Fixing Special Character Rendering in Visualforce PDF Quotations

The client wanted to generate a quotation PDF from Salesforce using a Visualforce page rendered as PDF. The quotation contained technical product specifications that included special scientific and engineering symbols such as: 

• Ω (Ohm) 

• µ (Micro) 

• β (Beta) 

• ​​≤ (Less Than or Equal To)​ 

• ​​≥ (Greater Than or Equal To)​ 

• π (Pi) 

After applying the Noto Sans font via Static Resource, the quotation PDF rendered all required symbols correctly and consistently: 

The special characters required for the client’s technical quotations Ohm, micro, beta, less-than-or-equal-to, greater-than-or-equal-to, and pi  could not be reliably rendered by Visualforce’s default PDF fonts, resulting in incorrect and unacceptable quotation documents. By uploading a Unicode-compliant Noto Sans font as a Static Resource and applying it globally across the Visualforce PDF template through a @font-face declaration, every required symbol now renders correctly and consistently. 

This is a lightweight, reusable fix: the same Static Resource and font-family override can be applied to any other Visualforce PDF template in the org that needs to display Unicode symbols, without requiring any change to the underlying data or business logic. One known limitation remains  the Indian Rupee symbol (₹) is still not rendered correctly by Salesforce’s Visualforce PDF engine  and is being handled with a text-based workaround (“INR”/“Rs.”) until Salesforce provides native support for this character in generated PDFs.