Tamil PDF Shaper

A production-grade Flutter engine for rendering Tamil Unicode text correctly in PDF documents.

வணக்கம் (Hello)

Rendering Indic languages like Tamil in standard PDF generators (like package:pdf) is historically difficult. Standard Unicode strings often break because PDF renderers lack complex text shaping engines (HarfBuzz, etc.) required to handle Tamil character composition and reordering.

Tamil PDF Shaper solves this by:

  • Bundling a compatible Tamil font (Anand MuktaMalar)
  • Providing a shaping engine that converts Unicode Tamil text into correct glyph sequences for PDF rendering

Built for Tamil developers and global Flutter users.

🚀 Features

  • 🔡 Zero Configuration – Font included and auto-loaded
  • ⚡ High Performance – Optimized StringBuffer-based conversion
  • 🛡️ Safe Rendering – Handles mixed English + Tamil text gracefully
  • 💙 Flutter Native – Designed specifically for Flutter PDF workflows
  • 🌍 Unicode Aware – Supports proper Tamil glyph shaping

📦 Installation

Add to your pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  tamil_pdf_shaper: ^1.0.0

Then run:

flutter pub get

🧠 Usage

1. Load the Font

Load the Tamil font once inside your PDF generation logic.

import 'package:tamil_pdf_shaper/tamil_pdf_shaper.dart';

final tamilFont = await TamilPdfFont.load();

2. Apply Tamil Shaping

Use the .toTamilPdf extension on any string:

pw.Text(
  "தமிழ் வாழ்க".toTamilPdf,
  style: pw.TextStyle(font: tamilFont, fontSize: 20),
);

🧾 Full Example

Future<Uint8List> generateInvoice(PdfPageFormat format) async {
  final pdf = pw.Document();
  final font = await TamilPdfFont.load();

  pdf.addPage(pw.Page(
    theme: pw.ThemeData.withFont(base: font),
    build: (ctx) => pw.Column(
      children: [
        pw.Text("பெயர்: ஆனந்த்".toTamilPdf),
        pw.Text("தேதி: 01/01/2024".toTamilPdf),
      ],
    ),
  ));

  return pdf.save();
}

🛠️ How It Works

Tamil PDF Shaper translates Unicode Tamil grapheme clusters into legacy-style glyph sequences required by the embedded font.

Example:

கொ → ெ + க + ா

Without shaping, PDF engines render incorrect character order. This package ensures visually correct Tamil output inside PDFs.

📸 Visual Demo


Before shaping – incorrect Tamil rendering


After shaping – correct Tamil glyph rendering


Final rendered output inside PDF

📣 Credits

Developed for the global Tamil developer community.

🤝 Open Source Contributions

Tamil PDF Shaper is open source and welcomes contributions from developers worldwide.

How to Contribute

  1. ⭐ Star the repository
  2. Fork the project
  3. Create a feature branch:
git checkout -b feature/your-feature-name
  1. Commit your changes
  2. Push to your fork
  3. Open a Pull Request

Ways to Help

  • 🐛 Fix bugs
  • ✨ Add new features
  • 📖 Improve documentation
  • 🧪 Add tests
  • 💡 Suggest ideas

Every contribution helps grow the Tamil developer ecosystem 💙

☕ Support the Project

If this package helps you, consider supporting development:

     

Your support helps maintain and improve the project ❤️

📜 License

This project is released under the MIT License.

Made with ❤️ for Tamil

Libraries

tamil_pdf_shaper