IBM FileNet P8, Version 5.2.1             

Content Platform Engine generates thumbnail images with incorrect fonts or garbled characters

If you convert vector graphics format documents on a UNIX system and the required fonts are not available, thumbnail images might render incorrectly.

Symptoms

The generated thumbnail of each first page renders with incorrect fonts or characters.

Causes

The Content Platform Engine Thumbnail Extensions add-on works with Oracle® Outside In Image Export to generate thumbnail images of the first page of each document.

Outside In Image Export requires an X server to generate thumbnail images for non-raster or vector graphics format document types such as Office documents, PDF files, or CAD drawings on UNIX servers such as AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Linux on System z, and Solaris. The X libraries Xm, Xt and X11 must be present on the UNIX server to successfully render the thumbnail images. The X server might be local or remote to the Content Platform Engine server. In addition, there might be more than one X server that is configured for a Content Platform Engine server. If the fonts that are configured on the X server do not match the font and language that is used in the document, Outside In Image Export might not find an exact font match, resulting in the garbled rendering.

Outside In Image Export does not require an X server to generate thumbnail images for raster or bitmapped format files such as GIF, JPEG, TIFF, and BMP on UNIX servers.

Outside In Image Export does not require an X server to generate thumbnail images on Microsoft Windows servers. The X server renders the first page of each document with Windows Graphics Device Interface.

When you convert vector graphics format documents on UNIX, Outside In Image Export uses the fonts that are available on the X server where the rendering takes place. This is an important consideration when you are converting non-English language documents. For example, consider converting a Japanese Word file. To create the raster representations of the first page of the Word file, Outside In Image Export uses the Japanese fonts that are configured for the X server. If an exact font match is not found, Outside In Image Export attempts to find an appropriate replacement font. In addition, if you are converting files that use Windows fonts, consider that UNIX systems do not have Windows fonts that are installed. As a result, Outside In Image Export must substitute fonts in the rendered image, which can result in font quality differences.

Environment

IBM® FileNet® Content Manager version 5.2.0 or 5.2.1.

Resolving the problem

Determine the available fonts on your X server system and install the fonts that are necessary to properly render the thumbnails.

On a UNIX system, set the DISPLAY environment variable to the same value that Content Platform Engine uses to run the ibmfnthb process. Content Platform Engine determines the DISPLAY environment variable that is based on the Thumbnail.OI.XWinDisplay property that is defined in the FileNet.properties file. This is located in the startup directory of the application server. If a value for the Thumbnail.OI.XWinDisplay property is not specified, Content Platform Engine uses the value of the DISPLAY environment variable that is defined in the application server Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

After you set the DISPLAY environment variable on the UNIX system, use the command xlsfonts to retrieve a listing of the available fonts.

Outside In Image Export cannot use fonts from an external font server for the X server. To determine whether an external font server is configured, run the command xset -q and observe the Font Path output. A font server has an entry similar to tcp/198.51.100.11:7100.

Fonts can be installed on the X server, such as X Virtual Frame buffer, that runs on the local UNIX server. In addition, fonts can be installed on a remote X server such as Exceed and Xmanager that runs on Windows. A local X server has better throughput than a remote X server, and according to Oracle Support, various X server implementations have advantages and disadvantages.

For more information on right-to-left languages, see the Oracle Support document Enabling Outside In Technology (OIT) for Bidirectional (Arabic and Hebrew) Text [ID 463445.1] (http://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=463445.1). According to this publication, if you process predominantly English text but also need to support Arabic and Hebrew text, you can use the Bidirectional Text reorder (SCCOPT_REORDERMETHOD) option.

This option specifies how bidirectional text is processed. The off option indicates that no attempt will be made to process bidirectional text. The lefttoright option searches for bidirectional characters, and if found, applies the unicode reordering algorithm with a base direction of left to right. The righttoleft option presumes bidirectional characters and applies the unicode reordering algorithm with a base direction of right to left for all text. The default value is off.

You can set this option in the ix.cfg file by replacing the default reordermethod off with the entry reordermethod lefttoright or reordermethod righttoleft. You can locate the ix.cfg file in the Outside In Search Export and Image Export folder under the application server, for example/usr/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/profile_name/FileNet/server_name/INSO/bin/outside_in_folder.



Last updated: October 2015
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