How can we use a third party font in RDLC on Azure app service?

Question

We have an application that uses a bar code font within an RDLC report, and we want to migrate this from a VM to Azure app services (formerly web apps). The issue here is that we obviously don't have the ability to install the font. I am pretty sure RDLC uses GDI+ to render the reports, so I was hoping I could find a method/property on the LocalReport that would give me the ability to set some sort of PrivateFontCollection, but I have hit a brick wall.

So I guess I have a couple questions that might help get this figured out, otherwise we will need to come up with another reporting solution:

1. Is there a generic way to temporarily install a font in .NET that can be used by the current application?
2. Is there a way to specify a PrivateFontCollection anywhere in a LocalReport object?

Answer 1

RDLC report refer to the font by the family name. To use a third party font, we have to actually install the font on your production machine.

Here is feedback from SQL Server Reporting Services team.

The ReportViewer's rendering extensions do not support PrivateFontCollection.

As a workaround, you could generate the barcode into a image without using private font and put the image on your RDLC report. Here is a source code and test code to generate a barcode image file.

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        BarCodeGenerator barCode = new BarCodeGenerator("123456789012345");
        barCode.SaveImage("F:\\abc.jpeg");
    }
}

public class BarCodeGenerator
{
    public BarCodeGenerator(string code, int barHeight = 200, int imageWidth = 420, int imageHeigth = 240)
    {
        _barCode = code;
    }

    public void SaveImage(string filePath)
    {
        Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(Width, Height, System.Drawing.Imaging.PixelFormat.Format32bppArgb);

        Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(bmp);

        g.FillRectangle(Brushes.White, 0, 0, Width, Height);

        String intercharacterGap = "0";
        String str = '*' + _barCode.ToUpper() + '*';
        int strLength = str.Length;

        for (int i = 0; i < _barCode.Length; i++)
        {
            if (alphabet39.IndexOf(_barCode[i]) == -1 || _barCode[i] == '*')
            {
                g.DrawString("INVALID BAR CODE TEXT", new Font("Arial", 12), Brushes.Red, 10, 10);
                return;
            }
        }

        String encodedString = "";

        for (int i = 0; i < strLength; i++)
        {
            if (i > 0)
                encodedString += intercharacterGap;

            encodedString += coded39Char[alphabet39.IndexOf(str[i])];
        }

        int encodedStringLength = encodedString.Length;
        int widthOfBarCodeString = 0;
        double wideToNarrowRatio = 3;


        if (align != AlignType.Left)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < encodedStringLength; i++)
            {
                if (encodedString[i] == '1')
                    widthOfBarCodeString += (int)(wideToNarrowRatio * (int)weight);
                else
                    widthOfBarCodeString += (int)weight;
            }
        }

        int x = 0;
        int wid = 0;
        int yTop = 0;
        SizeF hSize = g.MeasureString(headerText, headerFont);
        SizeF fSize = g.MeasureString(_barCode, footerFont);

        int headerX = 0;
        int footerX = 0;

        if (align == AlignType.Left)
        {
            x = leftMargin;
            headerX = leftMargin;
            footerX = leftMargin;
        }
        else if (align == AlignType.Center)
        {
            x = (Width - widthOfBarCodeString) / 2;
            headerX = (Width - (int)hSize.Width) / 2;
            footerX = (Width - (int)fSize.Width) / 2;
        }
        else
        {
            x = Width - widthOfBarCodeString - leftMargin;
            headerX = Width - (int)hSize.Width - leftMargin;
            footerX = Width - (int)fSize.Width - leftMargin;
        }

        if (showHeader)
        {
            yTop = (int)hSize.Height + topMargin;
            g.DrawString(headerText, headerFont, Brushes.Black, headerX, topMargin);
        }
        else
        {
            yTop = topMargin;
        }

        for (int i = 0; i < encodedStringLength; i++)
        {
            if (encodedString[i] == '1')
                wid = (int)(wideToNarrowRatio * (int)weight);
            else
                wid = (int)weight;

            g.FillRectangle(i % 2 == 0 ? Brushes.Black : Brushes.White, x, yTop, wid, height);

            x += wid;
        }

        yTop += height;

        if (showFooter)
            g.DrawString(_barCode, footerFont, Brushes.Black, footerX, yTop);

        g.Flush();
        using (FileStream stream = File.Create(filePath))
        {
            bmp.Save(stream, ImageFormat.Jpeg);
        }  
    }

    private string alphabet39 = "0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ-. $/+%*";

    private string[] coded39Char =
    {
        /* 0 */ "000110100", 
        /* 1 */ "100100001", 
        /* 2 */ "001100001", 
        /* 3 */ "101100000",
        /* 4 */ "000110001", 
        /* 5 */ "100110000", 
        /* 6 */ "001110000", 
        /* 7 */ "000100101",
        /* 8 */ "100100100", 
        /* 9 */ "001100100", 
        /* A */ "100001001", 
        /* B */ "001001001",
        /* C */ "101001000", 
        /* D */ "000011001", 
        /* E */ "100011000", 
        /* F */ "001011000",
        /* G */ "000001101", 
        /* H */ "100001100", 
        /* I */ "001001100", 
        /* J */ "000011100",
        /* K */ "100000011", 
        /* L */ "001000011", 
        /* M */ "101000010", 
        /* N */ "000010011",
        /* O */ "100010010", 
        /* P */ "001010010", 
        /* Q */ "000000111", 
        /* R */ "100000110",
        /* S */ "001000110", 
        /* T */ "000010110", 
        /* U */ "110000001", 
        /* V */ "011000001",
        /* W */ "111000000", 
        /* X */ "010010001", 
        /* Y */ "110010000", 
        /* Z */ "011010000",
        /* - */ "010000101", 
        /* . */ "110000100", 
        /*' '*/ "011000100",
        /* $ */ "010101000",
        /* / */ "010100010", 
        /* + */ "010001010", 
        /* % */ "000101010", 
        /* * */ "010010100"
    };

    public enum AlignType
    {
        Left, Center, Right
    }

    public enum BarCodeWeight
    {
        Small = 1, Medium, Large
    }

    private AlignType align = AlignType.Center;
    private string _barCode = "1234567890";
    private int leftMargin = 10;
    private int topMargin = 20;
    private int height = 200;
    private bool showHeader = false;
    private bool showFooter = false;
    private String headerText = "BarCode Demo";
    private BarCodeWeight weight = BarCodeWeight.Small;
    private Font headerFont = new Font("Courier", 18);
    private Font footerFont = new Font("Courier", 8);

    private int _height = 240;
    public int Height
    {
        get { return _height; }
        set { _height = value; }
    }

    private int _width = 420;
    public int Width
    {
        get { return _width; }
        set { _width = value; }
    }
}

Here is the barcode image generated by upper code.