Technical FAQs

Why are the fonts in my CAD files showing up garbled/unrecognizable/not as expected?

Some CAD files may include fonts that are not included in PrizmDoc Viewer’s default font set. PrizmDoc will choose the most appropriate substitute font to use in its place. The substitution process isn’t always perfect, and as a result, you will see garbled/unrecognizable characters in the Viewer.

In order to provide additional fonts for PrizmDoc to pull from,

Some CAD/DWG files may include fonts that are not included in PrizmDoc Viewer’s default font set. PrizmDoc will choose the most appropriate substitute font to use in its place. The substitution process isn’t always perfect, and as a result, you will see garbled/unrecognizable characters in the Viewer.

In order to provide additional .SHX fonts for PrizmDoc to pull from, you can copy the necessary .SHX font files into the cad-fonts folder, located at:

Windows: ‪C:\Prizm\modules\cad-fonts
Linux: /usr/share/prizm/modules/cad-fonts

Alternatively, if you want to use fonts from that are located in a different directory, you can add the environment variable, ACAD, to explicitly specify the filepath of these fonts. his variable can be added under System Properties > Advanced > Environment Variables > System Variables > New... > ACAD. For the variable’s Value, specify a folder path that contains additional CAD font files for PrizmDoc to pull from.

* It is important to note that the Linux filesystem is case-senstive, so when adding custom CAD fonts on Linux, make sure that the fonts are named with case-sensitivity in mind. If you still see unexpected output after adding the fonts to the cad-fonts folder, try renaming the fonts to all lowercase.

** Note that the cad-fonts folder was added in PrizmDoc 13.20, so to add custom cad fonts on earlier versions of Prizm, use the environmental variable approach.

you can add the environment variable, ACAD.
This variable can be added under System Properties > Advanced > Environment Variables > System Variables > New... > ACAD. For the variable’s Value, specify a folder path that contains additional CAD font files for PrizmDoc to pull from.

We wanted to upgrade our previous version of PrizmDoc to the most recent release. However, when trying to install the latest version, the installation is failing. What do I need to do to get the latest version installed?

Typically, this issue may occur if you are upgrading from an older major version to a new major version, such as from PrizmDoc 11 to PrizmDoc 12 or PrizmDoc 13. If you are upgrading from one minor version to another, such as PrizmDoc 13.1 to PrizmDoc 13.6, then it should be seamless.

If you do have issues in either circumstance, it is usually due to files, folders, or registry settings that were left behind from the older version.

In order to fix the installation, please follow the process below to ensure the previous version is completely removed.

1. Ensure previous installation folders are deleted:

   \Prizm and \ProgramData\Accusoft.

2. Back-up your Windows registry, and then click on Start > Run, and type in regedit

3. Click Edit and select Find, and then type Prizm

4. When it finds a match, right-click on the registry key and select Delete

5. Click F3 to find the next match, and repeat Step 4 for each key.

6. Repeat Step 5 until the search comes back with “Finished Searching Registry”

7. Reboot Server and attempt to re-install.

Why are the fonts in my CAD files showing up garbled/unrecognizable/not as expected?

Some CAD/DWG files may include fonts that are not included in PrizmDoc Viewer’s default font set. PrizmDoc will choose the most appropriate substitute font to use in its place. The substitution process isn’t always perfect, and as a result, you will see garbled/unrecognizable characters in the Viewer.

In order to provide additional .SHX fonts for PrizmDoc to pull from, you can copy the necessary .SHX font files into the cad-fonts folder, located at:

Windows: ‪C:\Prizm\modules\cad-fonts
Linux: /usr/share/prizm/modules/cad-fonts

Alternatively, if you want to use fonts from that are located in a different directory, you can add the environment variable, ACAD, to explicitly specify the filepath of these fonts. his variable can be added under System Properties > Advanced > Environment Variables > System Variables > New... > ACAD. For the variable’s Value, specify a folder path that contains additional CAD font files for PrizmDoc to pull from.

* It is important to note that the Linux filesystem is case-senstive, so when adding custom CAD fonts on Linux, make sure that the fonts are named with case-sensitivity in mind. If you still see unexpected output after adding the fonts to the cad-fonts folder, try renaming the fonts to all lowercase.

** Note that the cad-fonts folder was added in PrizmDoc 13.20, so to add custom cad fonts on earlier versions of Prizm, use the environmental variable approach.

When looking at the configuration files for both PAS (pcc.win.yml, pcc.nix.yml) and PrizmDoc Server (prizm-services-config.yml), there appear to be similar settings for Viewing Session timeouts: defaults.viewingSessionTimeout (PAS) and viewing.sessionLifetime (Server). What is the difference between the two?

The difference is as follows:

PAS

defaults.viewingSessionTimeout

This setting is used when the viewing session POST requests use source.type="viewingPackage".

Prizm Server

viewing.sessionLifetime

This setting is used for all other viewing session POST requests.

We are currently using PrizmDoc Cloud licensing. After applying our cloud license, the Prizm services started and show healthy, however, I see “CloudLicenseValidationFailed” errors in the PccErrors.log file. Is this normal, and do I have to worry about Prizm functionality?

Currently the licensing messages referencing “CloudLicenseValidationFailed” in PccErrors.log are a false positive and should not be taken as an issue with PrizmDoc Cloud licensing.
The more accurate way to check whether the license has been validated successfully would be to use watchdog.log and look for “Cloud License Validation” – “isValid”:true which indicates that the license is valid.

The issue regarding that error in pccerrors.log is in our product backlog to consider addressing in a future release, but it is not yet prioritized on our roadmap.

When looking at the configuration files for both PAS (pcc.win.yml, pcc.nix.yml) and PrizmDoc Server (prizm-services-config.yml), there appear to be similar settings for Viewing Session timeouts: defaults.viewingSessionTimeout (PAS) and viewing.sessionLifetime (Server). What is the difference between the two?

The difference is as follows:

PAS

defaults.viewingSessionTimeout

This setting is used when the viewing session POST requests use source.type="viewingPackage".

Prizm Server

viewing.sessionLifetime

This setting is used for all other viewing session POST requests.

What causes Session Expired errors in PrizmDoc?

Session expired errors normally occur when a viewing session is open for longer than 20 minutes. 20 minutes is the default value of viewing.sessionLifetime in the PrizmDoc central configuration file, and you can increase it if you would like your Viewing Sessions to be active longer. On PrizmDoc Cloud this value is set to 5 hours.

You can find the relevant config file using the following file paths:

• Linux: /usr/share/prizm/prizm-services-config.yml
• Windows: C:\Prizm\prizm-services-config.yml

When viewing an Excel document with hidden content in the viewer, the content remains visible when otherwise expected to remain hidden. Is this intended behavior?

Short answer: Yes.

Currently, both PrizmDoc Cloud and PrizmDoc Viewer (Self-Hosted) are configured to render hidden content by default, so this is expected behavior.

For PrizmDoc Viewer (Self-Hosted) users, this rendering behavior is configurable using the central configuration file.

The file paths for the central configuration file are:

• Linux: /usr/share/prizm/prizm-services-config.yml
• Windows: C:\Prizm\prizm-services-config.yml

Simply add/modify the following parameter:

fileTypes.excel.renderHiddenContent: false

Setting the render option to false will hide content as expected, whereas true will render it.

When trying to create a viewing session directory to the PrizmDoc back end over port 18681:

(POST http://prizmserver:18681/PCCIS/V1/ViewingSession)

why am I receiving a 500 internal server error?

There are some troubleshooting steps below you can take to verify the health of the server as well as ensure the API call you are making is properly formatted.

1. Verify the Prizm service is healthy by opening a browser on the Prizm server and using the following service health check URL (http://localhost:18681/admin)
2. Verify your POST command has all the required elements which can be verified in detail on the following documentation page:

https://help.accusoft.com/PrizmDoc/latest/HTML/webframe.html#viewing-sessions.html

We are using the Webforms Samples and want to know how to enable the “Always User Raster” feature. Which file needs to be modified and how should it be modified?

In order to enable the “Always Use Raster” option for our Webforms sample, you will need to do the following:

• Modify the Default.aspx file
• Update the Central Configuration file

How To:

1. In the Sample, before modifying, make a backup of the following file for safekeeping:

\Prizm\Samples\dotnet\webforms\full-viewer-sample\Default.aspx

2. In the original file, modify the code that is located close to line 115:

\Prizm\Samples\dotnet\webforms\full-viewer-sample\Default.aspx

Line to Replace:

} else {
        sessionData.source = getDocumentSource(query.document || '');
        }

Replace with:

} else {
        sessionData.source = getDocumentSource(query.document || '');
        sessionData.render = {
          html5: {
             alwaysUseRaster: true
          }
       };
}

3. Next, to update the Central Configuration file you will need to stop the Prizm Services.

4. Make a backup of the prizm\prizm-services-config.yml file.

5. Edit the .yml file and remove the leading # for the following line and add true to the array so that it looks like the following:

viewing.sessionConstraints.render.alwaysUseRaster.allowedValues:
[true, false]

6. Restart the Prizm Services.