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Four undocumented pitfalls when parsing Adobe Illustrator files in the browser with pdf.js

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Modern Adobe Illustrator .ai files are essentially PDF containers, making browser-side rendering possible using pdf.js without reverse-engineering any proprietary format. However, a developer building ArtboardLab, a free browser-based tool, uncovered four silent failure modes not covered in official documentation. CJK text such as Korean, Japanese, and Chinese glyphs disappears without any error if the cMapUrl option is not configured, because pdf.js fetches Adobe CMap tables at runtime rather than bundling them. Similarly, missing standardFontDataUrl and wasmUrl settings cause non-embedded fonts and JPEG 2000 images to silently fail. Transparent PNG export is also broken in pdf.js v6, requiring a workaround that renders pages twice on white and black backgrounds to derive correct alpha values from pixel differences.

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Four undocumented pitfalls when parsing Adobe Illustrator files in the browser with pdf.js · ShortSingh