I’m facing a problem where, whenever there is an unordered list in the HTML content that I’m parsing as elements and filling into the PDF cell, everything else displays fine except the bullet points, which appear as dashes (-). What could cause this?

 ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
 Document document = new Document(PageSize.A4, 40, 40, 40, 40);
 PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.getInstance(document, baos);
 document.open();
 document.add(buildContent());
 document.close();

 // method that should provide content to the document.

 public PdfPTable buildContent() throws IOException {
   InfoList infoList = infoListInstance.get();
   PdfPTable table = new PdfPTable(2);
   for (InfoListMessage message : infolistList.getMessages()) {
     renderMessageMetadata(message, table);
     renderMessageContent(message, table);
   }
   return table;
 }

 public void renderMessageContent(InfoListMessage message,
     PdfPTable table) throws IOException {

   PdfPCell cell = new PdfPCell();

   for (Element e :
       XMLWorkerHelper.parseToElementList(message.getContent(), null)) {
     cell.addElement(e);
   }
   table.addCell(cell);
}

HTML input:

<ul> 
  <li>document2.txt.txt (23 B)</li> 
  <li>document1.txt.txt (12 B)</li>  
</ul>

The method where the problem occurs and exception is thrown in the for-loop line.

How to get bullet points instead of dashes for an unordered list?

I’m facing a problem where, whenever there is an unordered list in the HTML content that I’m parsing as elements and filling into the PDF cell, everything else displays fine except the bullet points, which appear as dashes (-). What could cause this?

 ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
 Document document = new Document(PageSize.A4, 40, 40, 40, 40);
 PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.getInstance(document, baos);
 document.open();
 document.add(buildContent());
 document.close();

 // method that should provide content to the document.

 public PdfPTable buildContent() throws IOException {
   InfoList infoList = infoListInstance.get();
   PdfPTable table = new PdfPTable(2);
   for (InfoListMessage message : infolistList.getMessages()) {
     renderMessageMetadata(message, table);
     renderMessageContent(message, table);
   }
   return table;
 }

 public void renderMessageContent(InfoListMessage message,
     PdfPTable table) throws IOException {

   PdfPCell cell = new PdfPCell();

   for (Element e :
       XMLWorkerHelper.parseToElementList(message.getContent(), null)) {
     cell.addElement(e);
   }
   table.addCell(cell);
}

HTML input:

<ul> 
  <li>document2.txt.txt (23 B)</li> 
  <li>document1.txt.txt (12 B)</li>  
</ul>

The method where the problem occurs and exception is thrown in the for-loop line.

How to get bullet points instead of dashes for an unordered list?

• java
• itext

Share Improve this question Follow edited yesterday rhens 4,87833 gold badges2323 silver badges3838 bronze badges asked Feb 14 at 12:23 Manish KumarManish Kumar 2122 bronze badges 0

Add a comment  | 

1 Answer 1

Sorted by: Reset to default 1

The default list item marker in iText v5 or earlier is a dash. XML Worker, which converts HTML/CSS to PDF or iText layout elements does not override this to the default HTML/CSS list marker.

You can define this explictly:

<ul style="list-style-type: disc">
    <li>document2.txt.txt (23 B)</li>
    <li>document1.txt.txt (12 B)</li> 
</ul>

Resulting in the expected output:

Newer versions of iText's HTML/CSS to PDF conversion respect the default marker.