• From: Luxembourg
  • Registered: 06/28/2015
  • Posts: 48

Topic: Bug: e-mail Subject is not UTF-8? Characters displayed incorrectly

Looks like there is a problem with emails FA sends out
Characters like õ ä ö ü ž š are not display correctly and look like: �

looking at the e-mail source: 

....2d3c597a
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Dear ,

Attached you will find  Invoice No....

BTW, your https://frontaccounting.com/punbb/help.php?section=bbcode pages has errors

  • joe
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 03/15/2007
  • Posts: 5,089

Re: Bug: e-mail Subject is not UTF-8? Characters displayed incorrectly

The charset="ISO-8859-1" is related to the charset set for the document Before creating the PDF file. For domestic documents this would be the same as the charset set for your language. Foreign documents would use the language charset.

You can see the language charsets by going to Setup tab, Install / Activate Languages.

/Joe

  • From: Luxembourg
  • Registered: 06/28/2015
  • Posts: 48

Re: Bug: e-mail Subject is not UTF-8? Characters displayed incorrectly

For some reason there is no English UTF-8 available.
We are running multiple applications on that same server and FA is th eonly one who has problems with sending out e-mails when non iso-8859-1 are used.

4 Reply by RandomName (edited by RandomName 07/09/2015 09:24:49 am)

  • From: Luxembourg
  • Registered: 06/28/2015
  • Posts: 48

Re: Bug: e-mail Subject is not UTF-8? Characters displayed incorrectly

no strike out tag? 
I created a new language, edited files in PoEdit, set it to UTF-8, used FA to send out the Invoice and now it looks OK.
no strike out tag?

UTF-8 is recommended even for US English ... globalization and what not wink

Something is not right

Sales > Reports and Analysis > Print Invoices is giving me 

TCPDF error: Could not include font definition file: dejavu.php
  • From: Luxembourg
  • Registered: 06/28/2015
  • Posts: 48

Re: Bug: e-mail Subject is not UTF-8? Characters displayed incorrectly

Not only that but now all customer names with non ISO-8859-1 characters are displayed wrong.

  • joe
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 03/15/2007
  • Posts: 5,089

Re: Bug: e-mail Subject is not UTF-8? Characters displayed incorrectly

Regarding the UTF-8 font, dejavu, it can be downloaded from our website. Look under the download sections. Follow the instructions given on the pages.

The downside of using UTF-8 is the huge footprint in PDF files.

Joe

  • From: Singapore, India, Chennai
  • Registered: 05/02/2009
  • Posts: 6,094

Re: Bug: e-mail Subject is not UTF-8? Characters displayed incorrectly

Read the Wiki page on it under dejavu.php missing - TCPDF Font Failure part.

apmuthu's Website

  • From: Luxembourg
  • Registered: 06/28/2015
  • Posts: 48

Re: Bug: e-mail Subject is not UTF-8? Characters displayed incorrectly

apmuthu, thank you. I can generate PDF's now but content is all messed up.

I did not expect this. UTF-8 is nothing new in this century and used successfully practically everywhere.
I have no idea why FA manages to generate 40 times!!! bigger PDF's when UTF-8 is used. Something is obviously really wrong with the implementation.
I generate PDF's every day with other systems and never seen anything like it. Seriously, this is not even funny.

Can you please write a warning to FA download page that support for UTF-8 is broken. This would have saved me more than a week of my time.

  • From: Singapore, India, Chennai
  • Registered: 05/02/2009
  • Posts: 6,094

Re: Bug: e-mail Subject is not UTF-8? Characters displayed incorrectly

TCPDF 's UTF-8 option embeds the font file in the generated PDF. You can try to turn t off by tinkering with the defaults in TCPDF.

apmuthu's Website

  • From: Luxembourg
  • Registered: 06/28/2015
  • Posts: 48

Re: Bug: e-mail Subject is not UTF-8? Characters displayed incorrectly

I am not a programmer and looks like TCPDF has no clue how to fix this.

FA is not using UTF-8 to store data so when switching from ISO-* to UTF-8 in UI, it breaks down showing wrong characters.
I am sure that this is not how UTF-8 support is implemented in modern (<15 years) software, meant for international use.