Legacy ImageMagick Discussions Archive

Hi

searched everywhere on this forum and the web, no one seems to of come accross this issue, looking for some help please.

I'm using this code:
exec("convert -fill black -pointsize 18 \\-size 600x caption:@".$invoice_ext_id.".invoice.txt ".$temp_file_name.$invoice_ext_id."-B.jpg");


The php variables are just strings.

This code pulls in a text based file with multiple lines to create an invoice text area, which is later then copied into my final invoice image, and then into pdf - probably an easier way but it works.

My problem:
When reading in a caption file that contains a '£' that is a british pound sign [aka £ in html], the image stops rendering text at the point of the pound sign (£).

Any ideas? I wondered if there was a way to escape the sign or something?

[In more detail]
I pull values from a database prior to this stage, and insert them into a text file, each invoice line goes into a line textfile line (plain text).
This file is then read in using the imagemagick code posted above. So i do have control over what goes into the file - just a little lost with no supporting docs really.

Cheers
Paul

When I write this in a (unicode compatible) text editor

convert -fill black -size 100x -pointsize 18 caption:'£' tmp.png

and then copy and paste to my terminal, I see the unicode equivalent in the terminal

convert -fill black -size 100x -pointsize 18 caption:'\302\243' tmp.png

which produces an image as expected of the £.

My suspicion is that your database conversion to your PHP is not handling the unicode character properly.

What happens with other similar kinds of unicode characters (such as ¢ © ™ or accented characters)? Do you have the same problem?

However, I will defer to the PHP experts on this.

I am running IM 6.7.2.7 Q16 Mac OSX Tiger (and used the text editor BBEdit).

Could be the character encoding of the page you are running the php code on; what happens if you echo the variable with the £ without running the Imagemagick code?

Spot on with those answers guys.

Thanks.

For future reference / archive:

I use notepad++ to develop PHP, here's what I did:
1) I used the built in 'Convert to UTF-8' function on all code related to generating images with ImageMagick.
2) I used a PHP command: utf8_encode($my_text_variable);

I think the PHP command (in step 2) is what actually did the fix - useful little command that!

Now working great!
Cheers for your speedy, polite solutions - pointed me right at the problem, owe you one.

Paul