Font troubleshooting

There are several reasons why a font might not display correctly in your report.

Use this checklist to troubleshoot the problem:

  • Is the font available on your system? Use the $GREDIR/bin/fontinfo script to list the fonts available on the server:
    fontinfo [-V|-h]

    where -V displays the version and -h displays the help.

    If the font is not available, you can install it with the procedure specified by the vendor.

    Note: On Linux® systems, installing fonts can be simplified by tools such as Font Manager.
  • The debugger also shows which font is used by the report. Switch debugging on by setting GREDEBUG to 9, and run the report. Debugging information appears in the standard output. For further information, see Debugging your Report Design Document.
  • Are you outputting your report to PDF format? Use the $GREDIR/bin/fontinfopdf script to list all fonts that can be used in PDF documents. For more information, see Fonts in PDF output.
  • Are you using distributed mode? Are the GRE and GRD installed on different operating systems? If so, the fonts might display incorrectly. For more information, see Tips for installing fonts.
  • Is Genero Studio configured to the correct locale? Check the LANG environment variable. For further information, see Configure LANG on a Genero Studio Server.
  • Are you embedding fonts and outputting the report to SVG? Is the specified font missing from the server side? Switch font embedding off in the SVG output by calling fgl_report_configureSVGDevice().
  • Does your report include Asian characters, and are you outputting to SVG or PDF format?

    Make sure the specified fonts contain the required characters. In your report design, for any text box using Asian characters, you may need to set the fidelity property to true. For compatibility reports, set the fidelity parameter to "true" in the fgl_report_configureCompatibilityOutput function.

  • Does your font lack certain glyphs?

    In this case, GRE attempts to take the missing characters from a different font that contains the glyphs. For example, the monospaced (fixed-width) font "Courier" does not contain graphics characters. If a report contains a grid that is drawn using graphics characters, GRE might substitute characters from a set that is not fixed-width, causing the layout to break. Avoid this problem by using a font like "Lucida Sans Typewriter" (see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/intl/font.html#lucida.), which is both fixed-width and contains the required characters.

  • Are you using compatibility mode, and does your report use monospace fonts? For more information, see Fonts in compatibility reports.
  • Have you updated your version of Java™, or moved to a different server? If so, the default sans-serif font might have changed. To avoid issues with the default font, specify a font at the root of the document. In the Report Designer, set the Font properties for the Page Root node (for example, the Font Name, Font Size, and Text Fidelity properties).