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True Type Fonts
You might find that well-designed reports in Logi Report Designer become truncated when you run the reports in Logi Report Server on a different platform. The reason is that various platforms use different font systems, and by mapping the fonts to a different platform by JDK, the report result is shown with a discrepancy. To solve this problem, Java provides the True Type Font (TTF) administrative system. Logi Report supports the TTF system, which enables you to design reports in any fonts. Then when you publish the reports into the runtime environment, you can publish the fonts together with the reports. The published fonts are independent of the platform fonts. Logi Report also provides the PDF embedded fonts solution, meaning Logi Report can embed the fonts in the PDF file so end users do not need to install the fonts on their local machines. This topic describes how to design reports with TTF, apply the Bold and Italic properties to TTF, and deliver TTF to the runtime environment and in different result formats.
The following sections describe how to use TTF in your reports:
- Designing Reports with TTF
- Applying Bold and Italic Properties to TTF
- Publishing TTF to the Runtime Environment
- Delivering TTF Result in Excel/RTF/HTML/TXT
- Delivering TTF Result in PDF
Designing Reports with TTF
When you design reports that will be run on a platform different from where they are designed, it is best to use TTF fonts.
To design reports with TTF, follow the steps below:
- Copy the True Type Font files *.ttf to the
<designer_install_root>\fontdirectory of Logi Report Designer. You can find the TTF fonts in your system's Font directory or from the Internet. - In Logi Report Designer, open a report and select the text you want to apply the TTF font.
- On the Home menu bar, select the drop-down arrow of the font list and scroll down to the bottom of the list. You will then find the fonts with an * before their name. These are the TTF fonts you have copied. Select the TTF font you want to apply.
- Preview the report result and save the report until you are satisfied with the result.
Note: Logi Report uses the JDK TTF, however JDK has a problem in printing reports with rs_song.ttf (some characters are incorrect). You are therefore recommended to use other Chinese TTF fonts such as SimSun.ttf, PMingLiu.ttf, and LF_FangSong.ttf.
Applying Bold and Italic Properties to TTF
Logi Report supports the Bold and Italic properties for TTF. When you select a TTF font and set the Bold/Italic property to true, Logi Report will first automatically search the <designer_install_root>\font directory to check all the TTF files related with the TTF font you have selected previously. If there is such a TTF file holding the Bold/Italic property, Logi Report will use the font style defined in this file to match your setting and make the Bold/Italic property take effect; if not, Logi Report will find the specified font in your platform fonts and apply the Bold/Italic property directly.
Publishing TTF to the Runtime Environment
When you publish reports from Logi Report Designer to Logi Report Server, if the reports use TTF fonts, Designer will prompt you the Publish Additional Resources dialog to publish the font files at the same time. After Designer finishes the publishing task, you can find the corresponding font files in the <server_install_root>\font directory of the server.
Delivering TTF Result in Excel/HTML/TXT/RTF
For report result files of the Excel, HTML, TXT, and RTF formats, they can automatically find the TTF fonts from the system's Font directory to display the fonts correctly. However, to avoid any discrepancy in the report result, if you want to deliver the report results in these formats to end users, you are recommenced to choose the TTF fonts that are commonly on the Windows systems. If you have to use fonts that do not exist in the client's system, you can choose the embedded TTF font solution as shown below.
Delivering TTF Result in PDF
To view PDF report results with other character sets, for example, Chinese fonts, you will need to install special language packages. Also, if you design reports with fonts that are not within Acrobat's internal fonts, they will be mapped differently. The above two cases will cause trouble to end users when viewing or printing a report with Acrobat Reader. However, differing from Excel, HTML, TXT, and RTF, PDF allows the embedding of the font description within a file. Logi Report therefore provides the embedded TTF font solution for PDF report results. You will find it extremely helpful in the following cases:
- When you select TTF fonts to design a report, and these fonts are not within the client's existing font systems.
- When you have used the TTF and Acrobat Reader has to be updated with the language extension package to view the result, but you do not want to trouble the end user with it.
By embedding TTF fonts, the file size will increase a little. However, it is still of reasonable size to be transferred over a network.
To take advantage of the PDF Embedded TTF Font feature, follow the steps below (the feature is not supported on library components):
- Select the TTF to design reports as seen above.
- Open the report, go to the Report Inspector, and in the node representing the page report tab or web report, find the property Embedded Fonts. The drop-down list will show all the TTF fonts used by the report. You can select multiple fonts by holding down the Ctrl or Shift key.
- Save the report and export it to a PDF file. The selected fonts will be embedded in the exported PDF file.
When you select an embedded font while using TTF to design reports and set the Bold/Italic property to true, if Logi Report can find the related TTF file to match your setting, the matched font with the Bold/Italic property will also be embedded when you export the report result to a PDF file.