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Transforma35996405g3ck
Participant
May 8, 2024
Question

Character encoding error in Padauk & Burmese (Myanmar) fonts in InDesign

  • May 8, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 2364 views

The text validation process failed due to character encoding issues. Specifically, when a character is represented by 3 to 4 characters, it should be converted to a single character. During the web PDF processing, there were no errors or font issues. During the accessibility processing, the Myanmar (Burmese) characters were not being interpreted correctly, which led to an error message (please refer to the screenshot). We are using the Padauk and Myanmar fonts and trying to display Burmese characters, but it's not working. We have been attempting this for over three months, but the characters are not clear. Please provide some suggestions to help us resolve this issue.

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2 replies

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shanper215
Participant
July 8, 2024

Have you been able to solve the character encoding issue? I've been running into the same/similiar issues with other langauges such as Nepali and Khmer. Wondering if the issues are due to lack of language support within the progam?

    Joel Cherney
    Community Expert
    Joel CherneyCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 8, 2024

    I don't know much about how the Accessibility Checker works in Acrobat, to be honest. I've been working with PDF accessibility of non-Latin scripts for a while; I can't say "I'm dabbling" anymore, but I don't know enough to be certain in my conviction that Acrobat's Accessibilty Checker can't be trusted with such judgment calls. The thing that's being flagged here in the OP is the character encoding of the Burmese phrase embedded in the English text in the PDF exported from InDesign. Is that what you're asking about, or are you asking about something else? Have you maybe tried a different accessibility checker, like PAC 2024? Do you encounter the same kind of encoding problems being flagged by PAC? 

     

    There are plenty of reasons why something perfectly kosher might fail an accessibility check. My understanding (mostly gleaned from Bevi Chagnon's posts here) is that PDF/UA requires correctly encoded Unicode text, and if some complex script text embedded in the middle of an English paragraph fails a character encoding check, then I'd start looking at the font and encoding. 

     

    Now, the initial post seems to be asking both a) why is the Burmese text failing an accessibility check, and b) why is the Burmese text rendering incorrectly in Acrobat? These are two very different questions, I think. As I don't know the PDF/UA spec well enough to make a judgment call, I'd start with "Hey, why is this text rendering incorrectly in Acrobat?" If I were to solve that issue, then maybe the whole "does-it-pass-Acrobat's-arbitrary-accessibility-checker-that-is-frequently-flat-out-wrong" question might be resolved without any additional heavy lifting. 

    So, if you're having problems with Nepali and Khmer (both of which I handle in ID on a not-quite-daily basis without issue, and have done so for years), what kind of problems are you having? Are you having problems with text that looks fine in InDesign but fails to render correctly in Acrobat? Or does it look fine in PDF, but fail an accessibility check? Can you supply more details regarding the issues you're encountering? Harshika has already asked the original poster for those More Details (what's your workflow? can you share a package) and we forums-readers can't know if anything came of that request.  But if you can post that kind of background, we should be able to nail down exactly where the complex-script support in InDesign is failing, or whether or not the Acrobat accessibility checker was giving meaningful results, or if there was something wrong with the way that InDesign is exporting complex script text in PDFs.  

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    shanper215
    Participant
    July 9, 2024

    Thanks for your feedback. I'll try to provide a bit more explanation of what is happening. The files are created in InDesign and then exported to PDF. The PDF is then remediated for PDF/UA and WCAG. Both Nepali and Khmer appear fine in InDesign, and visually on the PDF page itself, the texts are correct when exported. Where they are not displaying correctly is within the tags panel. My understanding is that in order for the screenreader to interpret the texts correctly to be processed, the tags (translations) will need to also display correctly to be read properly. 

     

    When using Acrobat's accesibility check it throws a "Character Encoding" error. I did a test through using PAC, and the tags also do not display correctly. Under PDF/UA checkpoints, it looks like it's showing a "Natural Language" error and then there is also an error that says "Document language metadata primary subtag is unknown".

     

    The link did not come through on your comment about Bevi Chagnon's post, but it might have been one I've came across, and have tried a lot of the suggestions without any luck. 

     

    I'm trying to figure out how to get the texts to display correctly in the tags panel, or if it's just not possible? I'm wondering if there is a language limitation, where it's just not supported within Acrobat. If that is the case, I'm not sure how files are able to be compliant if the tags can not be read properly.

     

    I'm also not so sure if I'm using the correct ISO tag for the language when exporting from InDesign, or if there is something other I'm missing on the export settings.

     

    Attached is a sample .indd file (it would not allow me to attach the package), an example PDF, and then a screenshot showing the text not being displayed.

    Thanks for any feedback you might have.

    HARSHIKA_VERMA
    Community Manager
    HARSHIKA_VERMACommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    May 20, 2024

    Hi @Transforma35996405g3ck, 

     

    Sorry for the trouble. Would you mind checking a similar discussion: https://adobe.ly/4bIsmak and trying the suggestion shared in this post?

    Let us know if that helps.

    Thanks,

    Harshika

    T
    Transforma35996405g3ckAuthor
    Participant
    May 24, 2024

    Hi @HARSHIKA_VERMA,

     

    Thanks for your reply.

     

    You provided a link that discusses font and spelling issues, but my question is not related to font and spelling. The issue I am encountering is related to a character encoding error that occurs when printing the web PDF during processing. Please provide me with some guidance as we have been grappling with the same issue for the past four months.

     

    Thanks,

    Transforma

      HARSHIKA_VERMA
      Community Manager
      HARSHIKA_VERMACommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      June 4, 2024

      Hi Transforma, 

      Sorry for the delay in response. Is it possible for you to share the packaged InDesign file with me via private message so we can test it on our end? Also, if possible, please share a short recording of the workflow.

       

      We will try our best to investigate.

       

      Thanks,

      Harshika

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