Fonts in Oracle Reports Builder

9-4 Publishing Reports to the Web with Oracle Reports Services

9.2.1 Adding Fonts to Oracle Reports Builder

To build a report in a certain font, the font must be available in Oracle Reports Builder from the font picker when you are designing the report. In order for the fonts to appear in the font picker, the fonts should be added to the system or the display on which Oracle Reports Builder is running. Please review your operating system documentation for adding fonts before attempting this procedure. To add Type1 fonts on UNIX: 1. Get the font-related files from the vendor. These include the PFB, PFA, and the AFM files. 2. Convert the PFB binary file to PFA ASCII font using one of the available convertors. Typically, you can get such converters as shareware, for example, t1ascii. 3. Copy the PFA files to the directory where the fonts have to be installed following the instructions for our platform. 4. Verify the installation of the fonts by entering the xlsfonts -u command. This command lists all the fonts that are available for that system. If you are using a UNIX emulator like reflection X, the fonts installed on the system may not appear in the xlsfonts command. The reason for this behavior is that it is taking fonts from the font path or the font server, which is configured for this emulator. If using a font server, ensure that, after installing the font, you add the font directory to the font server configuration file and restart the font server. In the emulator, specify the font path to this font server wherever the fonts are installed. If you are still not able to see the fonts in xlsfonts, ensure that the new font directory is the first element of the catalogue in the configuration file. Figure 9–2 xlsfonts sample output

5. Start Oracle Reports Builder on the display that points to the font server on which

these fonts are installed or to the display where the fonts are installed.

9.2.2 Adding Fonts for Report Output

For generating output in Oracle Reports, only the fonts that are specified in the printer definition file are used. To use a newly added font in your output, you should first add Managing Fonts in Oracle Reports 9-5 it to Oracle Reports Builder so that you can assign the font to layout objects when designing the report. Refer to Section 9.2.1, Adding Fonts to Oracle Reports Builder for further information. The process for adding fonts is different on Windows and UNIX: ■ Adding fonts on UNIX ■ Adding fonts on Windows

9.2.2.1 Adding fonts on UNIX

To add TTF fonts: 1. Copy all the TTF and TTC files, which are used in the report, to the REPORTS_ FONT_DIRECTORY. The default font directory is ORACLE_ INSTANCEreportsfonts.

2. Remove any unnecessary aliasing from the uifont.ali file. For example, Arial is

aliased to Helvetica, by default. If your report uses the Arial font, you must remove the aliasing from the uifont.ali file. To add PostScript fonts:

1. Copy the AFM file for the new font to ORACLE_

HOMEguicommontkadminAFM.

2. Add the entry for this new font to the Font information section in the printer

definition PPD file: Font new_font_name Standard 00.1001 Standard ROM Font ... Ensure that the new_font_name given in the PPD file is the same as the AFM file, because Oracle Reports searches for this file based on the font name in the PPD file. Also make sure that the AFM file name does not include the.afm extension. For example, if the AFM file name is CodedreineunBold, then the PPD file should contain: Font CodedreineunBold: Standard 00.1001 Standard ROM

3. If necessary, make changes in the alias file for mapping to this font.

If the layout objects are associated with the same font name as the new font, then mapping is not required. If the fonts for the layout objects are different and the new fonts are desired in the output file instead of the original ones, then you must map the original fonts to the new ones. For example, if the layout objects font is Helvetica and you want newly installed fonts in the output, then you could add the following to the [Printer:PostScript1] section: Helvetica = CodedreineunBold Note: If you use fonts in Oracle Reports Builder that are not available on your runtime platform, you should alias those fonts on the runtime platform. Refer to Section 9.4, Font Aliasing for more information.