Cognos 8 uses fonts to render PDF reports on the Cognos 8 server and to render charts used in PDF and HTML reports.
To show output correctly, fonts must be available where the report or chart is rendered.
In the case of charts and PDF reports, the fonts must be installed on the Cognos 8 server. For example, if a Cognos Report Studio user selects the Arial font for a report, Arial must be installed on the Cognos 8 server to properly render charts and PDF files. If a requested font is not available, Cognos 8 substitutes a different font.
Because HTML reports are rendered on a browser, the required fonts must be installed on the personal computer of each Cognos 8 user who will read the HTML report. If a requested font is not available, the browser substitutes a different font.
When creating reports, you must select fonts that your Cognos server or users have installed. Microsoft delivers a broad selection of fonts with different language packs, so this will likely not be an issue in Windows. However, UNIX servers rarely have fonts installed. You should be prepared to purchase and install the fonts you need on both the server and browser clients.
When generating a PDF, Cognos 8 embeds only the glyphs that are used in the report.
If you plan to use different fonts, you must license and install those fonts on each server computer in your authoring environment and production system. You must also ensure that the fonts used in the authoring environment match the fonts used on your Windows and UNIX server computers.
For information about configuring fonts and about mapping substitute fonts, see the Installation and Configuration Guide.
To ensure that PDF reports appear correctly in Adobe Reader, Cognos 8 embeds required fonts in reports by default. To minimize the file size, Cognos 8 embeds only the characters (also called glyphs) used in the report rather than all characters in the font set. Cognos 8 embeds fonts only if they are licensed for embedding. The license information is stored in the font itself and is read by Cognos 8.
If you are confident that the fonts used in reports are available on users’ computers, you can limit or eliminate embedded fonts to reduce the size of PDF reports. When limiting fonts, you specify whether a font is always or never embedded, using an embedded fonts list in Cognos Configuration.
For more information about limiting embedded fonts, see the Installation and Configuration Guide.
If a requested font is not found, the Cognos server renders PDF files and charts using a default font. The default font, Andale WT, is a sans serif font. While it has most of the Unicode characters for many languages, it is not necessarily complete for all languages and does not have the attractive appearance of most purchased fonts. Also, this font has no Glyph Substitution (GSUB) and Ligature support in most languages.
Cognos Report Studio is an HTML and JavaScript application that runs in a browser. Because of the browser design, Cognos Report Studio operates within the browser security sandbox and has no access to the list of fonts installed on the local computer. As a result, the list of fonts presented in Cognos Report Studio depends on the fonts installed in the c8_location\bin\fonts directory of the Cognos 8 server. If the Cognos 8 server is installed on a Windows computer, Cognos Report Studio also uses the fonts installed in the Windows font directory.