SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

1216524 - Cryptical symbols displayed in PDF document generated by exporting a report to PDF format from Crystal Reports

Symptom

  • Strange or unreadable characters dispays in a PDF document.
  • Exporting a report to PDF format from Crystal Reports, generates a document with cryptical symbols.

Environment

  • SAP Crystal Reports 2008
  • SAP Crystal Reports 2011
  • SAP Crystal Reports 2013
  • SAP Crystal Reports 2016

Reproducing the Issue

  1. In Crystal Reports, create a report off any data source.
  2. Add at least one database fields to the report.
  3. Export the report to PDF format.
  4. When opening the PDF document generated in Adobe Reader, notice the text displays unreadable characters.

Cause

  • This situation occurs when the printer driver set for the report is not a Unicode compliant printer driver, and Crystal Reports uses the printer driver to generates the PDF document. 
           
    For example, if the printer driver used by the report was a very old Adobe Writer, which was not unicode complient, it will generate a PDF document with text mapped to strange characters.

Resolution

  • To successfully export the report to PDF format, change the printer driver of the report to use a Unicode compliant printer driver.

Keywords

UNREADABLE CHARACTERS EXPORT PDF ADOBE WRITER CORRUPT TEXT CORRUPTED Crystal Reports Export To Adobe Print Driver Adobe Writer , c2014012 , KBA , BI-RA-CR , Crystal Reports designer or Business View Manager , Problem

Product

Crystal Reports 2008 V1 ; SAP Crystal Reports 2011 ; SAP Crystal Reports 2013 ; SAP Crystal Reports 2016