title: Is there a font hierarchy in SQL Server Reporting Services?
body: <p>In our .rdl reports the <code>Arial MS Unicode</code> font is used. It's not installed with Windows Server 2019 anymore, as Microsoft stop paying for <a href="https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_365hp-word/arial-unicode-ms-font-missing/3d389ec7-dfaa-4002-adfd-5b1491cea8a1/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">it</a>:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>When Microsoft included Arial Unicode MS with earlier versions of
    Office, Microsoft paid a licensing fee to The Monotype Corporation,
    which is the copyright holder for the font. Someone at Microsoft
    decided it was no longer worthwhile to continue paying that fee, so it
    was removed from the Office package.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>The license <a href="https://www.fonts.com/font/monotype/arial-unicode" rel="nofollow noreferrer">cost</a> is pretty high for a single server with few cores:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Erta.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/7Erta.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
  
  <p>So, we decided to use as alternative a new font family - <a href="https://www.google.com/get/noto/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Google Noto Fonts</a> - it's free and support more characters then <code>Arial MS Unicode</code>.</p>
  
  <p>The issue is that the fonts for different languages comes in different files and the files are of different types and cannot be unified. Also, as I am understanding there is no need to unify these files as in <code>PDF</code> the font is embedded and can increase dramatically the file size.</p>
  
  <p>So, my idea is to install all of the fonts on the machine and let the SQL Server Reporting Services to embedded only the needed ones. So, by default all text with have font <code>Nato Sans</code>. </p>
  
  <p>The issue is when a text cannot be visualized by <code>Nato Sans</code>, for example some <code>Punjabi</code>: </p>
  
  <pre><code>ਤੇਜ਼ ਭੂਰੇ ਲੂੰਬੜ ਆਲਸੀ ਕੁੱਤੇ ਨੂੰ ਛੱਡ ਦਿੰਦਾ ਹੈ 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>instead <code>Nato Sans Gurmukhi</code>, different font is used - <code>Raavi</code>. </p>
  
  <p>I am wondering is there any setting controlling how fonts are selected in case the current one is not installed on the machine or not able to visualize the corresponding text?</p>