Arabic Font Not Appearing in Birt 3.7.1 PDF Report

Hassan Nehme · July 19, 2017

Hello,
 
- Environment: Birt 3.7.1 / Maximo 7.5.0.4 / Sun Solaris 10
 
- Problem: Arabic Font Not Appearing in Birt 3.7.1 PDF Report generated from Maximo 7.5.0.4 Application running on Sun Solaris 10.
 
- Details:
1- Birt Viewer is displaying the report correctly with Arabic font as HTML and MS Word, but PDF is eliminating the Arabic characters completely.
2- I changed the encoding in both files fontsConfig.xml and fontsConfig.xml from cp1252 to cp1256, in the generated PDF file from Maximo the Arabic letter were replaced by '?'
3- I changed the encoding from to utf-8 as per advise in one of the web notes, but again Arabic disappeared from the PDF.
 
Kindly advise.
 
Attached are the fontConfig files before we modified it.

Clement Wong · July 19, 2017

Does this report show the Arabic in the PDF from a Windows environment? You can try generating the PDF from the Designer on a Windows machine.
 
Can you please attach the modified fontsConfig_pdf.xml? Did you modify fontsConfig.xml?
 
What's the font name? What's the .TTF file name? Where is it located?
 
Did you follow steps outlined like this?
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://developer.actuate.com/community/forum/index.php?/topic/39439-missing-vietnamese-alphabets-in-pdf/?p=144792'>http://developer.actuate.com/community/forum/index.php?/topic/39439-missing-vietnamese-alphabets-in-pdf/?p=144792</a>

Hassan Nehme · July 23, 2017

Thank you Clement. 
The PDF report shows the Arabic correctly from windows environment. 
We have created new folder on Sun server: '/u01/app/mxeam/fonts' with required access and permission to the user, to this folder we copied the below fonts files from a windows 7 machine 'C:\Windows\Fonts\'. 
arial.ttf 
arialbd.ttf 
arialbi.ttf 
ariali.ttf 
ARIALN.TTF 
ARIALNB.TTF 
ARIALNBI.TTF 
ARIALNI.TTF 
ariblk.ttf 
cour.ttf 
courbd.ttf 
courbi.ttf 
couri.ttf 
times.ttf 
timesbd.ttf 
timesbi.ttf 
timesi.ttf 
Attached are the modified files fontsConfig.xml and fontsConfig_pdf.xml.
 
I tried the font 'Times New Roman' and 'Arial'.

Clement Wong · July 24, 2017

Where did you modify fontsConfig.xml?
 
Did you restart the app after modifying?
 
As a test to see if Arial is being used in the PDF output... Create a simple report with a label using Arial font with ASCII text. Generate the PDF on your server. We should see the font output as Arial. If it's not working, we'll see a Serif font (Times New Roman like) instead.
 
Also, as a test, can you modify fontsConfig.xml and point to the TTF directly, adding as the first entry like the following:
<pre class="_prettyXprint">
<path path="/u01/app/mxeam/fonts/arial.ttf"/></pre>

Hassan Nehme · July 25, 2017

A - fontsConfig.xml and fontsConfig_pdf.xml files were extracted from the below jar file, modified and then re-packaged within our application ear file and re-deployed on the weblogic server v.10.3.6. 
 - .\webmodule\WEB-INF\birt\platform\plugins\org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.fonts_3.7.1.v20110905.jar 
B - The application services were restarted after the deployment. 
C - After adding '<path path="/u01/app/mxeam/fonts/arial.ttf"/>' to the fontsConfig.xml file and re-deployed the application, I have performed the requested test with ASCII text, from the generated PDF, below are the font properties: 
 Font: ArialMT (Embedded Subset) 
 Type: TrueType(CID) 
 Encoding: Identity-H 
I have performed the same test with Arabic text (Arial Font), '?' is displayed in the PDF file, the font properties listed below: 
 Font: ArialMT (Embedded Subset) 
 Type: TrueType(CID) 
 Encoding: Identity-H 
 Font: Time-Roman 
 Type: Type1 
 Encoding: Custom 
 Actual Font: TimesNewRomanPSMT 
 Actual Font Type: TrueType 
 
I have performed the same test with Arabic text but Times New Roman font, '?' is displayed in the PDF file, the font properties is listed below: 
 Font: TimesNewRomanPSMT (Embedded Subset) 
 Type: TrueType(CID) 
 Encoding: Identity-H 
 Font: Time-Roman 
 Type: Type1 
 Encoding: Custom 
 Actual Font: TimesNewRomanPSMT 
 Actual Font Type: TrueType 
Maybe encoding is something that we need to look at it. 
Thank you.

Clement Wong · July 25, 2017

ArialMT that is expected. The Time-Roman means that the font for Arabic didn't get picked up.
 
Did the ASCII report show the Arial font properly?
 
Can you please attach your simple .rptdesign with Arabic?

Hassan Nehme · July 26, 2017

The ASCII report showed the Arial font properly.
 
I have attached my Arabic simple report (ver. 3.7.1).
 
I couldn't run your report as it is having the version 3.7.2, but any way I have updated it with Arabic text and attached it in this post.

Clement Wong · July 26, 2017

Since Arial is working for ASCII, then the next step is to see if the Arabic in Arial font is working.
 
In your fontsConfig.xml under <font-encodings>, do you have an entry like the following? If not, add one in. Redeploy, and test the Arial Font Test (with the Arabic text).
<pre class="_prettyXprint">
<encoding font-family="Arial" encoding="Cp1256" /> </pre>
1256 is the code page for Arabic.

Hassan Nehme · July 27, 2017

I have added the suggested line to fontsConfig.xml and re-deployed the application, '?' is still coming, below are the generated PDF font properties (the simple report is having only one label with Arabic Text):
 
 Font: ArialMT (Embedded Subset) 
 Type: TrueType 
 Encoding: Custom
 
Thank you.

Hassan Nehme · July 31, 2017

have tried also the encoding iso-8859-6 but issue not resolved.

Clement Wong · July 31, 2017

Unfortunately, I don't have a "Birt 3.7.1 / Maximo 7.5.0.4 / Sun Solaris 10" environment to test.
 
Are you able to replicate the issue without Maximo? Just trying to pare down the components. Can you deploy BIRT to Tomcat on the same machine and test?
 
Or replicate the issue on a different non-Windows OS such as Linux?
 
To attempt to replicate on my end, it looks like I can download a VM of Sun Solaris 10 ( Are you using SPARC, or x86? I would be able to run the later.
 
What app server does Maximo 7.5.0.4 use?
 
What version of Java?
 
NOTE: I did testing on environments I do have such as iHub on CentOS 7, and the Arabic Arial Font test report generates successfully. During this week, I will test in CentOS 6.5 and BIRT 3.7.2 and 3.7.1 with the Arabic Arial Font report in a standard install, and one that has the fonts and updated config files.

Hassan Nehme · August 3, 2017

Hi Clement,
 
I didn't try to replicate the issue without Maximo, I will try to setup an environment and replicate the issue on Sun Solaris 10 environment.
 
We are on Oracle web logic version 10.3.6, Java version is 1.6 rev. 37
 
Thank you.

Arabic Font Not Appearing in Birt 3.7.1 PDF Report

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