11. International documents

Report Designer produces documents in any language that uses the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese or Korean scripts, including mixed-language documents such as a Korean–English commercial invoice. Two separate settings are involved:

They are independent. A Spanish-speaking author can design a Japanese pick list.

Document language

On the Report tab, choose Document language:

The document language affects:

• formatNumber, formatCurrency and formatDate (month and weekday names, decimal and thousands separators, currency symbol position),
• sorting in tables (Sort by uses the language's alphabetical order, for example ä next to a in German),
• the font used for Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters (see below).

It does not translate your text. Static labels such as "Ship to" print exactly as you typed them.

Note: Your system can override the document language per render, for example when the same template is used for several countries. Ask your integrator.

Writing date patterns for each language

The date tokens are the same in every language. Only the names change. Use the order and punctuation that each country expects:

# locale: en-US
{{ formatDate(orderDate, 'MM/DD/YYYY') }}  →  10/18/2026
# locale: en-GB
{{ formatDate(orderDate, 'DD/MM/YYYY') }}  →  18/10/2026
# locale: de-DE
{{ formatDate(orderDate, 'DD.MM.YYYY') }}  →  18.10.2026
# locale: fr-FR
{{ formatDate(orderDate, 'D MMMM YYYY') }}  →  18 octobre 2026
# locale: es-MX
{{ formatDate(orderDate, 'D [de] MMMM [de] YYYY') }}  →  18 de octubre de 2026
# locale: ja-JP
{{ formatDate(orderDate, 'YYYY年M月D日') }}  →  2026年10月18日
# locale: ko-KR
{{ formatDate(orderDate, 'YYYY. M. D.') }}  →  2026. 10. 18.

Text in square brackets, like [de], prints as-is.

Chinese, Japanese and Korean text

You can type Chinese, Japanese and Korean directly into any text element, or receive them in the data. You don't have to choose a special font.

Automatic font fallback. When the element's font (for example Arimo) lacks a character, the engine switches to a font that has it, character by character, and then switches back:

 Pallet 托盘 팔레트 パレット — Arimo → Noto Sans SC → Noto Sans KR → Noto Sans JP → Arimo

The mixed text stays on one baseline with the same line spacing, so it looks like one font.

Which Chinese/Japanese font? Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese and Korean share many characters (Han characters, or kanji), but each country draws some of them differently. The Document language decides which style is used for shared characters:

Tip: Set the Document language for every Chinese, Japanese or Korean document. A Japanese pick list with the default language prints kanji in the Simplified Chinese style, which Japanese readers notice.

Choosing the font yourself. To use the Chinese/Japanese/Korean font for all text in an element, including Latin letters and digits, pick it from the font list under Chinese, Japanese & Korean. These fonts have Regular and Bold, but no Italic.

Performance. These fonts are large (5–10 MB each), but only the characters a document uses are embedded. A typical Chinese packing slip PDF is about 50 KB. The designer downloads a CJK font only when an element shows such characters.

Note: The Chinese, Japanese and Korean fonts are an optional part of the installation. If they aren't installed, those characters show as blank boxes on the canvas and in the PDF, the font list has no Chinese, Japanese & Korean group, and the preview lists the warning "CJK text needs @rd/fonts-cjk (not installed)". Ask your administrator to install the CJK font package.

Line breaking

• Chinese and Japanese text breaks between any two characters, because there are no spaces between words.
• Punctuation follows the standard rules (kinsoku): closing marks such as 。 、 」 ） and small kana never start a line, and opening marks such as 「 （ never end one.
• Korean breaks at spaces like English. A word is broken between syllables only when it is wider than the whole line.

Bilingual documents

Many export documents print each label in two languages. Put both in the same text element, separated by Enter or a slash:

상호 / Company name

Or, for compact forms, a smaller second line:

1. Add a text element with the main-language label in 7 pt bold.
2. Add a second text element directly below it with the English label in 6 pt gray.
3. Select both and use Align left edges.

The gallery's Commercial Invoice (Korean / English) template uses this layout.

Localized gallery templates

The gallery has ready-made localized templates: Packing Slip (Simplified Chinese), Commercial Invoice (Korean / English), Sales Order (Spanish – Mexico), Purchase Order (French) and Pick List (Japanese). Each has the right Document language, paper size, labels and date and currency formats. See Template gallery.

Designer language

The designer's menus, panels, tooltips and messages are available in:

The designer has no language picker of its own. Your application sets the language, usually from your user profile, or else the designer follows your browser's language. If your browser's language isn't in the list, the designer uses English. To switch, change your profile or browser language, or ask your administrator.

In every language, number boxes accept the local decimal separator, so 2,5 is understood as 2.5 in French or German.

Not supported yet

• Right-to-left scripts (Arabic, Hebrew) and scripts that need complex shaping (Thai, Hindi and other Indic scripts).
• Vertical text (top-to-bottom Chinese or Japanese).
• Ruby (furigana) annotations.

For these, ask your vendor about the roadmap.