How to set encoding type for birt reports

Question

I have a database with values in Hebrew. When I generate the BIRT report, the characters are coming out in different symbols. I believe the problem is the encoding type is incorrect and I would like to set it to 'UTF-8'.

I looked in the fontsConfig.xml but I don't quite understand it. Does anyone know if we can send in a parameter to BIRT to change the encoding type if the client is using the Hebrew database?

Thanks

Answer 1

Have you ensured that the ViewerFilter is setup correctly in your web.xml? It ensures that all requests have their encoding set to UTF-8, eg:

....
<filter>
    <filter-name>ViewerFilter</filter-name>
    <filter-class>org.eclipse.birt.report.filter.ViewerFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
....
<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>ViewerFilter</filter-name>
    <servlet-name>ViewerServlet</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>
<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>ViewerFilter</filter-name>
    <servlet-name>EngineServlet</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>
..

Answer 2

I mananged to solve this by doing the following.

I was using BIRT 2.0.0 and for some reason it doesn't output the hebrew characters correctly on pdf. I upgraded to the latest version (3.7) and did a test through the WebViewerExample and I was able to generate a pdf with hebrew characters.

Long story short, I managed to upgrade the version and I was able to generate it correctly. I didn't do much with the fontsConfig.xml or setup the ViewerFilter but this help solve my issue.