Create a new report. While creating your report ensure that you leave additional

12-10 Publishing Reports to the Web with Oracle Reports Services 5. Ensure that the fonts used in your report are not aliased. For example, edit the uifont.ali file and comment the entries in the [Global] section, where Arial and Courier New are aliased to Helvetica and Courier, respectively. [ Global ] Put mappings for all surfaces here. Mapping from MS Windows Arial = helvetica Courier New = courier This ensures that Arial and Courier New are not aliased to any other font. 6. Run the report. http:mywebserver.com:reportsrwservlet?server=myserver+report=homemyreport stest.rdf+authid=hrhrmydb+desformat=htmlcss+destype=cache The HTMLCSS output of your report will look exactly the same as the one generated on Windows.

12.4.2.1 Troubleshooting Information

If you encounter deployment issues, review the following troubleshooting information: ■ If you do not get the correct fonts in the HTMLCSS output, set the environment variable DEBUG_SLFIND to a log file name, for example, debug.txt, and run the report. The font files that are looked up while parsing the PPD file as well as the fonts used will be written to the log file debug.txt. Specifically, check for the following:

1. The PPD file that you modified should be picked up. If it is not picked up it is

a configuration issue. Refer to Chapter 9, Managing Fonts in Oracle Reports .

2. The AFM files that you have copied to AFM directory should be picked up

next. See Chapter 10, Printing on UNIX with Oracle Reports for more information on DEBUG_SLFIND. Note: The uifont.ali file is located in the following directory on Windows and UNIX: ■ On windows: ORACLE_ INSTANCE\config\FRComponent\frcommon\tools\common ■ On UNIX: ORACLE_ INSTANCEconfigFRComponentfrcommonguicommontk admin Use font aliasing only if you are unable to generate the AFM file for a particular font. You can then alias the missing font to the closest match. The fonts must be made available on the machine displaying the report output and not necessarily on the machine generating the report output. Font Model and Cross-Platform Deployment 12-11

12.4.3 Frequently Asked Questions

This section covers frequently asked questions FAQs pertaining to deploying a report to HTMLCSS, RTF or the Web. Question When I design a report on Windows with font styles such as italic and bold, then run the report on UNIX, I do not see the output as it appeared on Windows. Why? Answer On UNIX, report formatting is done using fonts corresponding AFM files. By default, these AFM files are picked from the ORACLE_HOMEguicommontkadminAFM directory, provided as part of the installation. If the font style used in report does not have a corresponding AFM file on UNIX, the closest matching AFM file is used. For example, if you design a report on Windows with Courier Italic font, then run the report on UNIX, you may see only plain Courier font in the output. This happens because there is no AFM file available for Courier Italic font in the ORACLE_ HOMEguicommontkadminAFM directory, so instead Courier is picked. To work around this issue, you can alias your fonts style to the same style for some other font that has AFM available. For example, you could alias Courier Italic to Times Italic in the global section of uifont.ali. Moreover, on Windows, there are some fonts that have bold, italic, and bold italic versions; for example, Arial has arialbd.ttf Arial bold, ariali.ttf Arial italic, and arialbi.ttf Arial bold italic. Therefore, if you are using any font that has bold, italic, and bold italic TTF files available, you can generate AFM files from these files using ttf2pt1 and use these AFM files on UNIX. Question My report was created in Windows and is deployed on HP-UX 11. Although the font style on HP-UX 11 is correct, the spacing between the lines is inconsistent and some text is unable to fit in the allocated space. How can I fix the spacing so that my text fits correctly? Answer Ensure that you have set up the corresponding AFM files for all the fonts used in your document. Refer to Section 12.4.1, Designing Your Report for more information. Question My report is designed on Windows. When it is deployed on a different platform, it displays garbled output. For example, some fields display, instead of the actual content. Is this a spacing issue? Answer Oracle Reports cannot find the AFM files of the font that you have used in your report. You can verify this by opening the reports HTML source and searching for the font that you have used. Oracle Reports then uses the closest matching font whose metrics are bigger than the original font. Therefore, when the characters cannot fit in the box, a is displayed in the field, instead of the actual output. Ensure that: ■ You have set up the AFM files for all the fonts used in your report. Refer to Section 12.4.1, Designing Your Report for more information.