Reading wuxia novels (Chinese characters) on iPad 2

[PJ]

I have some wuxia novels as PDF files (see EROT: Exposing Reliable Online Texts). I loaded them onto iPad 2. However, The Chinese characters don't show up right

Was anyone here able to get the Chinese characters to show up properly in a PDF file on your iPad? Did you have to download a language pack?

It will be a huge advantage if I can read wuxia novels on iPad; the mobility and convenience may finally allow me to read all those Gu Long novels.

[Dirt]

I would guess you'd need an App that can read pdf's in Simplified Chinese.

[whiteskwirl]

I've never used an iPad, but what I would try is see if the program you are using to read PDFs has any language packs available to be installed. I've had to install language packs separately for Chinese characters before for Foxit, which is a PDF reader for Windows.

[PJ]

OK, my research informs that the problem is the PDF files didn't embed the fonts they used, and they happened to use a "non standard" Chinese font not found in iPad. There is no way to add a font to iPad unless you hack the device. The way to make the Chinese characters show up is to re-embed the fonts for the PDF files, which I'm still working my way through. Not something easily solvable, but can be solved with an investment of time.

[athlonkmf]

have you tried to enable the 2 chinese keyboards first? maybe that would enable the fonts too.

[PJ]

have you tried to enable the 2 chinese keyboards first? maybe that would enable the fonts too.

I did. Even set the device language to Chinese; didn't help.

[xianzai]

Worst case, you can use ImageMagick to turn the PDF into a series of images and load those on the iPad:

convert sample.pdf sample.png

[ChronoReverse]

Yeah, you'll just have to convert it to a different form (graphically in a PDF or using Calibre to convert to ebook).

FWIW, it works perfectly on my android without modification =)