PDF to Text Not Rendering Thai Properly

General questions about using ExamDiff Pro, ideas for new features, bug reports, and usage tips.
Post Reply
tbsqa
New Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2018 12:41 pm

PDF to Text Not Rendering Thai Properly

Post by tbsqa »

Hello,

I compare several hundred pdf documents in a variety of language. Most of them are in English, but about a third of them are in non-English characters. I have no problem when comparing Japanese, Chinese, or Arabic, but when I compar Thai a large number of boxes show up in the comparison window. I'm certain my issue lies within the PDF to Text plug-in because I had to configure that a few years ago to get useful comparisons for the languages above, but I'm unsure of whether it's an issue with ExamDiff Pro, Xpdf's pdf to text, or something else. I've visually ruled out anything with the PDFs themselves.
User avatar
psguru
Site Admin
Posts: 2228
Joined: Sat May 15, 2004 4:23 pm
Location: California
Contact:

Re: PDF to Text Not Rendering Thai Properly

Post by psguru »

The plug-in is a third-party app (Xpdf), and, unfortunately, we have no control of it.
psguru
PrestoSoft
tbsqa
New Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2018 12:41 pm

Re: PDF to Text Not Rendering Thai Properly

Post by tbsqa »

That is unfortunately what I thought. Thank you for the help.
JeremyNicoll
Expert Member
Posts: 108
Joined: Sun May 02, 2010 12:00 pm
Location: Edinburgh

Re: PDF to Text Not Rendering Thai Properly

Post by JeremyNicoll »

According to: https://www.xpdfreader.com/download.html there's a set of 'language packs' for Xpdf, and one of them is for Thai. I downloaded it and looked at it, and its instructions seem to say that the files within just need to be placed within specific folders where Xpdf is installed, and a config file updated.

The example config file in my version of Xpdf (inside ...\ExamDiff Pro\Plug-Ins\Xpdf) even explicitly mention Thai as an example, so I'd be surprised if it is not possible to make Xpdf's Thai support work.

It might be sensible first to download the most uptodate Xpdf from the download page I mentioned above, along with the langiage pack(s) you need and experiment with those outwith EDP, then if you can get that to work, replace the plugin that EDP has with the uptodate one.
Post Reply