Document ID:        34534.1
Creator:            LANDERSO
Subject:            Font Aliasing and Oracle Reports
Modified:           19 Nov 96 10:19:15


Font Aliasing and Oracle*Reports.

What is Font Aliasing?

It is a feature that allows the mapping of one font to another. It was first
introduced in 2.0.14.

Why is it used?

It's primary use is when porting applications across platforms.
It allows for the mapping of fonts on the source platform to substitutes on
the target platform. For example, when moving from Motif to MS Windows you
would use font aliasing to map the  'HELVETICA' font to a font available on
WINDOWS such as 'ARIAL'.

What is UIFONT.ALI?

UIFONT.ALI is the file that contains the mapping specifications. You modify
this file to include your own mappings.

Where is UIFONT.ALI found?

On MS Windows 3.1 UIFONT.ALI resides in the \orawin\CDE2 directory.

On Motif it resides in the $ORACLE_HOME/guicommon/tk2/admin directory.

On the Macintosh there is no UIFONT.ALI the file is called 'Oracle Font
Aliases'.

What if I move the file?

In Windows

1.   If you copy UIFONT.ALI from the default location (orawin\CDE2) to another
directory and wish to use the moved file, you can add that directory path to
the TK21 parameter in the oracle.ini.

For example:
TK21=c:\temp;c:\orawin\CDE2

The file will be picked up from the first directory in the path, so the
original can be left in the default location.

2.   You can also copy the UIFONT.ALI file to the working directory. If you do
this remove the file from \orawin\CDE2 as this path will be searched first.

In Motif

You can set the environment variable TK2_FONTALIAS to specify the location of
UIFONT.ALI.

In Boune shell, enter the following:
$ TK2_FONTALIAS=uifont.ali_pathname; export TK2_FONTALIAS

In C shell, enter the following:
% setenv TK2_UIFONT.ALI uifont.ali_pathname

Oracle Toolkit when trying to locate the file first looks in the location
specified by TK2_FONTALIAS. If TK2_FONTALIAS is not set, or if it fails to
find UIFONT.ALI in there it will look in the $ORACLE_HOME/guicommon/tk2/admin
directory.

When Does it Happen?

The UIFONT.ALI file is used when running, opening and converting reports. A
warning is issued if aliasing happens. If the report is then saved after the
aliasing has occurred , the new fonts are saved with the report.

Note aliasing will only occur if a user interface is running therefore
aliasing will not occur if you use R25CONV in batch.

The warning is as follows:

Error: Rep 20151

Text: 'Warning: Some fonts have been changed according to the mapping in the
uifont.ali.'

Cause: One or more fonts saved with the report have been mapped to different
ones, due to a change in platform, display, report destination, or mode.

Action:  If you want the font mapped to a specific font, edit the uifont.ali
file to map the fonts to the desired ones. Otherwise, no action is necessary.

Mapping Fonts using UIFONT.ALI

The general format is
        source_font=destination_font

where source font is the font you have on the current platform and destination
font is what you wish to map it to on the ported platform.

Taking the previous example of moving from Motif to MS Windows and mapping the
Helvetica Motif font to the Windows Arial font.:

/*Motif*/
helvetica=arial

Below is the UIFONT.ALI file.
You modify this file to add your desired mappings.

#
# $Header: uifont.ali 1.9.1.3 95/09/18 10:11:36 tchan Generic $ Copyr
(c) 1992 Oracle
#
#  Copyright (c) Oracle Corporation 1994.
#  All Rights Reserved.
#
# DESCRIPTION:
#
# Each line is of the form:
#
#     ..