11.4 Generating a Bidirectional (BiDi) PDF File

This section outlines the steps involved in generating a PDF file for bidirectional (BiDi) languages. Before using the font features covered in this section, refer to Table 11-4 to determine which feature best suits your application needs.

Oracle Reports provides two environment variables that resolve font re-shaping and numeric options with bidirectional (BiDi) languages, such as Hebrew and Arabic. They are:

1. REPORTS_BIDI_ALGORITHM

   This environment variable switches the layout algorithm for bidirectional (BiDi) languages (for example, Arabic or Hebrew). The valid values for this environment variable are ORACLE, ENHANCED or UNICODE.

   
   

   See Also: Section B.1.31, "REPORTS_BIDI_ALGORITHM"

   
   

2. REPORTS_ARABIC_NUMERAL

   This environment variable specifies the numeric format for Arabic PDF output.

   
   

   See Also: Section B.1.29, "REPORTS_ARABIC_NUMERAL"

   
   

11.4.1 Font Subsetting

The following example assumes you are using Arabic environment. The steps involved in generating a PDF file for bidirectional (BiDi) languages using the font subsetting feature are as follows:

1. Set NLS_LANG=ARABIC_EGYPT.AR8MSWIN1256 (or AR8ISO8859P6 on UNIX).

2. Set REPORTS_PATH to the font directory in which the TrueType font exists. For example, C:\WINNT\fonts.

3. Open the uifont.ali file and edit the [PDF:Subset] section to specify the TrueType font name.

   
   

   Note: The uifont.ali file is located in the following directory on Windows and UNIX: ORACLE_INSTANCE\config\FRComponent\frcommon\guicommon\tk\admin

   
   

   Example

   [PDF:Subset]
   "Andale Duospace WT J" = "Aduoj.ttf"
   "Albany WT J"="AlbanWTJ.ttf"
   

4. Create a report having Arabic data and set it to the font specified in the example.

5. Run a report with DESTYPE=FILE DESFORMAT=PDF.