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
- In Crystal Reports, create a report off any data source.
- Add at least one database fields to the report.
- Export the report to PDF format.
- 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