Multibyte Character Set Printing

Printing on UNIX with Oracle Reports 10-21 Any of the options can appear in the environment variable, abbreviated down to one letter. You can set it to any combination of these, separated by . This variable is case insensitive. For example, FuncLMem would give you all three options.

10.8 Removing DISPLAY and Printer Dependencies on UNIX

Prior to Oracle Reports 10g Release 1 9.0.4 on UNIX, you had to set the DISPLAY environment variable in order for Reports Server to use the windowing system display surface for creating images and getting pixel resolution. This dependency is removed with Oracle Reports 10g. Additionally, earlier releases required a valid printer on UNIX for fonts. When no valid printer was available, Oracle Reports Services used the screen fonts, which again required setting the DISPLAY environment variable. Now, Oracle Reports Services includes a default screen printer surface, ScreenPrinter, that emulates a screen or printer for fonts in the absence of an available printer. As a result, Oracle Reports Services no longer requires a printer on UNIX. By default, the environment variable REPORTS_DEFAULT_DISPLAY is set to YES, which specifies that Oracle Reports Services should: ■ remove the dependency on the DISPLAY environment variable UNIX only ■ use ScreenPrinter for surface resolution for images and font information UNIX only ■ enable the Advanced Imaging Support all platforms If you wish to revert to the dependency on the DISPLAY environment variable as in releases prior to 10g Release 1 9.0.4, you can set REPORTS_DEFAULT_DISPLAY=NO.

10.8.1 ScreenPrinter

The PostScript printer driver screenprinter.ppd provides surface resolution for images and specifies font information. This driver is the first entry in uiscreenprint.txt. The file locations UNIX only are: uiscreenprint.txt : ORACLE_INSTANCEconfigFRComponentfrcommonguicommontkadmin screenprinter.ppd : ORACLE_ INSTANCEconfigFRComponentfrcommonguicommontkadminPPD ScreenPrinter is used for: ■ Surface resolution when REPORTS_DEFAULT_DISPLAY=YES. Note: The PostScript output from this variable is for your own debugging purposes. You need not provide this output to Oracle Support for investigation. See Also: Section B.1.42, REPORTS_DEFAULT_DISPLAY Note: Beginning in Oracle Reports 11g Release 1 11.1.1, configuration of screenprinter.ppd should be done only through Oracle Enterprise Manager. Refer to Chapter 7, Administering Oracle Reports Services Using Oracle Enterprise Manager , Section 7.9.1, Configuring Fonts for information about updating configuration settings through Oracle Enterprise Manager. 10-22 Publishing Reports to the Web with Oracle Reports Services ■ Removal of the printer dependency. If, when generating report output, there is no valid printer queue available not found from TK_PRINTER,ORACLE_PRINTER,PRINTER, or uiprint.txt, the surface based on screenprinter.ppd will be created and used to get font information. You can modify the Fonts section of screenprinter.ppd to include new fonts, and modify the DefaultResolution field to change the resolution DefaultResolution is 96. The font look up algorithm on UNIX is: if a valid printer available then look up font information from the printer else create a screenPrinter surface look up font information from ScreenPrinter if ScreenPrinter creation fails then REP-1800 : Formatter Error if REPORTS_DEFAULT_DISPLAY is set else use Screen Fonts

10.8.2 Advanced Imaging Support

The quality of images contributes considerably to the overall appearance of a report, particularly for a Web report. You may prefer different image formats in your report output depending on the needs of your project. For example, an aeronautical firm might prefer the higher quality of JPEG or PNG images in their Web reports instead of GIF images. On the other hand, if you are building a Web portal, you might prefer GIF images because of their smaller size and faster download. Similarly, you may wish to import images of these various formats into your report. Depending on the format of your output, you may choose from a variety of formats for your images. Note: If you do add new fonts, ensure that the new AFM metrics files are placed in the AFM directory. Note: In certain multibyte languages like Chinese, you may want to use screen fonts. However, this would necessitate setting the DISPLAY variable for running the report. To revert to DISPLAY and use screen fonts old font look up algorithm: ■ Set REPORTS_DEFAULT_DISPLAY=NO ■ Remove the screenprinter.ppd entry in the uiscreenprint.txt file. See Also: ■ Chapter 9, Managing Fonts in Oracle Reports Table 10–6 Image Format Options by Output Type Report Output Available Image Format Choices HTML, HTMLCSS PNG, JPEG, JPG, GIF