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Participant
June 27, 2018
Answered

Georgian language in InDesign

  • June 27, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 5226 views

Hello everybody,

I've received a pdf with Georgian type in it. I want to copy-paste the text to InDesign but when I do this the text converts to latin characters. How can I use Georgian type/language in InDesign?

Thx!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Jongware

The font in that PDF must not be Unicode compatible; or, the font embedding does not contain proper translations from its local encoding into the Unicode encoding that InDesign expects from all well-behaving fonts.

Check what font name is reported in Acrobat, and see if you can install and apply that. Although, even if that works, you should consider not using it – your documents, in turn, would not be properly Unicode compatible as well.

I would bite the bullet and replace each badly encoded character in turn with the proper Unicode character. You would only have to do this once. See also this very similar InDesignSecrets question: https://indesignsecrets.com/topic/ewe-characters-shown-as-a-red-box

Unrelated to your encoding problem: InDesign should not be having any problem at all typesetting (properly encoded ) Georgian text. You may have to acquire a specialty font, though. My modern Windows machine only supports Georgian in Arial Unicode and Segoe UI – and the latter only because it's a Windows 10 font designed specifically for UI support. Off-hand, I'd guess the situation on a Mac won't be much better.

Looking up some Georgian characters on FileFormat.com, I see there are disappointingly few fonts that support Georgian: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/10b5/fontsupport.htm​​. You will not want to use any of the fonts that claim to support "all" of Unicode (Code2000) nor a fallback font (Unicode BMP Fallback; it will only display a character code), which only leaves DejaVu (sans), Everson Mono (typewriter), and Free Sans/Free Serif. For more choices, you'll have to look around the web.

3 replies

christopherm36965309
Participating Frequently
September 25, 2019

Did you ever get a solution? My further dilema is hyphenation in Georgian. I dont know how I would get appropriate hyphenation in the language - because it is not available in the Language drop down and I dont know how to add additional language to INDD or if it is even possible!

Jongware
Community Expert
JongwareCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
June 28, 2018

The font in that PDF must not be Unicode compatible; or, the font embedding does not contain proper translations from its local encoding into the Unicode encoding that InDesign expects from all well-behaving fonts.

Check what font name is reported in Acrobat, and see if you can install and apply that. Although, even if that works, you should consider not using it – your documents, in turn, would not be properly Unicode compatible as well.

I would bite the bullet and replace each badly encoded character in turn with the proper Unicode character. You would only have to do this once. See also this very similar InDesignSecrets question: https://indesignsecrets.com/topic/ewe-characters-shown-as-a-red-box

Unrelated to your encoding problem: InDesign should not be having any problem at all typesetting (properly encoded ) Georgian text. You may have to acquire a specialty font, though. My modern Windows machine only supports Georgian in Arial Unicode and Segoe UI – and the latter only because it's a Windows 10 font designed specifically for UI support. Off-hand, I'd guess the situation on a Mac won't be much better.

Looking up some Georgian characters on FileFormat.com, I see there are disappointingly few fonts that support Georgian: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/10b5/fontsupport.htm​​. You will not want to use any of the fonts that claim to support "all" of Unicode (Code2000) nor a fallback font (Unicode BMP Fallback; it will only display a character code), which only leaves DejaVu (sans), Everson Mono (typewriter), and Free Sans/Free Serif. For more choices, you'll have to look around the web.

Community Expert
June 28, 2018

Hi,

I don't know if that would help:

Try to export the PDF to Microsoft Word from Acrobat Pro DC.

Place the Word docx file to your InDesign document.

Use a font that supports Georgian.

Note: I cannot see that text property "Language" will support "Georgian".

At least it is not supported with my German version of InDesign.

( Sorry I cannot recommend any Georgian font, don't know, but maybe this is a reliable source: http://fonts.ge/en/ )

Best,
Uwe

Community Expert
June 28, 2018

As last resort you have to place the PDF several times and crop it to your needs.

Also see into the PDF what kind of font is used for the Georgian text and what app created the PDF.

That info should be available with keyboard shortcut Strg + D ( Windows ), Cmd + D ( Mac OS X ) when the PDF is open with Acrobat.

Best,
Uwe