[libreoffice-users] Re: Filling PDF forms with LibreOffice

I create/edit pdf since 1997 and I can't count how many softwares I used to
do so. I think LO/OOo is (are) the best tool to create a pdf. As I'm french
speaking, I never had a problem with diacritic sign (accents, cedilla...) in
a pdf.

Like someone else explains, it must be an embedded font problem. Be aware
that a font must be embedded to be presented corectly unless there is a
substitution (Helvetica is a substitution for Arial, very close - the same
is true for Times and TimesNew Roman or Courier and CourierNew). A font can
only be embedded (or partially embedded) if it has the right to do so. Maybe
your Arabic font can't be embedded in the pdf document.

PDF is an open standard since 1st of july 2008, free (as in libre) readers
and editors exist for any OS, so you can use the pdf format while promoting
FOSS ;-)

Now back to your main problem, here is what I would do:

1. Open your regular document (or any arabic document you created) and check
the embedded font in the document properties, the arabic font must be
completly or partially embedded, it MUST appear in the font list;

2. If you can't write in the pdf using pdf import because the results are
not good, try this longer way:
   - open the document in a pdf reader, print it in a Postscript file (*.ps)
   - open LO Draw and insert the ps document as an image; if you are using
Linux you will see a low resolution of the page, good enough so that you
will be able to see where you can add your new text (in Windows it is not
possible, the missing Postscript viewer is the cause and the inserted ps
image only shows a blank rectangle)
   - add a layer (and lock the layer containing the pdf page) to write your
text without disturbing your original page
   - when finished, PRINT the page (allowing every layer to be printed) in a
new Postscript file (like new.ps)
   - use ps2pdf to convert the file to pdf: ps2pdf new.ps

You may loose links because the ps file is not aware of the pdf syntax, but
the pdf file should look good if the fonts used can be embedded or
substituted. Even if the ps "image" has a low resolution, the Postscript
informations are still there and the pdf created should look good. In
windows, you can write over the blank rectangle if you know the exact place
where to write, the ps file is there, it is only not showed.

Finally, I use this long technique on some complicated pages and I replace
the newly working pages in any pdf using pdftk (a CLI tool), pdf-mod or
pdf-shuffler.
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