参考文档：Activating and Configuring IX Library (Doc ID 240864.1)
1. Overview
IX Library is a library incorporated in Oracle Reports and Oracle Graphics to add capabilities of handling various types of data such as Unicode based multi-lingual data or barcode for Oracle E-business Suite's customers.
IX Libary是Oracle Reports和Oracle Graphics内嵌的一个库，提供处理不同数据类型（比如基于Unicode的多语言数据或者ebs客户的条形码）的功能。
There are two major features in IX Library at this moment, IX Printing and IX Display.
IX Printing is a PostScript generation engine with multi-lingual support in Oracle Reports and IX Display is a font rendering（字体渲染） engine for Oracle Graphics file with multi-lingual data.
IX Library is configured by the parameters in a configuration file designed for the library. It reads the font information and embeds（嵌入） (IX Printing) or draws (IX Display) the glyphs. IX Library also obtains other information in addition to font for language handling such as configuration for bi-directional language.
One of the important features in the advanced configurations for IX Library is the advanced font setting. This document devotes much spaces for how to configure the font for IX Library that is the most important part of IX Library.
Please refer to the Metalink note "Oracle Reports 6i Setup Guide for Oracle Applications 11i" for configurations of Oracle Reports 6i and Oracle Applications 11i with IX Library.
2. System Requirements
1. Availability
IX Printing is available in Oracle Developer 6i patchset 9 or later versions. IX Rendering is available in patchset 11 or later. Please obtain the latest information from Oracle Corporation. IX Library is supported for Oracle E-business Suite's customers only.
Sample configuration files for various environments are available on Metalink as a patch for bug 2671556.
2. Requirements for TrueType Fonts
The internal mapping in a TrueType font must be Unicode.
IX Library supports TrueType correction (ttc) fonts.
The font does not have to be installed on the operating system level as IX Library access the file directly.
IX Library uses one font file to get glyphs for one font name. IX Library is not capable of displaying different glyphs from multiple font files in one font name, which similar capability is implemented in Java with font.properties file as the virtual font or in Windows as EUDC and the font linking.
3. Activating IX Library
IX Printing is activated when IX_PRINTING (alternately PASTA environment variable) environment variable is set. PASTA environment variable must be used for Oracle Developer patchset 10 or earlier. If both environment variables are set in the same session for patchset 11 or above, the value for IX_PRINTING will be used.
IX Display is activated when IX_RENDERING environment variable is set. A configuration file for IX Library will be specified for either of the environment variables.
Important Note
Turning on IX Library may cause significant changes in the report output mainly because the fonts are different. Therefore PostScript reports need to be tested thoroughly with the effort of obtaining the font and configuring the IX Library to get the expected results.
4. Configuration Parameters
Parameters for IX Printing
IX Library requires a configuration file to define its behavior. The full path to the configuration file must be set in the environment variable (PASTA or IX_PRINTING).
This document describes the configuration for patchset 11 or later version only as the advanced configuration parameters are implemented in IX Printing in patchset 11
Type
Key Name
Default Value
Possible Values and Description
Required Font.Default.Plain
(fontpath)N/A Specify the TrueType font file name or a printer font name preceded by printer: keyword. A value for this parameter cannot contain any period character (.) Required Font.Default.Bold
(boldfontpath)N/A Specify the TrueType font file name or a printer font name preceded by printer: keyword for bold style. A value for this parameter cannot contain any period character (.) Optional Font.Default.Italic Font.Default.Plain Default font for italic. A value for this parameter cannot contain any period character (.) Optional Font.Default.BoldItalic Font.Default.Bold Default font for bolditalic. A value for this parameter cannot contain any period character (.) Optional Font.XXXXX.XXXXX N/A For other font face and style. A value for this parameter cannot contain any period character (.) Optional direction default Only for Bidi languages.
rtl: Force the direction to be right-to-left
ltr: Force the direction to be left-to-right
default: rtl for ARABIC and HEBREW NLS_LANGUAGE. ltr for others.Optional dolayout y Only for Bidi languages
String layout will be executed by the value y.Optional doshaping y Only for Arabic language
Shaping will be executed by the value y.Optional numerals context Only for Arabic language
arabic: Forces all the numeric character displayed in Arabic number
hindi: Forces all the numeric character displayed in Hindi number
context: Switches Arabic and Hindi number depending on the bidi context.Optional bidi_algorithm oracle Only for Bidi languages
oracle: Follows Oracle style Bidi algorithm for string layout
unicode: Follows Unicode standard Bidi algorithm for string layoutRefer to the chapter of Advanced Font Setting in this document for the detailed configuration with font parameters.
If Pasta printing utility version 2.0.1 or earlier is installed on the system and Developer 6ipatchset is 11 or above, you need to add the advanced settings in the pasta.cfg file manually or create a new configuration file in a different name and set IX_PRINTING environment variable to point to the file. This is because PASTA 2.0.1 or earlier is not compatible with the advanced setting and bundles an incompatible configuration file. Please obtain sample configuration files from a patch for bug 2671556 on Metalink in this case.
5. Advanced Font Setting for IX Printing
There are two major features in the advanced font setting, font embedding/non embedding and multiple font support. By font embedding/no embedding, you can specify either a TrueType font to embed or the name of the font installed on the printer (non embedding.) By multiple font support, you can specify a different font for each font face at Oracle Reports runtime. This section describes detailed configuration for each feature.
Advanced font feature in IX Library is available Developer 6i patchset 11 or later versions.
1. Font Setting in RDF File
Font attributes for the data or boiler plates to be displayed in the reports are defined in RDF file. IX Library uses two attributes, font face or font name and font weight, which is either bold, italic or bolditalic.
A font face specified in an RDF file will be one of the fonts that the operating system supports at the design time. However, this font might not be supported or another font might be preferred at runtime. IX Library can override the font face in the RDF with the font specified in the configuration file at runtime.
The source of the replacement font can be a TrueType font file or a name of the font installed on the printer.
2. Font Search Algorithm at Oracle Reports Runtime
IX Library works with Oracle Toolkit closely. Oracle Toolkit passes the font information to IX Library after all the font handlings are done at runtime. The font face is a part of the information and the final font face is determined through a certain algorithm within Oracle Reports. To map the font face determined by Oracle Reports to IX Library in the configuration file correctly, you must know the exact name of the font face. In most cases, the font face is defined in RDF file at design time and at runtime, PPD file for the printer and uifont.ali file will be used to replace the font face in the RDF. PPD files are stored in $ORACLE_HOME/guicommon6/tk60/admin/PPD directory and uifont.ali file is stored in $ORACLE_HOME/guicommon6/tk60/admin directory by default.
Please refer to "1.1 Using fonts" section in "Fonts in Oracle 9i Reports" available on Oracle Technology Network web site (OTN) for detailed information how Oracle Reports determines the font at runtime. This documents also describes the behavior of Oracle Reports 6i even though it's titled as 9i.