Custom fonts installed in ADS not working

[Former Member]

Hi All,

       As per the business requirement, I need to print to custom fonts in my adobe form.

So here are the steps that we followed.

   Step1: Installed the custom fonts[ .ttf  ] in my computer [ Settings > Control panel > Fonts ]. So these fonts showed up in the Adobe livecycle designer.

   Step 2: Installed the custom fonts [ .ttf ] files in ADS - Adobe document server.

   Step3: I ran the custom print program to print the adobe form with custom fonts. The form worked well in my system [ May be because my systems has all the required fonts ] , but if we invoke the print program in any other system [That doesn't have those custom fonts installed in their computer] the custom fonts doesn't appear, instead it is replaced by the default font "Arial" . 

I am not sure, what we are missing. Appreciate any ideas.

Cheers,

PN

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Here are the exact steps followed. Thanks all for helping us with your pointers.

The actual trick was the step 5 in EMBED THE NEW FONTS IN PDF DOCUMENTS.

LOAD THE FONTS IN THE ADOBE SERVER

Adobe document services require access to fonts that are installed with the Font Manager Module. This module contains a number of Adobe bundled fonts installed in /usr/sap/<SID>/J<xx>/j2ee/os_libs/adssap/FontManagerService/fonts/adobe.

1. Create a subdirectory called fonts below the /usr/sap/<SID>/SYS/global/AdobeDocumentServices/FontManagerServicedirectory
2. Create a subdirectory called customer below the fonts directory created in the previous step
3. Copy your font file(s) into the customer directory
   1. AAAA.ttf
   2. BBBB.TTF
4. Restart the "Document Services Font Manager" for the changes to take effect.
   1. Use Visual Admin on the Adobe Document server
   2. Expand "Server ? Services "
5. Stop / start the service "XML Form Module"
6. Also restart the application com.adobe/AdobeDocumentServices
   1. Expand "Server ? Services ? Deploy"
   2. Select the "Applications" button at the bottom of the screen
7. Stop and start the   com.adobe/AdobeDocumentServices application
8. When you execute a transaction / report that will use the reports a new file is created in:        /usr/sap/<SID>/SYS/global/AdobeDocumentServices/FontManagerService/fonts/customer
9. The file is called AdobeFnt11.lst.<hostname>
   1. The file is used when generating PDF, Postscript, PCL and ZPL output to find the correct fonts for the document content.
   2. To regenerate the file - simply delete it and run your SAP transaction again

EMBED THE NEW FONTS IN PDF DOCUMENTS

2. Are the new fonts listed in the file
/usr/sap/<SID>/SYS/global/AdobeDocumentServices/FontManagerService/fonts/customer/ AdobeFnt11.lst.<hostname>
1. YES
4. Details for the following steps are in SAP Note 1565508
5. cd /usr/sap/<SID>/SYS/global/AdobeDocumentServices/lib
6. cp    xfa.xci    to    custom_xfa.xci
   1. Verify <SID>adm has 664 permissions on custom_xfa.xci
7. Edit the file custom_xfa.xci
   1. Look for context block: notice that it is the PDF context block. There are several others fontInfo context blocks in the file, but you want to embed the font in PDF files

<pdf> <!    [0..n]    >

<fontInfo>

  <embed>0</embed> <!   0 1   >

   <map>

1. Change the '0' to '1'.
2. SAVE
1. Finally, test this change run the tcode .

[Former Member]

Hallo,

you have to restart not only the ADS application in portal but also the services Font Manager and XML Form.

Also take note of the permissions on the directories where the new fonts are loaded.

Restart and permissions made all the difference in my environment.

It's all documented here:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/d0/cdf29623c8432fa1545df5f43176de/content.htm

Regards, Thomas.

[Former Member]

One more Check, did you restarted the ADS Service after Installing the Custom Font.

if not ask your Basis administrator to Restart the ADS Service.

Thanks.

Umas

[konchada_saikrishna]

Hi There,

Just to reconfirm did you foloww the ADS fonts installation steps as stated in the refence posts. ha ha ha one of them is my post and I am lazy enough to type the history again.

http://scn.sap.com/thread/1893912

http://scn.sap.com/thread/627224

Cheers,

Sai

[Former Member]

Hi Sai,

Thank you much for the reply.

I did check the related threads. Fonts installation in the ADS  was performed in the exact fashion.

But the following setting is not yet done, that was stated in the thread 627224:

>>>>And then to have the fonts embedded in the PDF output find the XFA.XCI file in your Adobe LifeCycle installation directory on the server. This is an XML file that contains the default settings for font mappings.">>>>

first of all, I did not find the file XFA.XCI. Also, the custom fonts works like a charm in my computer. I felt, I do not have a reason to do it becasue ALD is system dependent any ways.

The problem is just that the custom fonts are not printing, when I execute the print program from a different desktop that doesn't have the fonts installed.