strange symbols in report.

[pinball]

Hi,

In one of the invoice which is printed as PDF, generated on mainframes, we are getting strange symbols in it. Like below:

It should be: retrodesk@companyname.fr and it is coming as retrodeskàcompanyname.fr

Also at other position in invoice, it should be Power case #, and it is coming as Power case £ .

Any guidace in this regard, please.

[Robert Sample]

It is a code page issue. Since a PDF should be transferred from the mainframe as a binary file, you need to investigate what code page is being used to generate the PDF.

[pinball]

Thanks Robert. Is there any way to figure out what code page is used at what time? And in what code page "@" can get converted to "à"?

[Robert Sample]

Hopefully your site saves the source for the PDF and you can examine it to ensure that you really are getting @ signs where you expect them. If the PDF is generated by a program, you can usually look at the source code (particularly for COBOL) to determine the code page(s) used. You may have to consult with your site's system programming group to determine the code page(s) used.

I also want to strongly emphasize that this may be a problem completely unrelated to the mainframe. Once data gets to a Windows / Unix machine, the program(s) used on that platform will control the data display and formatting, not the mainframe. Back in the mid-2000's the company I was working for at the time had an issue they thought was related to their mainframe. They were sending URLs from the mainframe as emails but when received the email URL was truncated (and hence unusable). The problem turned out to be the mail client on the PC, which would truncate an email when it saw a binary zero (X'00') and the URLs generated on the mainframe had those. I think (it's been 15 years so my memory is a bit fuzzy) our solution was to change the program on the mainframe to not send any binary zeros.

[pinball]

There are many systems involved in between before the PDF is created. Is there a way I can figure out whic language would show 'à' for '@'?

[Robert Sample]

The EBCDIC (used on the mainframe) @ sign is X'7C'. You need to figure out which of those systems interpret X'7C' as the 'à' and you may have to look at each system individually to make the determination. Your post said 'whic (sic) language' but you need to be aware that the code page will control, since some languages have more than one code page which could be used. So merely looking at a language may cause you to miss the precise code page causing the issue.