[pdftex] Generating CJK in PDF

[Werner LEMBERG]

> Currently it is not really possible to produce CJK PDF files with
> pdftex.  Certainly one can use Werner's CJK package, or hlatex etc.,
> using several Type1 8bit fonts to cover a single 16bit font.  But
> the resulting PDF files are essentially encrypted - it is possible
> to view and print them, but one cannot copy and paste, or search for
> text in the file, because the viewer has no idea what the character
> codes mean.

A fundamental question: What is exactly needed to make a glyph
searchable in a PDF file?  Is it sufficient to have a proper glyph
name following the AGL?  If so, it would be enough to provide correct
glyph names for all glyphs in the subfonts.  This is rather trivial to
add to converters like ttf2pt1.

> One would, however, not have to actually split ntukai.ttf into
> pieces.  pdftex would know that all the TeX font subsets are parts
> of a single TTF font, and how the 8-bit character codes map into the
> full font.  It would use 16bit character codes in content streams
> referring to the font, and would embed (possibly a subset of)
> ntukai.ttf as a single CIDkeyed font.  One would not need to change
> the existing macro packages at all, but would generate real 16bit
> output.

This sounds like a good idea.


    Werner