Gujarati Text Not Rendering Correctly in JasperReports PDF Output

[jayeshsony]

Gujarati text is not rendered correctly in PDFs generated using JasperReports, even though the font is properly embedded and Unicode encoding is used.

The generated PDF shows broken or incorrectly shaped Gujarati characters (matras and ligatures), while the same text renders perfectly in browsers or other PDF generators.

Observations:

pdffonts confirms the font is embedded correctly (CID TrueType, Identity-H)

Font used: Anek Gujarati (Unicode)

Issue persists across multiple JasperReports versions (6.20.x / 6.21.x)

The same text renders correctly when generated via HTML → PDF or image-based rendering

This indicates a limitation in JasperReports' text rendering (Java2D) for complex Indic scripts.

[dadza]

There's a Unicode sample report in the JasperReports sources that includes Gujarati text rendered with the Noto Sans Gujarati font. See at https://github.com/Jaspersoft/jasperreports/tree/74d586df47b25dbd05bd0957999819196e59934a/jasperreports/demo/samples/unicode

Can you run that sample report and check the Gujarati text in the PDF output?

Thank you,
Lucian

[jayeshsony]

Hi Lucian,

I ran the Unicode sample report from the JasperReports repository as suggested.

As you can see in the attached screenshot, the Gujarati text is not rendering correctly in the generated PDF — it appears as square boxes. This happens specifically for Gujarati, while other languages (like Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, etc.) are rendered properly.

So even in the official sample report, the issue persists for Gujarati when using the current font setup. This further indicates that the problem is related to how the Gujarati font (such as Anek Gujarati) is being embedded or handled during PDF generation.

Thanks,
Jayesh

[dadza]

Please share a report (and PDF output) to reproduce the issue that you're experiencing.

[jayeshsony]

font_issue_jrxml_code.txt

font_issue.pdf

Characters appear distorted or improperly joined, even though other Gujarati fonts work fine. This issue occurs only with the Anek Gujarati font during PDF export

I’m unable to attach the TTF file here so I converted the ttf as txt and sent you, and the font used is Anek Gujarati. The issue occurs specifically with this font during PDF generation.

anek-gujarati.txt

[dadza]

Please attach a minimal and self contained sample report that can be used to reproduce the issue.

[jayeshsony]

Anek.txt

[dadza]

Thank you.

Can you also please attach the PDF output that you are getting and explain what is wrong with it and what the expected result?

[jayeshsony]

The Gujarati text “સુરેશ જુકેસ” is written correctly and renders properly in preview as well as when using other Gujarati fonts.
However, when the Anek Gujarati font is used, the generated PDF visually renders the text incorrectly, appearing as “સરુશે, જકુસે”.

Interestingly, when the text is copied from the PDF or extracted using any AI/text tool, it is read and written correctly as “સુરેશ જુકેસ”.

This clearly indicates that the issue is not with the actual text data or Unicode encoding, but only with the visual rendering of the Anek Gujarati font in the PDF output.

sample_report.pdf