According to Adobe, Portable
Document Format (PDF) is the open de facto standard for electronic document
distribution worldwide. Adobe PDF is a universal file format that preserves
all the fonts, formatting, graphics, and color of any source document, regardless
of the application and platform used to create it. Oracle Reports was one of
the first report generation tools to embrace this technology and generate PDF
documents.
This article will provide
an overview of the Oracle9i Reports PDF enhancements, which include compression,
font aliasing, font subsetting, font embedding and accessibility tags. Each
feature section contains information on setup, sample output, tradeoffs and
troubleshooting.
The Oracle9i Reports
upgraded PDF driver produces PDF output v1.4. This provides for enhanced compression,
font aliasing, font subsetting, font embedding, and accessibility tags. Let's
take a closer look at these enhancements:
Compression -
Oracle9i Reports takes advantage of PDF’s enhanced data compression.
This means smaller PDF file,
making viewing and downloading quicker. The amount of space saved using
compression varies based on the contents of the report for items such
as the number of images versus the amount of text. By default, PDF output
from Oracle9i Reports will be compressed. Compressed files are
about one fifth the size of the original file. Compression is automatically
turned on when running a report, but can be switched off or varied with
command line options. There are many factors to take into account when
looking at the compression ratio. Items like images are typically already
compressed, so any report containing a large number of images will probably
not see as much compression as those without images. Large amounts of
highly formatted data can achieve higher compression rates, although actual
compression rates will vary for each report. Testing
has shown that the best case compression ratio of 1/8th to the worst case
compression ratio of 1/2 was achieved based on the contents in the original
file using the FlatDecode compression algorithm.
Font Aliasing - Font aliasing on the system
level has been available for some time in Oracle Reports. Now Oracle9i
Reports can alias fonts for PDF output just as it can do for bitmapped
output. PDF font aliasing works with numerous font types and provides
the flexibility necessary for professional looking output. Font aliasing
can be used to generate PDF documents that have a standard look and feel.
Since PDF is frequently used for printed output, standardized fonts allow
for very precise formatting on a page. For example, if a corporation develops
a standard font to be used for PDF output
but they also produce many other report output formats that require different
fonts, then the report developer can simply set the uifont.ali file to
enable the use of existing reports to create the PDF output in a standard
font such as Arial. Of course, this assumes that each machine viewing
the report has the Arial font installed, which is practical in companies
where there is tight control over the equipment and software installed.
Font Subsetting - Font subsetting is a way
of including the fonts into a document. Only those fonts actually used
in the PDF report output are contained within the document itself. Oracle9i
Reports can subset a font into the PDF report output. When viewing with
the Adobe Acrobat reader, you will see that Adobe actually creates a custom
font so that it is uniquely identified (remember it is only a partial
set of the original font). This reduces the reliance of having the font
installed on every machine where the report may be run. This guarantees
a standard look and feel for the report no matter where it is distributed
and makes the report fully portable. Note: font subsetting in Oracle9i
Reports is only supported for TrueType fonts.
Font Embedding - Font embedding is a way
of including the entire font set into a document. Oracle9i Reports
can embed fonts into the PDF report itself. This reduces the reliance
of having the font installed on every machine where the report may be
run. This guarantees a standard look and feel for the report no matter
where it is distributed. Note: font embedding in Oracle9i Reports
is only supported for type1 single byte fonts. Also be aware that there
may be licensing restrictions on fonts that are embedded within a PDF
document. Please check with the font vendor to comply with any licensing
agreements necessary.
Accessibility - Oracle9i Reports takes
advantage of Adobe's feature in PDF 1.4 to permit screen readers to "read"
PDF documents with Adobe acrobat reader 5.0 and an accessibility plug-in.
Using the specified tags, PDF becomes accessible
for screen readers. For more information on this subject, see the "Creating
Accessible Enterprise Reports using Oracle9i Reports" white
paper on http://oracle.com under accessibility.
PDF compression reduces
the size of the PDF output file. This is important if you want to view the report
over the Web, because of the smaller file size, the report is displayed quicker
than a larger file. Oracle9i
Reports has implemented a command line option to control compression for PDF
output.
SETUP
PDF compression is turned on by default. It is controlled
by using the command line option PDFCOMP={any value 0 through 9) OR {YES|NO}
.
The numbers 0 though 9 control
the amount of level of compression applied to the PDF output. A value of 0 means
PDF output will not be compressed. A value of 9 means that maximum compression
will be applied. The values of 1 through 9 gives the user a maximum amount of
control over the amount of compression that will be applied to the PDF output.
A value of 1 corresponds to faster performance but minimum compression, while
a value of 9 corresponds to slower performance
with maximum compression.
A value of YES equates to
a compression numeric value of 6, which is the default and was derived by testing
various types of PDF output. A value of NO equates to a compression numeric
value of 0, which means no compression will take place.
The PDFCOMP command line
option can be used with any of the following commands: rwclient, rwrun, rwbuilder,
rwservlet rwcgi.
SAMPLE
Here is look at the file
sizes of the same report with compression ON and OFF. There is about a 50% reduction
ratio here, but this varies depending on the size and content of the PDF output.
Also shown is the content of this PDF output, which is basically text.
TRADEOFFS
The tradeoff is size versus speed. If size is the greatest
concern, without regard to the amount of time it takes to run and compress the
report, then set the value of PDFCOMP=9. If performance is the greatest concern,
without regard to the to size of the report, then
set the value of PDFCOMP=0. The various levels inbetween provide an incremental
approach of exchanging speed and size. This is best determined by trying various
combinations. Keep in mind that the compression rate is dependent on the content
of the report and for this reason, both the speed to generate and the size of
the output will vary by report.
Advantage: smaller file
size, which enables
quicker downloads and faster viewing.
Disadvantage: performance
is slower to generate a compressed file compared to a non-compressed file.
TROUBLESHOOTING
There is no scientific measure
of the ratio since a report can contain a mixture of objects, primarily text
and images, which
may already be in a compressed format. For this reason, compression will vary
by report and this is expected behavior. Be aware
of the tradeoffs between
speed and size. Also, remember that compression is ON (6) by default, so
if a report is run without specifying a compression value, then later run with
PDFCOMP=YES, there will be no difference in the output.
For more information, refer
to Publishing Oracle9i
Reports on http://otn.oracle.com/products/reports.
Font aliasing for Oracle9i Reports PDF output is
controlled by the uifont.ali file. Font aliasing is a simple font to font substitution
that occurs at PDF report generation time. The fonts must be available on both
the machine generating the PDF output and also on any machine displaying the
PDF output. No fonts are included in the PDF output file, just the information
on what fonts are used to display the output of the file.
If the fonts are not available on the machine
generating the PDF report, Oracle9i Reports
replaces the aliased font based on an internal algorithm.
If the fonts are not available on
the machine where it is viewed using Acrobat Reader, a font substitution is
made to Adobe Sans MM, which
is installed with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
If the PDF output is generated with the originally selected fonts and the fonts
do not exist on the machine displaying the output, Adobe Acrobat Reader will
try to substitute with Adobe Sans MM and if that font doesn't match properly,
the resulting output may display dots for the data. For multibyte fonts, aliasing
is done on the character set only. The entry in the uifont.ali should be "Character
Set" = "Font Names".
Font aliasing will work with all of the following:
any
single byte font, including
Eastern European fonts for both ASCII and IS0-Latin character sets
Adobe multibyte Character
ID (CID) fonts, both multibyte and unicode fonts, which are
available as a free download from Adobe
Type
1 Postscript fonts
TrueType
fonts
SETUP
Setup for PDF font aliasing
is contained in the uifont.ali file. There are no command line options. Font
aliasing will occur if the entries are contained in the uifont.ali file and
the fonts listed are contained within the report being generated as PDF output.
Here is an example of the font aliasing entry in the uifont.ali file:
[ PDF ]
/* Alias Base 14 to Base 14 */ Arial = Courier /* Alias Base 14 to
TrueType font */
Symbol = "Brush Script MT" /* Alias TrueType font
to Base 14 font */
Impact = Arial /*
Alias TrueType font
to TrueType font */
"Century Schoolbook" = "Letter Gothic MT"
/*Alias TrueType to available Type 1 font */
"Kino MT" = UtopiaBold
The uifont.ali entry for PDF
font aliasing shows the following (see the uifont.ali section
for more details on the entry):
The first entry will
substitute every Arial character with the Courier equivalent.
The second entry will
substitute every Symbol character with the Brush Script MT equivalent.
The third entry will
substitute every Impact character with the Arial equivalent.
The fourth entry will
substitute every Kino MT character with the UtopiaBold equivalent.
SAMPLE
This sample output was created
using Oracle9i Reports and
the PDF font alias section listed in the alias setup section above:
TRADEOFFS
Advantage: generates a smaller
file size than either font subsetting or font embedding (assuming all other
parameters are the same) but achieves a uniform look and feel for a report.
Disadvantage: all fonts
contained in the output need to be installed at all viewing locations.
TROUBLESHOOTING
If font aliasing does not work,
check the following:
In the Acrobat Reader,
choose File> Document Properties > Fonts
See if the actual
font aliased has been added to the list
If no, then
no font aliasing took place and most likely the problem is the fonts
were not found or uifont.ali file is incorrect.
If yes, then
font aliasing took place and the output is correct based on the fonts
given in the uifont.ali file.
If you see Adobe
Sans MM, this is the font Adobe uses if it cannot find a given font for
Roman characters.
Fonts are not available
on the machine where the report is being viewed.
Fonts are not in the
REPORTS_PATH. This is where Oracle9i Reports looks for fonts when generating
PDF output.
Font names are incorrect
or not available on the machine (in the REPORTS_PATH) where the PDF generation
occurs.
Check that the section
names in the uifont.ali file have not been modified. Oracle9i Reports
parses the file looking for the header names. In this case, [ PDF ] is the
correct header name for font aliasing.
For multibyte character
reports to display properly, Adobe Acrobat reader version 4.0 or higher is
needed.
For viewing unicode
output, the NLS_LANG parameter must be set to characterset.utf8.
The
Oracle9i Reports PDF font subsetting is
a variant of PDF font embedding, where the fonts
themselves are actually included with the output. Font
subsetting includes the data and glyph information for only those characters
used in the document with a particular font and
not all the character information of all used fonts in the document.
This allows for guaranteed viewing
no matter what machine is using the Adobe Acrobat reader,
since there is no dependency on the machine having fonts installed.
PDF font subsetting works
for both single and multibyte fonts and is the preferred method of creating
multibyte reports.
SETUP
Setup for PDF font subsetting
is contained in the uifont.ali file. There are no command line options. PDF
font subsetting will occur if the entries are contained in the uifont.ali file
and the fonts listed are contained within the report being generated as PDF
output.
If the uifont.ali file contains
the PDF:Subset section and the report contains the font that is requested to
be subset, and the font being subset to is on the system, font subsetting happens.
In the uifont.ali file,
the left side of the equation contains the font name, but on the right side
of the equation is the font file name, not the name of the font that you see
in development environment (such as Oracle9i Reports). This
file name must match exactly with the font file name or font subsetting will
not happen. The font file name needs to be enclosed in double quotes.
Here is an example of the
font subsetting entry in the uifont.ali file.
[ PDF:Subset ] Arial
= "Arial.ttf"
When a font is subset into
a PDF file, it becomes a custom font because it contains only those characters
that are needed to produce the actual report. Using Adobe Acrobat 4.0 or higher,
you can see what fonts are used in the report by choosing File>Document Properties
or File>Document Info>Fonts. You can see the "Original Font",
"Type", Encoding, Used Font and Type. In the case of font subsetting,
the Encoding will specify Custom and the Used Font will be F2 and the Type will
be 3. Type 3 fonts are imaged characters that look slightly bolder than they would
if expressed as a Type 1 font. For best quality viewing, we recommend the following:
Use Adobe Acrobat
Reader 5.0.
Set the following parameters
in the Adobe Acrobat Reader:
Edit > Preferences
Display > Smoothing
Check all the check
boxes (smooth Text, smooth Artline, smooth Images)
If you are using
a laptop, check the CoolType check box
PDF font subsetting with
Oracle9i
Reports is for TrueType fonts only. Font subsetting does not work for type1
fonts. There are 3rd party tools available to generate TrueType fonts from type1
fonts if you really want a specific font for your report. Working with TrueType
fonts appears to be a limitation for Unix platforms, but it is possible to generate
the report on a UNIX platform using TrueType fonts. Copy the TrueType fonts
to the UNIX machine and make sure the fonts are located in the REPORTS_PATH.
You can run the report with the associated TrueType fonts.
See http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/type/ftypes.html
for more information on font types.
SAMPLE
TRADEOFFS
Font subsetting is one of
the best solutions for multibyte reports because the font is a part of the report
and this guarantees that the report will always look the same no matter what
machine it is displayed on. The file size is larger, but the look and feel of
the report is guaranteed.
Advantage: guaranteed look
and feel without depending on the viewing machine to have the fonts installed.
This is the recommended approach for generating multibyte fonts.
Disadvantage: only works
with TrueType fonts. Fonts generated are type3 imaged characters, which
in themselves have unique
characteristics that are described on the Adobe
web site. Since the document contains only those fonts used in the data of the
output, no edits can be made to the document if they include any characters
not already in the document.
See http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/type/ftypes.html
for more information on font types.
TROUBLESHOOTING
If font subsetting
does not work, it most likely will occur in the following:
Fonts are not found
because the correct font file name was not used.
Make sure this is a
TrueType font (i.e., filename.ttf).
Fonts are not in the
REPORTS_PATH. This is where Oracle Reports looks for fonts when generating
PDF output.
Font name is incorrect
or not available on the machine where the PDF generation occurs.
Check that the section
names in the uifont.ali file have not been modified. Reports parses the file
looking for the header names (i.e., [ PDF:Subset ]).
For multibyte character
reports to display properly, Adobe Acrobat reader version 4.0 or higher is
needed.
In the Acrobat Reader,
choose File> Document Properties > Fonts (slightly different based on
Acrobat version):
See if the actual
font is labeled "custom" and the type of font is "Type
3":
If no, then
no font subsetting took place and most likely problem is the fonts
were not found or uifont.ali file is incorrect.
If yes, then
font subsetting took place and the output is correct based on the
fonts given in the uifont.ali file.
If you see Adobe
Sans MM, this is the font Adobe uses if it cannot find a given font.
Fonts that are subset look
bold:
This is an issue with
type 3 fonts, which are
created during font subsetting. Type 3 fonts are imaged characters that look
slightly bolder than they would if expressed as a Type 1 font. For best quality
viewing, we recommend the following:
Use Acrobat Reader
5.0.
Set the following
parameters in the Acrobat Reader 5.0:
Edit > Preferences
Display >
Smoothing
Check all the
check boxes (smooth Text, smooth Artline, smooth Images)
If you are
using a laptop, check the CoolType check box
Oracle9i Reports PDF font embedding is the process
of including the entire font set along with the data into the PDF output file.
For this reason, care should be taken when using this feature because file size
can become very large very fast. PDF font embedding with Oracle9i Reports
is for type1 fonts only, but they can be either single and multibyte fonts.
PDF font embedding with Oracle9i Reports does not work for TrueType fonts.
There are 3rd party tools available to generate Type 1 fonts from TrueType fonts
if you really want a specific font for your report. PDF font embedding with
Oracle9i Reports occurs between a font and a set of font file names.
Note: There may be licensing issues that prevent
a font from being embedded into the PDF output. For this reason, please check
with the font creator and make sure to obtain and following any licensing agreements
necessary.
SETUP
Because of the powerful nature of PDF font
embedding and to allow maximum flexibility with
minimal configuration, the setup to enable font embedding includes two control
mechanisms. First is the entry in the uifont.ali file which specifies the Type
1 fonts to be embedded. Second is a command line option "PDFEMBED",
which is used to specify for each report submitted, whether Oracle9i
Reports should embed the Type1 postscript font specified in uifont.ali into
PDF output. This flexibility allows users to define embedding conditions in
the uifont.ali file and then selectively turn off or ignore the embedding instructions
by issuing the PDFEMBED=NO command line option.
The syntax of the pdfembed
command line option is: PDFEMBED={YES|NO}
YES means that the PDF
driver will embed the font specified in the PDFEMBED parameter of the uifont.ali
file into the PDF output. This is the default, so if you have font embedding
specified in the uifont.ali file, it will happen automatically unless you
specifically turn it off.
NO means that the font(s)
mentioned in the PDF EMBED section will not be added to the PDF output and
the PDF EMBED section of the uifont.ali file ignored for that particular job.
PDF
font subsetting and font embedding are mutually exclusive.
To enable PDF font embedding, you must specify the correct
information in the uifont.ali file such as the following:
The above line embeds the
UtopiaMediumItalic font into the PDF file. This ensures portability by not only
creating the report with the UtopiaMediumItalic font, but font embedding it
to make sure the font is sent with the reports output.
SAMPLE
TRADEOFFS
Advantage: guaranteed look
and feel without depending on the viewing machine to have the fonts installed.
Font embedding also allows for additions to be made to the report,which
will be displayed in the
proper embedded font.
Disadvantage: size (multibyte
font embedding is not supported). For example, if you have a report that only
contains the data "My Customer", which contains
10 letters, it would be around 2k. Now if each letter is in a different font
and you want to embed 10 different fonts, where the average size of a single
byte type1 font is 34kb, then you have 10(number of letters in reports) X 34kb,
which produces a 340kb
file size for a report that contains only 10 characters.
TROUBLESHOOTING
If PDF font embedding does
not work, it most likely will occur in the following:
Fonts are not found because
the correct font file name was not used.
Fonts are not in the
REPORTS_PATH. This is where Oracle9i Reports looks
for fonts when generating PDF output.
Make sure this is a Type
1 font, which means
that on the right side of the equation, you must have two file names containing
the font information, the fontfilename.pfm/afm file followed by the fontfilename.pfb
file. The right side of the equation must be in double quotes. i.e.,UtopiaMediumItalic
= "UtopiaMediumItalic.pfm UtopiaMediumItalic.pfb"
).
Font names are incorrect
or not available on the machine where the PDF generation occurs.
Check that the section
names in the uifont.ali file have not been modified. Oracle9i Reports
parses the file looking for the header names.
In the Acrobat Reader
5.0, choose File> Document Properties > Fonts:
See if the actual
font name you embedded is listed:
If no, then no
font embedding took place and most likely problem is the fonts were
not found or uifont.ali file is incorrect.
If yes, then
font embedding took place and the output is correct based on the fonts
given in the uifont.ali file.
If you see Adobe
Sans MM, this is the font Adobe uses if it cannot find a given Roman font.
Oracle9i
Reports provides several ways for you to address accessibility issues for the
disabled. When a report is run to PDF format, the file follows the tagged-PDF
standard defined in PDF 1.4 and, together with Acrobat Reader 5 (or higher)
provides you with accessibility to the paper layout. Using the additional properties,
you can provide the required information that is necessary for generating PDF
documents containing additional definitions that can be interpreted by assistive
technology. For more information on accessibility, see
the "Creating Accessible Enterprise Reports using Oracle9i Reports"
white paper on http://oracle.com under accessibility.
The uifont.ali file is the configuration file controlling
all of the Oracle9i Reports PDF font enhancements. It can be found in
<oracle_home>\tools\common90 and is a text readable file. You can edit
it with a standard text editor. Caution should be used with editing the file,
it should be saved as a text file with no formatting or special characters that
may corrupt the file.
Oracle9i Reports has added three new sections
to the uifont.ali file:
[ PDF ] - Used for font
aliasing and Multibyte language support
[ PDF:Subset ] - Used
for True Type Font subsetting and Multibyte language support
[ PDF:Embed ] - Used
for Type 1 font embedding
As a report is generated,
the Oracle9i Reports Engine parses the uifont.ali file looking for keywords,
so don't change them. Because the file is parsed, the PDF headings can be in
any order.
Some general rules for
the uifont.ali file are:
Use double quotes
around any font or character set names containing spaces.
Use # in the first
column for comments.
Comment out lines
instead of deleting them in case you want to use them in the future.
Aliasing is font
name to font name or character set to CID font (from Adobe)
Font subsetting is
for TrueType fonts only.
Font subsetting uses
the font name and subsets using the TrueType font file name.
Font embedding is
for Type 1 fonts only. These fonts have two files. One for metrics, containing
either a afm or pfm file extension and the binary containing the pfb file
extension.
Font embedding uses
the font name and embeds using the Type 1 font file names (both the *FM
and PFB files are required in this order).
For FONT ALIASING
FORMAT
Each line of the uifont.ali
file for font aliasing is of the form:
<Size> is an explicit
size of the font, in points.
<Style> may be a predefined
string or numeric value as follows:
Plain or 0
Italic or 1
Oblique or 2
Underline or 4
Outline or 8
Shadow or 6
Inverted or 32
Overstrike or 64
Blink or 128
Styles may be combined
with the plus ("+") to delimit parts of a style. For example,
Arial..Italic+Overstrike = Helvetica.12.Italic.Bold
will map any Arial that has both Italic and Overstrike styles to a 12-point,
bold, italic Helvetica font.
<Weight> may be a
predefined string or numeric value:
Ultralight or 1
Extralight or 2
Light or 3
Demilight or 4
Medium or 5
Demibold or 6
Bold or 7
Extrabold or 8
Ultrabold or 9
<Width> may be a predefined
string or numeric value:
Ultradense or 1
Extradense or 2
Dense or 3
Semidense or 4
Normal or 5
Semiexpand or 6
Expand or 7
Extraexpand or 8
Ultraexpand or 9
For multibyte language support,
you must alias a characterset with a CID font from the Asian font pack from
Adobe. For example, you could specify that your Japanese report run with Shift-JIS
characterset be replaced to HeiseiKakuGo-W5-Acro CID font with the following
entry:
.....JA16SJIS = "HeiseiKakuGo-W5-Acro"
[ PDF ] Arial = Courier
Tahoma.12..Bold.. = Tahoma.14....
"Times New Roman".12..Bold = "Tahoma"
Font name = "type1.pfm
type1.pfb" (Note: the pfm/afm file must be first followed by the pfb file.
Must be in double quotes).
[ PDF:Embed ] Arial
= "Arial.pfm Arial.pfb"
PRECEDENCE OF EXECUTION
If you have the same font
in multiple places within uifont.ali, which ones takes precedence?
Font aliasing takes precedence
over font embedding - highest
Font embedding takes
precedence over font subsetting -middle
Font subsetting takes
no precedence - lowest
This is the precedence order
of execution within uifont.ali if you have the same font within a specific heading.
This means that if you have the same entry in both font embedding and font subsetting,
font embedding will occur and font subsetting will not since it is being overridden
by font embedding (assuming you have not set the command line option of PDFEMBED=NO).
Put the specific changes
first followed by the more generic changes
For example, if you want
to subset Arial Plain, Arial Bold, Arial Italic and Arial Bold-Italic fonts,
your entries should be:
The character set component of the NLS environment variables
specifies the character set in which data is represented in your environment.
When data is transferred from a system using one character set to a system using
another character set, it is processed and displayed correctly on the second
system, even though some characters might be represented by different binary
values in the character sets.
If you are designing a multilingual application, or even
a single-language application that runs with multiple character sets, you need
to determine the character set most widely used at runtime and then generate
with the NLS environment variable (NLS_LANG) set
to that particular character set. If you design and generate an application
in one character set and run it in another character set, performance can suffer.
Furthermore, if the runtime character set does not contain all the characters
in the generate character set, then question marks appear in place of the unrecognized
characters. Portable Document Format (PDF) supports multibyte character sets.
There might be situations where you create an application
with a specific font but find that a different font is being used when you run
that application. You would most likely encounter this when using an English
font (such as MS Sans Serif or Arial) in environments other than Western European.
This occurs because Oracle9i Reports checks to see if the character set
associated with the font matches the character set specified by the language
environment variable (NLS_LANG). If the two do not match, Oracle9i Reports
automatically substitutes the font with another font whose associated character
set matches the character set specified by the language environment variable.
This automatic substitution assures that the data being returned from the database
gets displayed correctly in the application. Note: If you enter local characters
using an English font, then Windows does an implicit association with another
font. There might be cases, however, where you do not want this substitution
to take place. You can avoid this substitution by mapping all desired fonts
to the WE8ISO8859P1 character set in the font alias file (uifont.ali).
Unicode is a global character
set that allows multilingual text to be displayed in a single application. This
enables multinational corporations to develop a single multilingual application
and deploy it worldwide. Oracle9i Reports
provides Unicode support. If you use Unicode, you are able to display multiple
languages, both single-byte languages such as those spoken
in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Bidirectional Middle Eastern, and
multibyte Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) in the
same application.
Use of a single character
set that encompasses all languages eliminates the need to have various character
sets for various languages. For example, to display a multibyte language such
as Japanese, the NLS_LANG environment variable must be set to the following:
NLS_LANG=JAPAN_JAPANESE.JA16SJIS
To display a single-byte
language such as German, NLS_LANG must be set to the following: NLS_LANG=GERMAN_GERMANY.WE8ISO8859P1
The obvious disadvantage
of this scheme is that applications can only display characters from one character
set at a time. Mixed character set data is not possible.
With the Unicode character
set, you can set the character set portion of NLS_LANG to UTF8 instead of a specific
language character set. This allows characters from different languages and character
sets to be displayed simultaneously. For example, to display Japanese and German
together on the screen, the NLS_LANG variable must be set to one of the following:
NLS_LANG=JAPAN_JAPANESE.UTF8
NLS_LANG=GERMAN_GERMANY.UTF8
Oracle9i Reports
relies on the operating system for the font and input method for different languages.
To enter and display text in a particular language, you must be running a version
of the operating system that supports that language. Font support is limited
but not restricted to the operating system font. Windows NT release 4.0 provides
True Type Big Fonts. These fonts contain all the characters necessary to display
or print multilingual text. If you try to type, display, or print multilingual
text and see unexpected characters, then you are probably not using a Big Font.
Big Fonts provided by Microsoft under Windows NT release 4.0 are as follows:
Arial
Courier New
Lucida Console
Lucida Sans Unicode
Times New Roman
Third-party Unicode fonts
are also available.
To enable Unicode support,
set the NLS_LANG environment variable as follows: NLS_LANG=character_set.UTF8
PostScript font formats
Adobe Type 1 fonts are stored in two common formats: .pfa (PostScript Font ASCII)
and .pfb (PostScript Font Binary). These contain descriptions of the character
shapes, with each character being generated by a small program that calls on
other small programs to compute common parts of the characters in the font.
In both cases, the character descriptions are encrypted. Before such a font
can be used, it must be rendered into dots in a bitmap, either by the PostScript
interpreter, or by a specialized rendering engine, such as Adobe Type Manager,
which is used to generate low-resolution screen fonts on Apple Macintosh and
on Microsoft Windows systems.
The Type 1 binary files(.pfa,
.pfb) contain character information while the metric (.afm - Adobe Font Metric
or .pfm - Printer Font Metric) files contain the metric information to form
the character. These metrics files are ASCII files with a well-defined easy-to-parse
structure.
The personal computer brought
about a need for scalable font technology, thought to be an important part of
any future operating system. Adobe wanted both Apple and Microsoft to license
its PostScript code,
which was capable
of handling this role, but both companies were concerned about having a third
party control key parts of their operating systems. Apple and Microsoft agreed
to a cross-licensing and product development deal, with Microsoft creating a
PostScript-style graphics engine and Apple creating a font system.
Apple developed what was
to become TrueType,
which proved superior
to other competing technologies on performance and rendering quality. Apple
and Microsoft announced their strategic alliance against Adobe, where Apple
would do the font system, Microsoft the printing engine. Apple released TrueType
in March 1991 and the first TrueType fonts:
Times Roman
Helvetica
Courier
Microsoft introduced TrueType
into Windows with version 3.1 in early 1992. They created a core set of fonts:
Times New Roman
Arial
Courier
Both Apple's and Microsoft's
TrueType fonts showed that scalable fonts could generate bitmaps virtually as
though each size had been designed by hand.
Barcode
fonts can be quite confusing. Some industries have chosen a specific
barcode
type. If this is what you
need, then using the appropriate barcode
font should work. For example,
if you are interested in putting barcode
on retail packages or books,
the choice of a barcode
is simple. Retail packages
in North America use the UPC-A bar code. European retail articles use the EAN
barcode
.
And all book ISBN numbers use the Bookland barcode
(an EAN 13 bar code with a 5 digit supplement).
Fonts are one way to obtain
barcode,
but not the only way.
Oracle9i
Reports offers another solution for producing
barcodes
using
a Java barcode
bean. The Java barcode
bean is capable of creating
barcodes
based on the most popular barcode
types. See http://otn.oracle.com/reports for an example and white paper on using
the barcode
bean.
Character IDentifier (CID)
fonts are a format of composite (multibyte) Type 1 fonts to better address the
requirements of Far East markets. Adobe developed the CID-keyed font file format
to support large character set fonts for use with PostScript. It is the ideal
format for Chinese, Japanese, or Korean fonts, and may also be used for roman
fonts with very large character sets. CID-keyed refers to the character identifier
(CID) numbers that are used to index and access the characters in the font.
A CID (character identifier) font consists of a large font file that contains
all the character outlines and a small CMap file that contains a list of characters,
encodings, and character identifiers. The combination of the font file and the
CMap file yields a font that is a specific character set and encoding information.
Each CID font can support many character set and encoding combinations.
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