql-connector-java-5.1.6

Character encoding for both is UTF-8

Yeah, I know about the support but the 1.x HTML editor was making everyone crazy.

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Jeff Crump

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Nov 27, 2006

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Nov 19, 2008 4:53 PM

in response to: Long Ton That

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

Hi Long,

And thanks Ben for joining in!

Application server: Apache Tomcat/5.5.27

Operating System: Linux

Database Name and Version: MySQL 4.1.22-log

I don't know what character encoding it is configured to. I need to check with our software engineer to find this out (unless you can point me to where this might be given in the admin console).

Character Set: English and other Western languages (ISO-8859-1)

Thanks!

Jeff

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Doug Carter

206 posts since
Jul 23, 2005

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Nov 20, 2008 7:05 AM

in response to: Jeff Crump

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

The webserver is encoded with ISO-8859-1.

Each MySQL table is either using utf8 or latin1.

I hope this helps,

Doug

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Long Ton That

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Nov 20, 2008 10:42 AM

in response to: Doug Carter

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

Thanks,

I believe the Character Encoding should match at the Webserver and Database level, could you set the Webserver to UTF-8.

Which version of the Java JDK is MercyCorp using? 1.5 or 1.6?

~Long

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Doug Carter

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Jul 23, 2005

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Nov 20, 2008 10:47 AM

in response to: Long Ton That

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

Hi Long,

We can't use UTF-8 right now, because it will break other websites on the same server. I'll try it on our development server.

We are Java 1.6.0_07-b06, running on Linux.

Thanks,

Doug

1.6.0_07-b06

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Doug Carter

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Jul 23, 2005

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Nov 20, 2008 11:42 AM

in response to: Long Ton That

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

Long,

I just changed our test server over to UTF-8 and it has no effect on this PDF encoding problem.

Anything else to try?

Thanks,

Doug

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Long Ton That

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Nov 21, 2008 2:31 PM

in response to: Doug Carter

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into ??? (CS 2.5.3)

Hey guys,

We're still not sure what could be causing this, I cannot replicate this on my nearly identical setup. I've exhausted any potential root causes I could think of, I will need to discuss with one of our developers unfortunately he's not in the office today.

Thanks for your patience, I will try to have an update for you guys next monday.

~Long

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Long Ton That

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Nov 26, 2008 4:29 PM

in response to: Jeff Crump

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into "???" (CS 2.5.3)

Hey Jeff,

I had a chance to discuss this with our resident PDF developer, and we weren't able to determine the root cause. The bullets appear to be standard HTML bullets, the only explaination would be that the font used in the PDF's doesn't have the bullet character. At the moment, I'm not sure how we could confirm this, I'm going to have to look through the code a bit more to verify exactly what's occurring during PDF generation.

We're not sure if this is necessary yet, but would it be possible to get a copy of your database & Tomcat deployment? Also which specific Linux flavor & version is this OS running on?

~Long

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Jeff Crump

245 posts since
Nov 27, 2006

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Dec 11, 2008 6:20 PM

in response to: Long Ton That

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into "???" (CS 2.5.3)

Hi Long,

It seems some Apache fop font stuff may have been missing from our implementation. It is working fine now.

Thanks a million for all your help. As always!

Jeff

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Long Ton That

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Dec 12, 2008 8:03 AM

in response to: Jeff Crump

Re: View as PDF turns bullets into "???" (CS 2.5.3)

This is great to hear Jeff! Glad it's working as expected now.

~Long