Understanding Report Rendering Best Practices

Narrative Reporting browser viewers, including Preview, Review, Sign-off, and Distribution, render report output as PDF documents.

Differences between browser-rendered output and downloaded native files may occur due to:

• Font substitution
• PDF rendering differences
• Microsoft Word content merge behavior

To minimize rendering discrepancies, you can perform the following:

• Upload all required reporting fonts to the service.
• Include symbol fonts such as Wingdings and Symbol.
• Review published Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint output when validating formatting.

Preview the report package after adding doclets and before publishing the report. For report packages that contain complex embedded content, numerous doclets, or numerous variables, preview the report package early to identify layout and performance issues before finalizing the report.

If your report package uses custom fonts, the service administrator must upload the required TrueType fonts before you preview or publish the report package. You can upload the fonts for accurate visual rendering when users view the report package on the web. If the required fonts are not uploaded, Narrative Reporting uses font mapping, which can introduce layout variations in the web rendering. Ensure that the same fonts are also installed on the local systems of the users.

For Microsoft PowerPoint-based report packages, custom fonts take effect after the next scheduled daily maintenance.