Fonts
The best way to define and use a font in JasperReports Library is to create and use a font extension. Font extensions force JasperReports to work with external TTF, SVG, WOFF, or EOT fonts instead of using built-in or system fonts. This ensures that a specific font behaves in the same way wherever the report is executed.
Using system fonts usually results in unacceptable changes in report format when the report is deployed on another system. Subtle differences in font size and spacing can affect not only the appearance of the text but the layout of the report itself. You may lose part of the text in a text element or the font might not be available at all. Font extensions help avoid these problems:
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A font can be available in one operating system but not in another. In this case, the default font is used for the element, but it may not support the expected character set. |
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The Java virtual machine can map logical font family names to different physical fonts. |
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A font that is available in different operating systems can be slightly different from one operating system to another. |
You can incorporate additional information in a font extension, such as: bold and italic fonts, the text encoding for the font, and a list of locales where the font should be used. You can also use font extensions to embed your fonts in PDF files.
In addition, you can combine several font extensions into a font set. For example, if you have data in English and Japanese, you can create a single font set that combines fonts for those languages.
This chapter contains the following sections:
Font Extensions Reference
You work with font extensions using the Fonts page in the Preferences dialog.
The Fonts Page
The Fonts page displays all your font extensions and font sets, and lets you create, copy, edit, delete, and reorder fonts and font sets.
To access the Fonts page:
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Select Window > Preferences (Eclipse > Preferences on Mac). The Preferences dialog is displayed. |
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In the Preferences dialog, select Jaspersoft Studio > Fonts. |
The Fonts page is displayed.
The Fonts page shows the following:
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Font List – The list of font extensions and font sets. Font sets are prepended with >; click to expand and show the font extensions contained in the font set. When you create a font set, the default font for the set is the font that appears highest in the list when the font set is created. Inside a font set, non-default fonts are applied in the order they appear in the font list. |
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Add from URL – Specify a URL location for a zip file of the fonts you want to add as extensions. To add all the Noto fonts from Google, click  and select the Noto URL. |
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Add from Path – Specify a folder containing the fonts you want to add as extensions. |
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Duplicate – Create a copy of the selected font extension(s) and/or font set(s). Each copy has a unique name, which can be edited. |
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Delete – Delete the selected font extension(s) and/or font set(s). This does not remove the original font files from your system. |
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Up – Move the selected font extension and/or font set up in the list of fonts. |
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Down – Move the selected font extension and/or font set down in the list of fonts. |
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Create Set – Combine the selected font extensions into a font set. |
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Add to Set – Add the selected font extension(s) to an existing font set. Clicking this displays a dialog where you can select the font set you want to add the extensions to. |
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Edit – Edit the selected font extension or set. For a font extension, displays The Font Family Dialog. For a font set, displays the Font Set dialog. |
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Export – Export the selected font extension or set. |
The Font Family Dialog
The Font Family dialog lets you configure an existing font extension and create and configure font sets. This dialog has three pages.
To access the Font Family dialog:
Select a font extension in the Fonts list and click Edit.
Font Family Page
The Font Family page lets you define the basic configuration of the font or font set.
The Font Family page shows the following:
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Family Name – Name JasperReports Library uses to identify the font extension or font set. When you create a font extension from an external font file, by default, the font name is used for the family name. This can be edited. |
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Hidden – Flag that determines whether the font is shown as an available font extension "above the line" in the Font property of a report element. Use the Hidden flag to hide internal fonts from the user. See Using Font Extensions in a Report for more information. |
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Normal/Bold/Italic/Bold Italic – Tabs that let you configure the individual files that define the specified attributes. For each attribute, you can configure the following: |
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[Font Format] – File location for the specific font and attribute. To change or add a file, use the Browse button to navigate to the file location for the specific font and attribute. You can only select one file for each tab. |
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PDF Font Name (deprecated) – The name of the font when exported to PDF. This can be a pre-defined PDF font or the name of the font file. Not necessary when using font extensions. |
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PDF Details – Settings used for the font when exported to PDF. Deprecated for static text and textfields. |
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PDF Encoding (deprecated) – The font encoding to use for the font. Defaults to Identity-H. To avoid Identity-H printing issues, set this to the correct encoding for your font. |
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Embed this font in PDF document (deprecated) – Flag that specifies whether to embed the font in a generated PDF or not. Embedding fonts is recommended to ensure consistency across platforms. |
Font Mapping Page
The Font Mapping page lets you specify a font mapping to use when one or more font files are not installed in the target environment. The order of the font names indicates the order in which the web browser should search for the replacement font. Once a replacement font is found, the browser stops searching and renders the text. If no font mapping is available for HTML, then web fonts are used.
To access the Font Mapping Page:
Click Next on the Font Family page.
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If a mapping is present, then web fonts are not used. Do not define a font mapping unless you want to override the web font functionality.
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The Font Mapping page shows the following:
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Default Mapping – A string that defines a mapping for the font. For example, a serif font might be set to: 'My font family', 'Times New Roman', 'Times', 'Serif'. |
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Add button – Adds the string in the Default Mapping field to the list of mappings. |
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Delete button – Deletes the currently highlighted mapping. |
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Export Type – Sets the file type (html, xhtml, or rtf). Click on a value to display a down arrow, then click on the arrow to select a type from the cascading menu. Defaults to html. You can define different mappings for different file types. |
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Mapped Font Name – Click on a value to edit the name of the mapped font. |
Locale Mapping Page
The Locale Mapping page lets you set the locales where this font family is used. If you have different font extensions that support different languages, (for example, a font for Western European and a font for Japanese), you can set the locales for these fonts. It is preferable to use font sets.
To access the Font Locale Page:
Click Next on the Font Mapping page.
The Locales page shows the following:
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Locale – List of locales supported by the font. |
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Add button – Add a locale where the font is supported. |
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Delete button – Delete the selected locale. |
Clicking Add opens the Locales dialog box, where you can set the locales supported by the font. This dialog has two tabs:
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Predefined Locales – Choose from a list of available locales. |
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Custom Locales – Enter the ISO language code for a language not on the list of predefined locales. You can enter the language (required), an optional country, and an optional variant, as supported by ISO 639-1. |
Font Sets
Font sets let you group font extensions in supersets that can include several languages and/or scripts. When you use a font set, the font family resolution occurs during text processing on a per-character basis, allowing you to include characters from different languages or character sets in the same text element. For example, if you have data that includes Japanese and English entries, you can create a single font set that contains Western European and Japanese fonts and use that font set for your data.
The Font Set Dialog
When you create or edit a font set, the Font Set dialog lets you edit the name for the font set.
Accessing the font set dialog:
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To create a font set, select the font extensions you want to combine, and click Create Font Set. Enter a name for the set and click OK. |
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To edit the name of an existing font set, select the set and click Edit. |
The Font Set Family Dialog
The Font Set Family dialog lets you control the mapping between fonts and characters sets for a font set. In many cases, multiple fonts inside a font family may support the same character set or "script". In this case, JasperReports Library uses a greedy algorithm to display as much contiguous text as possible in a single font. If you want to ensure that a specific font extension is used for a specific script, you can set the included/excluded scripts for the fonts in your font set.
To access the Font Set Family dialog:
Expand a font set in the Fonts list, then double-click a font inside the set.
The Font Set Family dialog shows the following:
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Primary – Toggle that sets the primary font for the font set. |
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Include Scripts – Language/character sets that should use this font extension when the font set is applied. |
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Exclude Scripts – Language/character sets that should never use this font extension when the font set is applied. |
and select the Noto URL.
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