best way to include google fonts into a pdf?

[jamie]

Hi there,

Like most companies, we have an official font, a Google Font. And I’m wondering what the best way is to include this in a PDF. We’ve tried a few plugins without success, and it seems like there should be an option or setting on the PDF object to include external font sources, but it doesn’t appear to exist.

Any guidance or best practices for embedding a Google Font (especially in Dompdf) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[leon]

Hi,

Just include the correct CSS file in your Pdf Template as mentioned by Google Fonts.

Example for Bitcount Grid Single font:

<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Bitcount+Grid+Single:wght@100..900&amp ;display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
<p style="font-family : 'Bitcount Grid Single';">The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog?</p>

Don't forget to change

private $isRemoteEnabled = false;

to

private $isRemoteEnabled = true;

in /vendor/dompdf/dompdf/src/Options.php


You should see the downloaded font files in /vendor/dompdf/dompdf/lib/fonts/

[jamie]

Hi,

Just include the correct CSS file in your Pdf Template as mentioned by Google Fonts.

Example for Bitcount Grid Single font:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog?


Don't forget to change

private $isRemoteEnabled = false;

to

private $isRemoteEnabled = true;

in /vendor/dompdf/dompdf/src/Options.php


You should see the downloaded font files in /vendor/dompdf/dompdf/lib/fonts/

yeah not a bad solution though i traditionally never edit vendor files and ended up using an embedded font instead, has its advantages...

[rabii]

Hi,

Just include the correct CSS file in your Pdf Template as mentioned by Google Fonts.

Example for Bitcount Grid Single font:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog?


Don't forget to change

private $isRemoteEnabled = false;

to

private $isRemoteEnabled = true;

in /vendor/dompdf/dompdf/src/Options.php


You should see the downloaded font files in /vendor/dompdf/dompdf/lib/fonts/

that might open up security issues

[jamie]

that might open up security issues

o is that why its you have to hack the vendor files to enable it, It would be great to have an ESPo way so i can choose to enable it or not without hacking anything

and there are plenty of reasons i'd want to include remote files not just for fonts but images, css and more

[rabii]

This is from dompdf repo not from espocrm. I guess that is why it was not exposed as an option on espocrm. Best way is to create a small extension dowload all required fonts - then extend the fontList under pdfengines.json

https://docs.espocrm.com/development/metadata/app-pdf-engines/#fontfacelist

then use binding to change how the options are loaded in DomPdfInitialization.php

https://github.com/espocrm/espocrm/blob/be9e88aa2d7cbddb25ece609283a698baf7322a5/application/Espo/Tools/Pdf/Dompdf/DompdfInitializer.php#L50

and you should bind it so that when the EntityPrinter require the file it will pass yours

https://github.com/espocrm/espocrm/blob/be9e88aa2d7cbddb25ece609283a698baf7322a5/application/Espo/Tools/Pdf/Dompdf/EntityPrinter.php#L54

That is how i would go about to keep everything safe-upgrade

[jamie]

yes initinaly i was looking at adding in a switch here


The embedded fonts have proven to be the better approach overall.
I may need to revisit the setup if we ever need to support non-Roman alphabets. Have you had any experience with that? I was surprised to find that Cyrillic isn’t supported by default, given the lead programmer's language of origin

[rabii]

i don't think dompdf support that. i remember in the past i have helped a client with that building an extension that use a different pdf engine called mpdf which supports non-latin languages.

[jamie]

rabii i think you just need to set the multi-byte option and have an appropriate font

[rabii]

https://github.com/dompdf/dompdf/issues/2619

[jamie]

that does seem quite complicated, though i notice that Cyrillic isn't there