Symptom
- While editing “Certificate Template Editor” if we try to Preview the template system would preview the certificate with the exact font utilized in the html editor. However if we try to “Preview PDF” the system will not display with default font style.
- When a user tries to generate the certificate of completion, the displayed font is not the exact font utilized in the html editor.
Image/data in this KBA is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental.
Environment
SAP SuccessFactors Learning
Reproducing the Issue
- In Learning Administration > Navigate to System Administration > Configuration > Certificate of Completion Templates >
- Try editing any existing Certificate Of Completion template by deploying any special fonts >
- Once the template is complete click “Preview” >
- Click "Preview PDF" and the view changes as below.
Cause
The font library used in Launch editor are different from the fonts used in "Preview PDF". The "Preview PDF" functionality uses the PD4ML library to render the PDF.
The PD4ML library that is used to render the .pdf file would not support all the font family. While the "Preview" functionality uses the browser to support the font family and "Preview PDF" uses the PD4ML library to render the PDF. Hence we have given 2 ways to compare the output.
Learning only supports the following fonts when generating certificates as Preview and The "Preview PDF" will only generate in "Arial Unicode MS" format.
Font used in certificate template |
Font ttf file type used to render certificate in PDF |
Font rendered and displayed in PDF Certificate |
Arial Unicode MS |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
MS Mincho |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
Times New Roman |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
Courier New |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
MS Gothic |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
SimSun |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
Mangal |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
David |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
Batang |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
Wingdings |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
Symbol |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
Gulim |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
GulimChe |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
Lucida Sans Regular |
ARIALUNI.TTF |
Arial Unicode MS |
Resolution
This is an expected behavior with the current system design, as we use PD4ML library to generate PDF file format.
As documented in our SAP Help Portal (PDF Certificate of Completion Notes):
- We recommend that you tune and refine the HTML content at the same time as the PDF content because the scaling factor of the PDF generator is different from web browsers.
- We generate the PDF with PD4ML:
- Refer to http://pd4ml.com/html.htm for the list of HTML tags supported by PD4ML
- Refer to http://pd4ml.com/css.htm for the list of CSS attributes supported by PD4ML
*"MS Mincho", "MS Gothic", "Lucida Sans Regular": Please note those three fonts do not support Chinese/Japanese Characters
See Also
SAP Help Portal: PDF Certificate of Completion Notes
SAP Community: Custom Certificate
Keywords
sap, sf, lms, template editor, font, certificate, template, editor, pdf, html, fonts, font-family type, wrong , KBA , LOD-SF-LMS-REP , Reporting Data , LOD-SF-LMS , Learning Management System , LOD-SF-LMS-ITE , Items , Problem