Contents of a document template

A document template contains data elements, its formatting properties, calculated properties, master pages, styles and so on.

Document blocks

To add elements such as paragraphs, text, and images, select the appropriate tool in the palette and click the desired location in the editor area. Each element has specific rules concerning the elements that can contain it and the elements that it can contain.

Naming elements

You can provide a template with a symbolic name and description. The name and description, which are set in the properties page, are for display only and are not used in document generation. The name and description are set in the properties window. The name and description are displayed in the element figure, in its tooltip and also in the outline page.

Naming Elements

Editing element properties

An element's properties can be edited through the properties page. There are two different types of properties:

Document organization

Sections, page breaks, headers and footers, footnotes, bookmarks etc.

Formatting properties

The formatting properties are grouped further into font properties (font family, color, size), alignment properties (centered), border properties and so on. The specific formatting properties depend on the element type. Modified properties and their direct and indirect parent groups are marked with an asterisk (*).

Certain properties (such as font family) accept any value. Other properties (such as paragraph alignment) accept only certain values. Use tool tips or the property value editor by clicking the ellipses against the property to determine which values are valid. Each tooltip displays a short description of the property purpose, the support on the various output formats, and the list of valid properties.

You can type the value directly in the property editor or select it from the condition editor list. Some values accept both user-defined values and values selected from the list. Invalid property values are not discarded. They are reported as warnings and ignored during report generation.

Data elements

Dynamic data source configuration

Scripting support (Javascript).

Embedded Template content images, static text, references to static files, style sheets.

Calculated properties

You can define dynamic as well as static properties in a document template. Dynamic values can be data attributes extracted from the data sources, template variables or the result of evaluating JavaScript expressions.

The following example shows a color property that is calculated based on data source values:

Calculated value properties


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