server side printing to PDF (MySQL --> image --> PDF ?? ) probs with embedded 中文 Chinese

We're running PHP homegrown app on linux serv开发者_StackOverflow社区er with MySQL.

MYSQL ---> PDF

Very complex output - with English and Chinese (Simplified).

We've many 'corporate' customers without CHI on their systems, and are unable to add fonts to their machines (for security reasons).

We've embedded the fonts - but that makes the files HUGE (4-8M per PDF).

I'd LOVE To actually print to an IMAGE file, and then PDF it (So that I don't have to embed fonts)

Any suggestions?

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"pdftk burst" the multipage pdf to single page.

"convert" single page pdfs to jpg

"convert" all jpgs to multipage pdf

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Maybe using GD with imagettftext() ?