Hello to all readers of the Stimulsoft blog! As you already understood from the title, today we will talk about fonts.
Every time when designing a new report or dashboard, our users have some questions about the lists of fonts, how to work with them, their display on various devices, etc. Well, let's consider this topic in more detail and sort all the things out. What does the list of fonts, which we can see in the report designer, depend on? Mostly, the list of fonts depends on the operating system and a used product.
A certain set of fonts is installed in the operating system by default. However, after the operating system update and depending on its version, the list of available fonts may differ. Most often, a set of fonts is installed in the system by default, and each system version has its own list. You may install fonts with some apps or manually. They can be of various types - raster (bitmap) or vector (TrueType, OpenType, and PostScript).
Our products are intended for various technologies and, accordingly, they use different methods of information display. That is why fonts may be displayed differently. Besides, technologies may work differently on various versions of the operating system. For example, when working on Windows 8/10, Reports.Net, Reports.Wpf products, based on .NET Framework, support TrueType and OpenType fonts. Earlier versions of Windows support TrueType fonts only.The list of fonts in the report designer displays only the fonts installed on the system and are supported by the product and technology.All of the above applies to Reports.Net, Reports.Wpf, Dashboards.WIN. In the case of using Web products (client-server technologies) fonts list is taken from the operating system of the server-side of the product. Fonts list is pre-installed by our developers for the products where the JS engine is used.
If a font does not contain necessary symbols, the system uses the «font fallback» algorithm, which inserts characters from similar fonts or fonts of a similar style. As a result, the appearance of the text may differ from the one intended. For example, a part of the text in another language can be displayed in a different font, and it will be very noticeable.
In some cases, missing symbols either don't display or are replaced with rectangles.
In the picture above, you can see an example of displaying the same text with different fonts in Stimulsoft Reports.Net. The top row of the table displays text with the Text Quality=Standard (the standard way of showing text in .NET Framework is based on the GDI+ library). The bottom row of the table displays text in the Text Quality=Wysiwyg (our method to output text is based on the GDI library). This method uses a different font replacement algorithm so that the appearance may differ, and some characters are not found, and therefore are replaced with rectangles.This is why to get a correct display of a text, you should think about fonts to be used before the report is designed. Also, when creating and displaying reports, you should ensure the accessibility of all necessary fonts.
You can use Custom fonts if the installed fonts in the system are not enough for your report design. These can be commercial fonts, created manually in editors, freely distributed, or downloaded from the Internet.
To make fonts available in our products, you should install them directly into the operating system. This option is suitable for desktop versions of Stimulsoft reporting tools. Fonts can also be installed with an application or manually by users.
The font selection tool in the Web version of our product is shown in the screenshot. All custom fonts are allocated in a separate category, "Custom Fonts".Most of our products accept the use of fonts TrueType and OpenType as custom fonts (files with “ttf” and “otf” extensions accordingly). Pay your attention to OpenType fonts on Windows 7, and earlier OS versions may not work in our product.
Also, it's worth mentioning exports in PDF and XPS formats. It's important to note that only when exporting a report to these formats fonts can be embedded in the document file. In this case, when watching this document on any OS, it will look the same.
Therefore, several conditions must be fulfilled for a correct formation:
We can see the example of the text display in an exported PDF file in this screenshot. When exporting to PDF, the system «font fallback» is used. So it's important to choose the correct fonts.
We hope that this article will help you to understand fonts in the Stimulsoft report designer. And now, you will be able to create an exclusive design for your reports and dashboards easily. If you have any questions, please contact us – we are happy to help you!
A certain set of fonts is installed in the operating system by default. However, after the operating system update and depending on its version, the list of available fonts may differ. Most often, a set of fonts is installed in the system by default, and each system version has its own list. You may install fonts with some apps or manually. They can be of various types - raster (bitmap) or vector (TrueType, OpenType, and PostScript).
Our products are intended for various technologies and, accordingly, they use different methods of information display. That is why fonts may be displayed differently. Besides, technologies may work differently on various versions of the operating system. For example, when working on Windows 8/10, Reports.Net, Reports.Wpf products, based on .NET Framework, support TrueType and OpenType fonts. Earlier versions of Windows support TrueType fonts only.The list of fonts in the report designer displays only the fonts installed on the system and are supported by the product and technology.All of the above applies to Reports.Net, Reports.Wpf, Dashboards.WIN. In the case of using Web products (client-server technologies) fonts list is taken from the operating system of the server-side of the product. Fonts list is pre-installed by our developers for the products where the JS engine is used.
Now let's talk in more detail about fonts themselves.
What is a font? A font is the set of symbols of a particular mark. Usually, each font represents a separate file. The files of fonts can be of different versions, and they can contain different amounts of symbols. As a rule, system fonts have only a few thousands of the most commonly used characters. There is a range of «universal fonts» containing a large amount of Unicode symbols, such as Arial Unicode and Lucida Sans Unicode. These fonts are usually very large and are not part of the system.If a font does not contain necessary symbols, the system uses the «font fallback» algorithm, which inserts characters from similar fonts or fonts of a similar style. As a result, the appearance of the text may differ from the one intended. For example, a part of the text in another language can be displayed in a different font, and it will be very noticeable.
In some cases, missing symbols either don't display or are replaced with rectangles.
In the picture above, you can see an example of displaying the same text with different fonts in Stimulsoft Reports.Net. The top row of the table displays text with the Text Quality=Standard (the standard way of showing text in .NET Framework is based on the GDI+ library). The bottom row of the table displays text in the Text Quality=Wysiwyg (our method to output text is based on the GDI library). This method uses a different font replacement algorithm so that the appearance may differ, and some characters are not found, and therefore are replaced with rectangles.This is why to get a correct display of a text, you should think about fonts to be used before the report is designed. Also, when creating and displaying reports, you should ensure the accessibility of all necessary fonts.You can use Custom fonts if the installed fonts in the system are not enough for your report design. These can be commercial fonts, created manually in editors, freely distributed, or downloaded from the Internet.
To make fonts available in our products, you should install them directly into the operating system. This option is suitable for desktop versions of Stimulsoft reporting tools. Fonts can also be installed with an application or manually by users.
Besides, there are two more ways for other versions.
The first way is font downloading from an app code with the help of the StiFontCollection class. This variant is intended for software developers and used at the stage of application creation. Most often, this is the way to add «Brand» fonts used in most reports. The second way is a font addition to the report resources. This way is suitable for report developers.Report file size and its processing time can change when adding a font file to the report resource.The font selection tool in the Web version of our product is shown in the screenshot. All custom fonts are allocated in a separate category, "Custom Fonts".Most of our products accept the use of fonts TrueType and OpenType as custom fonts (files with “ttf” and “otf” extensions accordingly). Pay your attention to OpenType fonts on Windows 7, and earlier OS versions may not work in our product.Also, it's worth mentioning exports in PDF and XPS formats. It's important to note that only when exporting a report to these formats fonts can be embedded in the document file. In this case, when watching this document on any OS, it will look the same.
Therefore, several conditions must be fulfilled for a correct formation:
- All the necessary fonts must be available. You can get a font file from the system only in Net products on Windows. In other cases, all the required fonts should be loaded by one of the above methods (StiFontCollection or report resources);
- Fonts must be TrueType or OpenType types;
- Fonts must contain all the necessary symbols. If a font file is embedded, the «font fallback algorithm is not used to display it, and all missing characters are replaced with rectangles.
We can see the example of the text display in an exported PDF file in this screenshot. When exporting to PDF, the system «font fallback» is used. So it's important to choose the correct fonts.We hope that this article will help you to understand fonts in the Stimulsoft report designer. And now, you will be able to create an exclusive design for your reports and dashboards easily. If you have any questions, please contact us – we are happy to help you!
We are pleased to announce the release of the new version Stimulsoft Reports and Stimulsoft Dashboards 2021.1, which is now available for download. This major release comes with the .NET Core compilation, the ability to get data from Google BigQuery and use PDO drivers for PHP, a new robust Table of Contents component, and many new features for Table, Pivot, List Box, and other components.
Compilation in .NET Core
In the new version, when using the .NET Core framework, we have added support for compilation for reports. Now you can use all the reporting tool features like compilation at runtime, functions, publishing reports as classes. Compilation for .NET Core 3.1 is only available on Windows systems, and .NET 5.0 is available on all supported systems.
The new component - Table of Contents
In the 2021.1 release, we added a new report component - Table of Contents. This component will help you create an interactive table of contents for your report without writing any code or scripts. Just add it to the template and mark the report component for which you want to generate content. When the report is rendered, a table of contents with navigating the report will be generated.
The new adapter - Google BigQuery
Starting with this release, directly from the report designer, you can connect to the online service - Google BigQuery. To do this, in the data source creation window, select the BigQuery type, fill in the data storage access fields or use an authorization file. Once you have the data, you can create reports and dashboards from it.
Cross-filtering of elements
Starting with release 2021.1, you can define whether to filter data from other elements to the current element. Each dashboard item now has the Cross-Filtering property. If this property is set to False, then filters from other elements will not affect the current element.
Horizontal filtering
The List Box filtering element is available in the report designer since the first release of dashboards. It is a vertical list of values on the dashboard panel by which you can filter dashboard data. Starting with release 2021.1, you can display the values of a List Box item as a horizontal list of values. Open the element editor and set the Orientation parameter to Horizontal.
The new functionality for Table
Starting with version 2021.1, we have expanded the capabilities of the Table element in the dashboard. For the Table element, you can specify the required number of fixed columns that will not change their width. For each column of the table, you can set its width or range of width and enable the ability to wrap words in the column. Besides, when viewing a dashboard with a Table element, you can change the columns' order by simply dragging the column to the required location.
The new functionality for Pivot
Now, when using the Pivot element on the dashboards, you can flexibly customize it. First, as for the Pivot element, you can specify the column width and enable wrapping the words. Second, you can disable displaying totals for columns or rows of the Pivot element, and, if necessary, you can change the header of the summary column or row.
Support for PDO data adapters for PHP
The new version comes with support for PDO drivers for all data adapters available in PHP. To use them, it is enough to specify the correct DSN prefix in the connection string, for example, "mysql:" or "sqlsrv:", and the data adapter will define the connection type.
Team management from the designer
Now you can manage your user team directly from the report designer. Open the File menu, select Account, and the Team tab. Here you can add, edit, and remove your team members. The Account item also includes other settings and commands for managing the current account, which you may find on separate tabs.
Compilation in .NET Core
In the new version, when using the .NET Core framework, we have added support for compilation for reports. Now you can use all the reporting tool features like compilation at runtime, functions, publishing reports as classes. Compilation for .NET Core 3.1 is only available on Windows systems, and .NET 5.0 is available on all supported systems.
The new component - Table of Contents
In the 2021.1 release, we added a new report component - Table of Contents. This component will help you create an interactive table of contents for your report without writing any code or scripts. Just add it to the template and mark the report component for which you want to generate content. When the report is rendered, a table of contents with navigating the report will be generated.
The new adapter - Google BigQuery
Starting with this release, directly from the report designer, you can connect to the online service - Google BigQuery. To do this, in the data source creation window, select the BigQuery type, fill in the data storage access fields or use an authorization file. Once you have the data, you can create reports and dashboards from it.
Cross-filtering of elements
Starting with release 2021.1, you can define whether to filter data from other elements to the current element. Each dashboard item now has the Cross-Filtering property. If this property is set to False, then filters from other elements will not affect the current element.
Horizontal filtering
The List Box filtering element is available in the report designer since the first release of dashboards. It is a vertical list of values on the dashboard panel by which you can filter dashboard data. Starting with release 2021.1, you can display the values of a List Box item as a horizontal list of values. Open the element editor and set the Orientation parameter to Horizontal.
The new functionality for Table
Starting with version 2021.1, we have expanded the capabilities of the Table element in the dashboard. For the Table element, you can specify the required number of fixed columns that will not change their width. For each column of the table, you can set its width or range of width and enable the ability to wrap words in the column. Besides, when viewing a dashboard with a Table element, you can change the columns' order by simply dragging the column to the required location.
The new functionality for Pivot
Now, when using the Pivot element on the dashboards, you can flexibly customize it. First, as for the Pivot element, you can specify the column width and enable wrapping the words. Second, you can disable displaying totals for columns or rows of the Pivot element, and, if necessary, you can change the header of the summary column or row.
Support for PDO data adapters for PHP
The new version comes with support for PDO drivers for all data adapters available in PHP. To use them, it is enough to specify the correct DSN prefix in the connection string, for example, "mysql:" or "sqlsrv:", and the data adapter will define the connection type.
Team management from the designer
Now you can manage your user team directly from the report designer. Open the File menu, select Account, and the Team tab. Here you can add, edit, and remove your team members. The Account item also includes other settings and commands for managing the current account, which you may find on separate tabs.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all readers of the Stimulsoft blog! Let this wonderful holiday fill your life with light, joy, warmth, and prosperity! Every year people from all over the world look forward to this great winter holiday. No wonder, so as Christmas is the time for gifts, joy, colorful fireworks, and a fun feast in the circle of nearest and dearest people.This holiday has its own atmosphere, which stands out from all other holidays. Streets and showcases decorated with multi-colored garlands, green Christmas trees, and friendly Santa Clauses turn our cities into a baby fairy tale from Disney cartoons, where you want to stay forever. On this day, we are in a hurry to please our nearest and dearest people with lovely gifts and surprises, lay the table with various delicacies, and celebrate this holiday to remember it for many years.
However, statistics show that Christmas is one of the most expensive holidays. Since buying gifts, a Christmas table, a Christmas tree, fireworks cost a decent amount. Let's turn to the data and see how much people spend on Christmas in different countries. So let's start with gifts, as they are one of the most important symbols of this holiday.
As you can notice from this list, American people shelled out the most for gifts.
Now let's go to the foodstuffs. There should be something yummy on the festive table, right?
As we can see the Spanish spend on foodstuffs more than on gifts.
You can get bored while sitting at the Christmas table, drinking various drinks and eating delicious dishes. You might want to go out, unwind, go ice skating, skiing, shoot firecrackers, etc. How much do residents of other countries spend on entertainment? Let's find it out right now.
As you can see, Great Britain and USA residents prefer amusements more than the others.
Finally, let's summarize and calculate the total number of expenses in each country for everyone's favorite holiday.
As you have already noticed, people's expenses for Christmas in other countries are quite different. In some countries people spend more on gifts, in some on food, somewhere people prefer spending on leisure. Sure, you don't need to spend a lot of money to celebrate Christmas to the fullest, to make this holiday unforgettable and filled with vivid emotions and unrestrained fun. It is much more important to spend it with the dearest people. Share your emotions with them, show warmth, love, and make each other laugh until wept. After all, a smile on the face of a loved person is the best gift.
We wish you all the best and see you soon in 2021!
Welcome to all users of Stimulsoft reports and dashboards in our blog! Every time with the appearance of some changes or novelties in the report and dashboards generator, we are in a hurry to tell you about all its features and all kinds of little things. But today we will tell you about the Page tab.
This tab allows you to set a report or dashboard page. With the help of it you can set size, the number of columns, color and watermark font. And now let`s consider the capabilities of this tab in more details and how it can be applied to reports and dashboards.
So, let`s start with the main parameters.
In this menu, you can find the standard sizes of margins. If you choose Normal Margin, the borders of your report and the working area will have basic size:
If you choose Narrow Margin, the borders of your report will narrow, and the working area will expand:
When choosing Wide Margin, the borders expand and the working area decreases:
To add a text watermark, you should enter the text you want, for example, «Stimulsoft»:
Click OK, after that your text will appear on the page:
Also, you can use an image as a watermark. To do this, you should go to the Watermark image and click on the Browse button:
or just drag and drop the image file you need:
Apart from this, the Watermark has a range of other parameters. To go to them, you should click on the More options button. In this parameter, you can set a color, angle, font of the text, and image parameters:
Consider the «Stretch Content» option, when choosing size.
We hope this article will help you to understand the use of the Page tab when designing reports and dashboards in the Stimulsoft designer. If you have any questions, please contact us – we will be happy to help you!
This tab allows you to set a report or dashboard page. With the help of it you can set size, the number of columns, color and watermark font. And now let`s consider the capabilities of this tab in more details and how it can be applied to reports and dashboards.
So, let`s start with the main parameters.
- Margins
- Orientation
- Size
- Columns
- Watermark
Reports
When designing reports, a report page has some borders and a working area. If you want to increase or decrease your page working area, you can narrow or expand the borders of the page. You can do it with the help of commands from the Margins menu.In this menu, you can find the standard sizes of margins. If you choose Normal Margin, the borders of your report and the working area will have basic size:
If you choose Narrow Margin, the borders of your report will narrow, and the working area will expand:
When choosing Wide Margin, the borders expand and the working area decreases:
Orientation
If you want to change the page orientation to landscape or portrait, when designing reports, the commands from the Orientation menu will help you to do it:Size
You can resize the page. The list of available sizes is available in the menu, it depends on printer driver, installed on the system:Watermark
You can call the watermark editor on the Page tab. Here you can set a watermark for your report or dashboard.To add a text watermark, you should enter the text you want, for example, «Stimulsoft»:
Click OK, after that your text will appear on the page:
Also, you can use an image as a watermark. To do this, you should go to the Watermark image and click on the Browse button:
or just drag and drop the image file you need:
Apart from this, the Watermark has a range of other parameters. To go to them, you should click on the More options button. In this parameter, you can set a color, angle, font of the text, and image parameters:
Useful parameters
There are other parameters on the Page tab too:Show Grid
With the help of this parameter, you can enable grid lines. The grid lines facilitate a report designing and editing process when it comes to more accurate component placement.Align to Grid
If you activate this parameter, you will be able to align components with different fonts to one line.Grid Mode
This parameter allows you to define grid style - points or lines.Show Headers
If you want to show band headers in your report, this parameter is at your service.Show Order
You can use this parameter to show the order of components placement in a page hierarchy.Show Rulers
This parameter displays rulers, which you can use to measure and arrange components on the page.Quick info
This parameter allows displaying a signature with name, alias, content, and event on the component.Panels
There are some commands for enabling and disabling the report designer panels in this menu:- Properties
- Dictionary
- Report tree
Toolbox
This command is used to enable and disable Toolbox in the report designer. With its help, you can quickly get access to the components of a report or dashboard.Dashboards
So, let's go to the designing of dashboards and the using of the Page tab. In dashboards, of the main 5 parameters, only Orientation and Size work.Orientation
You can choose Orientation for your dashboard. Portrait and Landscape orientations are available as when designing reports.Size
The dashboard is a nearly dimensionless grid, essentially. When watching, the whole dashboard is stretched to the viewer area. However, the editing area is presented as a grid page for more comfortable dashboard designing.Consider the «Stretch Content» option, when choosing size.
Display mode
Besides, there are parameters on the Page tab, which give an opportunity to look through dashboards. The Desktop parameter is used to view on PC and the Mobile to mobile devices.Remove Mobile Surface
If you want to delete the dashboard mobile version, the Remove Mobile Surface will help you with it.Components
This parameter calls the menu with components list for dashboard mobile version.We hope this article will help you to understand the use of the Page tab when designing reports and dashboards in the Stimulsoft designer. If you have any questions, please contact us – we will be happy to help you!
We are glad to welcome users of Stimulsoft reports and dashboards in our blog! Today we want to tell you how to carry out the viewer toolbar with the help of the Preview settings option. Well, let's get started.
You probably know that when designing reports or dashboards, the results are shown on the Preview tab. Exactly on the Preview tab, you can see the whole picture and make some changes in case of some defects. A report can be viewed in a separate window of the viewer or by pressing the keys Shift+F5. The preview tab (viewer window) consists of a toolbar, status bar, and report area. And today, we will tell you how to customize the toolbar for a specific report or dashboard.
Firstly let's customize the viewer toolbar for a report. Next, open a report and go to the Preview tab. Perhaps, you won't need some buttons during operation, and for convenience, you will want to disable them. How to do it? For example, you don't need Open and Print buttons:
To hide them, you should use the Preview settings option.
Firstly get back to report edit mode, highlight the report template area, and go to the Properties panel. In the Preview settings property, click on the Browse button:
The viewer toolbar setting is carried out on Report and Dashboard tabs.
Go to the settings menu for a report:
Check the boxes for the buttons you want to display and uncheck the boxes for those you need to hide, then click OK in the settings menu. Go to the Preview tab and notice that the Open and Print buttons disappeared already:
You should know that the settings are stored in the report template. That is, if you turn off some buttons, save and close your report, then open this file on any other computer, the buttons will be disabled.
Now let's carry out the viewer toolbar setting for dashboards.
Let's open some dashboard:
and go to the Preview settings menu. On the Dashboard tab, uncheck the checkboxes for the settings you wish to hide. For example let's uncheck the boxes for Open and Edit:
Go to the Preview tab and check out:
As you can see, the Open and Edit buttons are hidden. In the same way, you can disable unnecessary settings on the Preview tab when designing reports or dashboards in the designer.
We hope this article will help you create professional reports and dashboards in Stimulsoft designer! If you have any questions, contact us – we will help you to solve any problem!
You probably know that when designing reports or dashboards, the results are shown on the Preview tab. Exactly on the Preview tab, you can see the whole picture and make some changes in case of some defects. A report can be viewed in a separate window of the viewer or by pressing the keys Shift+F5. The preview tab (viewer window) consists of a toolbar, status bar, and report area. And today, we will tell you how to customize the toolbar for a specific report or dashboard.
Firstly let's customize the viewer toolbar for a report. Next, open a report and go to the Preview tab. Perhaps, you won't need some buttons during operation, and for convenience, you will want to disable them. How to do it? For example, you don't need Open and Print buttons:
To hide them, you should use the Preview settings option.
Firstly get back to report edit mode, highlight the report template area, and go to the Properties panel. In the Preview settings property, click on the Browse button:
The viewer toolbar setting is carried out on Report and Dashboard tabs.
Go to the settings menu for a report:
Check the boxes for the buttons you want to display and uncheck the boxes for those you need to hide, then click OK in the settings menu. Go to the Preview tab and notice that the Open and Print buttons disappeared already:
You should know that the settings are stored in the report template. That is, if you turn off some buttons, save and close your report, then open this file on any other computer, the buttons will be disabled.
Now let's carry out the viewer toolbar setting for dashboards.
Let's open some dashboard:
and go to the Preview settings menu. On the Dashboard tab, uncheck the checkboxes for the settings you wish to hide. For example let's uncheck the boxes for Open and Edit:
Go to the Preview tab and check out:
As you can see, the Open and Edit buttons are hidden. In the same way, you can disable unnecessary settings on the Preview tab when designing reports or dashboards in the designer.
We hope this article will help you create professional reports and dashboards in Stimulsoft designer! If you have any questions, contact us – we will help you to solve any problem!