Andrew Karcher's Bits o' Data

Utilizing Custom Fonts with SQL Reporting Services (SSRS) and Exporting to PDF

akarcher — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:41:08 GMT

I recently had a unique challenge with SSRS which was the utilization of a Custom Font on an SSRS Report. Normally, I do not think about fonts other than what get installed as system fonts in Windows so this was a fairly new experience. I know a few people who REALLY enjoy fonts in the Design Practice at Clarity, but had never considered the impact and usefulness they can play in SSRS. It was somewhat difficult to find information about this so I figured I would summarize to save some other people some trouble.

The report that I had to develop was going to be a customer facing report so there were some fairly exact standards that it needed to comply with both from an aesthetic and regulatory perspective, much more so than most SSRS reports which are generally for internal consumption only. As an idea of some of the requirements take a look at a statement from your cell phone provider, local utility or television provider, and that is similar to what I had to build. If you have never looked very closely at something like that you probably have missed the sheer amount of different fonts, font sizes, font weights, font decorations, and so on that is used in building that statement. Some of the formatting is done based on aesthetics and some is also based on regulations, such as minimum font sizes for those disclaimers that you can barely read on the statement.

So before I get into the nuts and bolts of this, I need to give a shout out to Andre Milbradt from the SSRS team who was very helpful in clearing up some of the confusion out there for me on font embedding and the PDF Renderer.

Before we get into SSRS, let’s go into a bit about the different types of fonts out there (Reminder: I am not a Font guy). There are two major types of Fonts out there: True Type (wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Type_Font ) and Open Type (wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenType). Of these two, SSRS fully supports True Type Fonts and has limited support for Open Type Fonts. Essentially, any Font that can be instantiated by the .Net System.Drawing.Font (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.drawing.font.aspx) class is supported by SSRS. Because the custom font that we needed was available as both a True Type Font and an Open Type Font, we went with the True Type font since we knew that it would be fully supported.

So we went ahead and installed the fonts on the developer machine and the SSRS server. On the development machine, you do have to restart Visual Studio after you install the fonts for Visual Studio to pick up on the font. On the server, we were having issues with SSRS picking up the newly installed Font until we restarted the Reporting Services Server. We probably could have just restarted SSRS, but we ended up just restarting the server. If you have never installed a font before (I hadn’t before this project) you can get to the installed fonts by going to Control Panel -> Fonts. For Windows XP and above you can just copy and paste the font files into this directory. For Vista and above, one of the right-click options on the .ttf font file is “Install”.

I first started developing the report in SSRS 2005, using my custom font and it all looks good. Then I try to export to PDF for the first time and “Uh-Oh”. That doesn’t quite work. And after a bit of research and some verification from the PG team, SSRS 2005 does have limited support PDF Font Embedding, but it is limited to Unicode Data. You can check out the Books Online here (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159713(SQL.90).aspx) about the behavior in SSRS 2005. You can also check out this post from Robert Bruckner (http://blogs.msdn.com/robertbruckner/archive/2008/10/27/unicode-in-pdf-font-embedding.aspx ) on the feature in SSRS 2008 CU1, which is the same feature that was also added SSRS 2005 in SP3. So since I was using ANSI text data, it was on to SSRS 2008.

So I started looking at Books Online for SSRS 2008 and noticed the same restrictions on Font Embedding in PDF as there are in SSRS 2005. If you take a look at the same topic for SSRS 2008 (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159713(SQL.100).aspx) in the Font Embedding section it still lists the following as a restriction, “The characters in the string that has the Font property set are Unicode, not ANSI. No font embedding occurs for ANSI characters.” After confirmation from the product group, this is incorrect and a User Education bug was submitted to have this documentation fixed. So with that out of the way and we had confirmation that SSRS 2008 will embed fonts within a generated PDF, we developed our report.

At this point I want to remind you to restart the server after installing your font, because I forgot my own rule to restart the server after installing fonts and was pulling my hair out at one point.

So after you have developed and deployed your report, you export to PDF and want to verify that your Font got embedded. There are a number of ways to do this. First, check the properties of the PDF. In Acrobat Reader, go to File->Properties and then click on the Font tab. There should be a listing of Fonts there which should include your custom font. Second, send the PDF to someone who does not have the Font installed. They should see the new custom font as well in their PDF. Lastly, if your custom font is not obvious, having a nice trained designer eye is the best tool you can have to verify the font for you.

So hopefully this post clears up some confusion on custom fonts and Font Embedding with the PDF Font Renderer.

Someone call a Weatherman, the Clouds have shifted

akarcher — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:39:36 GMT

In a move that I think is great from feature perspective, the SQL Server Data Services team has made important changes to the SQL Data Services feature. Essentially, the team is moving away from the name\value pair implementation that was released with CTP 1 and is moving to a full relational database model. You can read the announcement on the SDS blog HERE.

I am VERY excited at this announcement and I think this opens up SQL Data Services to being utilized for a whole host of applications without changing your applications. That being said there is going to be a limited set of functionality that you will be able to do in the cloud, but your core SQL Server functionality is going to be there. It will be very interesting to see how this evolves as more information comes out at MIX.

Enjoy!

Roundup (2/15) – Things you might find interesting…

akarcher — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:17:49 GMT

So I see all these great posts during the week and I think, “I wonder if everyone else is seeing this post, this is good stuff”. Usually, I read it, file it away and think, “Yeah, I blog about it tomorrow”. So here are some posts from the last week or so that I thought were really good that I think you, my readers wherever you are, might find interesting.

Public Speaking – A Primer by Paul Randall
I have heard so many great things about Paul’s talks. Unfortunately,I could not get into any of sessions at last year’s PASS as evidently you have to camp out in the session before to get a seat. This is a great post about public speaking with a lot of good tips in there. One of the best is on eliminating the use of the word “um”. I spent a whole semester in college trying to eliminate that. One item not in the post that I would suggest is to enlist the services of a friend and have them videotape one of your sessions. This can be a somewhat brutal experience sometimes, but trust me it works. My first speech in college, I would have swore I only said “um” a couple times, but the video doesn’t lie. It was something like 40,50 times in a five minute speech or something like that. But, I would have never been able to fix that without seeing it for myself.

'How Do I...BI?' Screencasts by Lynn Langit
Lynn is a great resource when it comes to BI. Her book is really good and she is great and being able to explain things in a way that people can understand. Which is really hard when it comes to things like MDX and Data Mining Algorithms. So go out and buy her book and watch her Screencasts.

SQLCAT Team Whitepapers
The SQLCAT (Customer Advisory Team) team at Microsoft is a great resource for all things SQL Server. They were doing a number of sessions at the SQL PASS Summit last year and these were by far some of my favorite sessions. I learned so much about how SQL Server works and tips and tricks for getting excellent performance out of SQL Server. Well, they must have been cleaning the vault, because they release a trio of excellent resources recently.

Analysis Services 2008 Performance Guide - This white paper describes how application developers can apply query and processing performance-tuning techniques to their SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services OLAP solutions
A Solution for Collecting Analysis Services Performance Data for Performance Analysis - This codeplex solution automates the collection of SQL Server 2008 performance data from any or all of the following data sources and stores the collected data into a single SQL Server 2008 relational database (SQL Server Profiler Analysis Services trace data, Performance Monitor counters, Analysis Services Dynamic Memory Views (DMVs))
The Data Loading Performance Guide 2008 - This document described techniques for bulk loading large data sets into SQL Server. It covers both the available techniques as well as methodologies to performance tune and optimize the bulk loading process.

Visual Studio Team System for Database Professionals Workshop (Irvine 3/4 & San Diego 3/5) - Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition provides advanced tools for database change management and testing and offers functionality to enable database developers and administrators to be more productive and increase application quality in the database tier. Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition delivers a market shifting database development product that provides a foundation for managed database evolution through the use of an offline, Visual Studio project-centered source code control system together with a suite of tools designed to help understand the impact of proposed changes.

MS Press Book – Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions for FREE! - This guide will teach you about the benefits of the latest virtualization technologies and how to plan, implement, and manage virtual infrastructure solutions. The technologies covered include: Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2009, Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, and Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. The book also provides insight into the Core Infrastructure Optimization model, and how implementing virtualization technologies can help move a company further along toward the goal of building an efficient, reliable Dynamic IT infrastructure. Simply register at http://csna01.libredigital.com/?urmvs17u33

That’s it for this one. Happy Reading and Enjoy!

Upcoming SoCal Tech Events

akarcher — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:22:59 GMT

In a follow up to Lynn Langit’s post here, I figured I would I add the details on the SQL Server Users Group and also add a few other events. I was sad that the Vista for ITPros event was sold out, but I am looking forward to hitting up a couple of the events.

SQL Server Users Group with Lynn Langit
For those interested in the SQL Server Users Group you can check out our website here (http://www.sdsqlug.org/home/index.cfm) and get the details of Lynn’s session here. If you want to sign up for their mailing list it is via a Yahoo group here. The group is really growing and is a great resource for all you Database people. I hope to see some of you there.

TechNet Events: Software-plus-Services, System Center Configuration Manager and Virtual Machine Manager
Thursday, February 26, 2009 8:00 AM - Thursday, February 26, 2009 12:00 PM – Anaheim (Click link to Register)
Tuesday, February 24, 2009 8:00 AM - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 12:00 PM – San Diego (Click link to Register)
These are going to led by Chris Avis.

MSDN Events: Azure, Debugging and Mobility
Thursday, February 26, 2009 1:00 PM - Thursday, February 26, 2009 5:00 PM – Anaheim (Click link to Register)

Architect Council | The Importance of the Client
Over the last couple of years, there has been a lot of innovation around of technologies that make it easier for the end user of an application to interact with systems. This innovation has been a boon for the end user because it has provided them a more natural interface with systems that span the web, computer, and phone. However, this has caused the complexity of systems architecture and development to increase. The focus of this session will be on how to prepare and manage this complexity within your organization.

Facilitated by Microsoft, the premise of this event is to provide an open forum where architects can meet to discuss technologies with their peers. This forum will provide first-hand experience and best practices that will enable its members to learn from each other and transfer knowledge. Please join us for this great opportunity to learn, share and network with your peers and other company leaders.

Facilitated in SoCal by Woody Pewitt and Joe Shirey. For more details and links to register see the posts by Joe Shirey and David Chou. I am looking forward to attending the San Diego version on 3/31.

Look forward to seeing some of you at the events and enjoy!

Performance Point 2007 Roadmap Changes

akarcher — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 03:05:56 GMT

If you have worked with Performance Point Server before this change in strategy is not all that surprising. The product is ( at least the Monitoring and Analytics) is very focused on delivering items via SharePoint. In moving Performance Point Monitoring and Analytics into the SharePoint stack, this functionality is now available to all SharePoint Enterprise customers. And for free assuming you are licensed for SharePoint Enterprise.

Going forward the functionality will be further integrated into the Office stack increasing the inroads of these BI technologies into a large number of users within the enterprise. Here is another post from Russell Christopher on some of the benefits of this announcement.

In my opinion this is a great strategic move by Microsoft to promote these BI technologies in the Enterprise.

Microsoft All-Up BI VPC is available

akarcher — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:47:44 GMT

Have you ever thought, "Gee, I would really like to play with some of the cool BI technologies, but I really would rather not go out and install everything". "Plus, I would really not have to try and come up with a bunch of sample data so that I can play with some of the new functionality?"

If you have ever found yourself saying those things then the Microsoft All-Up BI VPC is what you are looking for. You can access the links to download all the parts of the VPC here: (http://performancepointblog.com/2008/12/all-up-bi-vpc-71-available-for-public-download/), I have setup up the VPC and played around a little bit and things seem to be working really well. I will definitely be looking at potentially using this for demos and presentations.

Enjoy!

SoCal Rock 'n' Roll Code Camp is next weekend!

akarcher — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:34:54 GMT

Just a reminder to all my SoCal readers out there that the SoCal Code Camp (http://www.socalcodecamp.com) is just around the corner. Next weekend hundreds of your fellow geek enthusiasts will be joining you at one of the best Code Camps out there. There are going to be over 90 sessions over two days to allow you to "geek out" until your heart is content. And not only that, we have an awesome Geek Dinner on Saturday night with live Music.

Remember, that this is all FREE, paid for by the generosity of our sponsors. Be sure to check them out and say thanks for being a supporter of the local Tech Community.

I look forward to seeing you all there.

SoCal Rock 'n' Roll Code Camp - Call For Speakers

akarcher — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:00:48 GMT

Have you attended one of the previous 9 Code Camps and said to yourself that you would like to try and give speaking a try? Are you interested in giving back to the SoCal Technical Community? Now is your prefect opportunity! The Code Camp Website for the 4th Code Camp at Fullerton on January 24th & 25th is up and we are looking for speakers and that means you.

Who is speaking at Code Camp? YOU are, YOUR PEERS are, and YOUR LOCAL EXPERTS are…all are welcome! This is a community event and one of the main purposes of the event is to have local community members step up and offer some cool presentations! Don’t worry if you have never given a presentation before, we’ll give you some tips if you need help, and this a great opportunity to spread your wings.

Anyone from an experienced speaker to first time speaker are welcome and encouraged to come out to speak. Code Camps rely completely on YOU the community to come out and help support the Code Camp. Go out to the Code Camp Website http://www.socalcodecamp.com and submit your sessions.

I am really looking forward to seeing everyone at the Code Camp and being a speaker alongside all of you. Feel free to ping me via the contact form if you are interested in speaking and have any questions.

Cheers!

Free Windows FireStarter Event - Friday, Dec 12th!

akarcher — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:37:31 GMT

Are you curious about all the latest and greatest information about developing on Windows? If so, Mithun Dhar is hosting another FireStarter Event up in Redmond on Friday, December 12th. And the best part about this event is that everything is going to be streamed for FREE through Live Meeting. So you do not have to leave the 75 degree weather (at least for me in San Diego) to head up to Redmond for the event.

He has lined up a great speaker list along with some great sessions. Even a little Windows 7/ Server 2008 R2 teaser session. For all the details check out Mithun's post:

http://blogs.msdn.com/mithund/archive/2008/11/18/windows-firestarter-dec-12th-friday.aspx

Hope to see you there, virtually anyway.

Free SQL Server 2008 E-Book

akarcher — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:46:44 GMT

SQL Server gurus Peter DeBetta, Greg Low and Mark Whitehorn just released a new E-Book on SQL Server 2008 through MSPress and it is now available online. And the best part about it is that it is FREE. You can download the E-Book by going here: http://csna01.libredigital.com/?urss1q2we6.

Fall Tech Day by the San Diego .Net User Group

akarcher — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:57:55 GMT

Are you a developer in the SoCal region that is interested in learning about some of the new technologies, the San Diego .Net User Group is hosting a Fall Tech Day featuring Jeffrey Palermo and Daniel Egan. Jeffrey Palermo will giving a 1/2 day session on the ASP.Net MVC Framework to start the day. Jeffrey is a Microsoft MVP, INETA speaker and certified Agile Development expert. He is also the author of the upcoming ASP.Net MVC in Action book.

In the afternoon, Daniel Egan, . INETA speaker, MVP and Microsoft Regional Director, will be giving everyone an overview of LINQ. This is one technology that as a developer you will need to be up to speed on as all future data access technologies are integrating LINQ. The second speaker in the afternoon will be myself giving an overview of the new developer features in SQL Server 2008.

This is going to be an content filled day for any developer. If you are interested in attending you can access the registration site here: https://www.123signup.com/event?id=tryjn

Look forward to seeing some of you there.

Setting up Reporting Services on Windows Vista

akarcher — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:17:57 GMT

In the past I have tried setting up Reporting Services on Windows Vista with no success and always reverted to Windows XP. Well I finally had to get this working and, of course, found some help on the web. So I had to install both 2005 and 2008 so I got to have fun with both.

After installing SQL 2005, everything seemed to be fine. However, opening up Report Manager left me with a page with only the Header and no ability to add folders or manage anything. Luckily I found this article on TechNet that helps you get around this very problem. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159704.aspx#VistaAdmin. Once I got that setup Reporting Services 2005 is all happy and I can open IE without having to Run As Administrator

So on to SQL 2008. Since I was running side-by-side, I setup SQL 2008 to run as Named Instance "SQL2008". So I install with the default configuration and after the install I fire up the Reporting Services Configuration Manager. And I get this very helpful error "No Report Server Found - Invalid Namespace". Hmm. Well let's see what we can find about this one. Luckily I found this blog entry by Justin King. Once I went through all the steps the Configuration Manager correctly saw my Report Server so I was pass that roadblock. The last step was to apply the TechNet instructions above as well for SQL 2008

So I am now the proud new owner of Reporting Services Instances on Vista for SQL 2005 and SQL 2008. Hope this helps someone else struggling through the same problem.

New SQL Server User Group in Orange County - First Meeting on 8/14/2008

akarcher — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 06:08:48 GMT

For all my Orange County readers you might be excited to know that you now have another great option for getting your SQL content. Reza Madani is starting a new Orange County SQL Server Users Group and their first meeting is this Thursday, August 14th. Plus, they are bringing in a heavy hitter for their first meeting in the form of Lynn Langit giving a presentation on Business Intelligence in SQL Server 2008. Here are all the details for the meeting:

SQL Server User Group SIG:

Date/Time:

August 14th, 6:00PM

Presenter:

Lynn Langit, Author, Business Intelligence Expert, Microsoft Certified and Evangelist

Topic:

Business Intelligence with SQL Server 2008

Location:

Microsoft Offices, 3 Irvine Plz, Irvine, CA 92614

Meeting Agenda:

    * 6:00p Mixer/Networking/Pizza
    * 6:30p Presentation Starts
    * 7:15p Break
    * 7:30p Presentation Resumes
    * 8:45p Raffle

Session Abstract:
In this demo-filled session, Lynn will explain architectural considerations around implementation of OLAP cubes and Data Mining models using the SQL Server 2008 product stack. Here she will demonstrate SSAS, SSIS and SSRS. Her talk will include research for her new book, along with lessons learned from the real world (from her previous practice as BI architect).

Presenter Bio:
Lynn Langit is a developer evangelist for Microsoft. In addition to presenting information about new .NET developer technologies, such as WCF, LINQ and Silverlight, Lynn speaks about SQL Server Data Warehousing and Data Mining. She also speaks about SharePoint. She has been a Microsoft Certified Trainer for 9 years and holds these certifications: MCP, MCT, MCSD, MCSE, MCDBA, MCITP (SQL Admin/Dev/BI) and MSF. In April 2007 Lynn published “Foundations of SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence (APress)” and plans to publish “Smart Business Intelligence Solutions with SQL Server 2008” in November 2008.

San Diego Code Camp Resources

akarcher — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:58:12 GMT

Wow! San Diego Code Camp was awesome! Over 300 people over two days, 90 Sessions, Free Geek Dinner, Awesome Music, what a weekend. Big plug to my co-organizers Woody Pewitt, Daniel Egan and Mark Rosenberg.

I wanted to get my slides and sample code for all my talks. Luckily, my voice lasted through all three sessions. It died shortly there after and was pretty rough all weekend.

You can find all my sample code and slides below.

Into to the ADO.Net Entity Framework

We had a good crowd for this one. People were dragging in chairs from other rooms to make up for the lack of seats. It is obvious that everyone is interested about the topic and we had a lot of good discussion. I hope everyone came out of the session with a beginning understanding of the Entity Framework and encouraged to learn more.

Slides: http://shrinkster.com/zz0

SQL 2008 New Data Types

Another capacity crowd.

Slides and Sample Code: http://shrinkster.com/zyz

SQL 2008 Policy Based Management

A little bit smaller crowd, but was definitely the most interactive session of the day. Lots of good discussion about implementing PBM and lots of interest among the attendees. It seems like a feature that has kind of flown underneath the radar, but I think will be really useful of SQL Server Environments.

Slides: http://shrinkster.com/zyy

All in all, a great weekend and I am looking forward to up coming Code Camps in L.A. and San Luis Obispo.

SharePoint Developer Resources

akarcher — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 05:43:25 GMT

If you are interested in SharePoint Development there are a couple interesting items care of Lynn Langit's blog. We recently had a SQL Server FireStarter event here in SoCal a few weeks ago. Keeping the Fire going Mithun Dhar is hosting a SharePoint FireStarter event on Wednesday, June 11th up in Redmond. Can't attend the event in person? You are in luck all the events will be broadcast via Live Meeting.

In addition, there is a new website dedicated to building applications on SharePoint.

Enjoy!