Java PrintService printing Chinese/Japanese characters output is garbled.

Question

Hi Java Gurus,
I have been spending the whole day trying to make our text printing application able to print non-western Characters (e.g. Chinese and Japanese) as part of our requirements. But I am constantly getting garbled output when I print a UTF-8 formatted text file containing Chinese characters. I've been trying to switch the DocFlavor types (e.g. byte array in UTF 8, input stream auto sense, UT8-8, etc) but I couldn't simply make it work.
Here is our test method:
     public void testPrintText(String fileName) throws Exception {
          FileInputStream textStream = new FileInputStream(fileName);
          File file = new File(fileName);
          String fileContent = FileUtils.readFileToString(file);
          DocFlavor flavor = DocFlavor.BYTE_ARRAY.TEXT_PLAIN_UTF_8;
          //DocFlavor flavor = DocFlavor.READER.TEXT_PLAIN;
          InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(textStream, "utf-8");
          DocAttributeSet das = new HashDocAttributeSet();
          //System.out.println("host encoding: " + flavor.hostEncoding);
          Doc mydoc = new SimpleDoc(fileContent.getBytes("utf-8"), flavor, das);
          //Doc mydoc = new SimpleDoc(textStream, flavor, das);
          PrintRequestAttributeSet pas = new HashPrintRequestAttributeSet();
          pas.add(new PrinterName("\\\\fsinec\\Canon iR5055 PCL6", null));
          PrintService[] services = PrintServiceLookup.lookupPrintServices(flavor, pas);
          PrintService defaultService = PrintServiceLookup.lookupDefaultPrintService();
          System.out.println("DEBUG: " + defaultService.getClass().getName());
          if(services.length == 0) {       
               if(defaultService == null) {
                    //no printer found
               } else {            
                    //print using default
                    DocPrintJob job = defaultService.createPrintJob();
                    job.print(mydoc, pas);
          } else {        
               //built in UI for printing you may not use this
               PrintRequestAttributeSet attSet = new HashPrintRequestAttributeSet();
               for(int ctr=0; ctr<services.length; ctr++) {
                    PrintService printService = services[ctr];
                    System.out.println("COTS DEBUG: " + defaultService.getClass().getName());
               //attSet.add();
               PrintService service = null;
               if(services.length == 1) {
                    //assume that there is no other printer with the name \\\\fsinec\\Canon iR5055 PCL6
                    //resulting to fetch the printer services to only one (1) element.
                    service = services[0];
               /* open a dialog box
               * PrintService service =
                    ServiceUI.printDialog(null, 200, 200, services, defaultService, flavor, attSet);*/
               if (service != null) {           
                    DocPrintJob job = service.createPrintJob();
                    job.print(mydoc, attSet);
Please help me on this.
Thanks.

Answer 1

This could be of different reeasons...
1) Make sure your printer is uni-code enabled.
2) Make sure, your unicode enabled printer is configured in SAP.
3) make sure, your printer device is supported by SAP. (You can find list of SAP recommended printers in www.service.sap.com)
4) Check whether the correct device type is used for printing chinese and japanese characters.
5) Check code pages.
6) Make sure you use Cyrillic font family, for printing chinese and Japanese characters.
Regards,
SaiRam