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XpressDox Support

ChooseFromHzRDBList

This command will present a list of radio buttons arranged horizontally in the interview form.  In all other respects it is functionally equivalent to the ChooseFromRDBList command.   Command structure: «ChooseFromHzRDBList(Entity_Type,Individual,Corporate)»     By default the first value in the fillpoint will be selected, but it is possible to remove

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Build a bi-lingual interview – XpressDox

It would be really useful for XpressDox to be able to present an interview in French if the user is a French speaker, and in English for English users, where the document itself is in English. For the same template. And vice versa. XpressDox can indeed do that, as long as the template author marks up the template accordingly.

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The YearsBetween Function

«YearsBetween(EndDate,StartDate)» returns the approximate number of years between the two dates. The reason that it is approximate is that it is calculated as the number of days between the two dates divided by 365.25. Thus for a long time period, the result will be more accurate than for a short

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Version 4.2.3 (2012-04-19)

Version 4.2.3 This is primarily a bug-fix release.  The fixes include: 1. Some issues with style merging with IncludeTemplate and BaseTemplate have been addressed. 2. Bug in Create Interview Template in the Prepare PDF utility has been fixed.

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Formatting the time (show am/pm) – XpressDox

The FormatTime command takes the HH or hh parameters to display the time in 24 or 12 hour time respectively, but what if you want to show the time in 12 hour clock, and display AM or PM? Here’s how: «FormatTime(AppointmentTime,’hh:mm tt’)» Add an additional ‘tt’ to show the AM

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The CaptureOnlyEmptyValues Command

When the data set can be populated prior to the interview becoming active, then this command can be used to present an interview which contains only those data elements which are empty. A dataset can be populated prior to the interview in a number of ways: The data are sourced via an

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The Chr Command

This function can be used to return a character based on its numeric (Unicode) value. Command structure: «Chr(13)»   Examples of usage: «Chr(13)» This will insert a carriage return.   Some further examples: Format an address block in the questionnaire: Chr will probably only be used in the context of

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The ChooseFromDataElements Command

Once the data set being captured has acquired some data (either captured in this session or included from a data source or file), then a ChooseFromDataElements command can be used to allow the user to capture the value of a data element from the values of existing data elements. For example,

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The EscapeForXml and GetValidXmlElementName Functions

These two functions are used in the context where the XpressDox template is needed to generate XML.  (By the way, this demonstrates the power of XpressDox in being able to produce not just Word documents, but also text and, in this case, transform XML from one format into another). «EscapeForXml(Text)» will translate

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The HideEmptyInterview Command

If you have a template which results in an empty interview, then the interview can be suppressed using the command «HideEmptyInterview(Yes)» The question is, why would you have such a template?  It could be that the template consists of fillpoints which merge in data from a data source, for example, and

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The SetRepeaterQualifier Command

When XpressDox builds an interview and there are repeating elements in the data set, those repeating elements are normally shown in a treeview with the name of the element (or the Caption which might have been set) followed by the value of the first data element in the form for that repeater. For

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Upgrading to Version 4

Version 4 of XpressDox (XDv4) represents a major change from Version 3. The principle change is that the format of an XpressDox template is no longer Word 2003 XML, but Office Open XML. Office Open XML (or OOXML) is the format in which Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010 save their

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The SaveAsText Command

Sometimes you might want the result of XpressDox merging data and template to be not a Word document but another document, for example a CSV file, or even another XML document, or programming code (yes, XpressDox can be used to generate programming code, or HTML, anything really).  In all those

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The Round Function

The Round function performs rounding.  For example: «Round(Amount)» will round the value of the Amount data element name to the nearest whole number. The Round function can take on extra optional parameter being the number of decimal places to which the number should be rounded (the default is 0).  «Round(number,3)»

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The RepeatWhile Command

Repeating information which is not in the form of repeating data in XML (i.e. multiple same-named XML elements) can be handled using the RepeatWhile command. An example of the kind of repeating data that would need a RepeatWhile would be a data element that contains a comma-delimited list of directors

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The ReadOnly Command

«ReadOnly()» will cause the named data element (or list of data elements) to be shown in the interview, but their values will not be able to be changed by the user. Simple Usage This is used typically where data are supplied from a data source (maybe via a ChooseFromDataSource command)

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OnExitSet – XpressDox

Set the value of a data element on your XpressDox template «OnExitSet()» permits the template author to specify that, when a control on the interview (the trigger) loses focus, the value of another or the same data element (the target, caption, footing or heading can be set.  If the data

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The LinkToOtherData Command

«LinkToOtherData()» enables the template author to define that when a template is being run and the user moves the cursor out of the control for the data element in the interview, that the equivalent of pressing the User Other Data button on the interview is performed.  This uses the data

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The IncludeCodeTemplate Command

This command is similar to IncludeTemplate, but is used for templates which consist entirely of XpressDox commands, and none of the text of the template is required in the merged document. When the code template is included using this command, then any of the paragraphs in the included template which

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The ExcludeFromDataSet Command

Some data are only needed during the merging of a template, and are not needed to be saved in the data set file. This would normally be the case where data are included from a data source, and any subsequent use of that data would require the data to be

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The Empty Marker

This refers to the mechanism for placing a code into the merged document to show those places where data elements do not have a value (or, rather, have an empty value).  This code is called the Empty Marker. There is a tab panel in the Configuration form, currently called “Other

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The DaysBetween Function

«DaysBetween(EndDate,StartDate)» returns the number of days between the two dates. For example: I was born on «FormatDate(DateOfBirth,‘d MMMM yyyy’)» which means I am «floor(DaysBetween(Today(),DateOfBirth) div 365.25)» years old. The MonthsBetween function has a similar functionality.

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The ChooseUsingDatePicker Command

«ChooseUsingDatePicker(DateOfBirth)» will cause a date picker control to be used when the DateOfBirth data element is required to be captured. Like other Choose commands, the ChooseUsingDatePicker command will only be included in the interview if the data element referred to is used elsewhere in the template, either directly to cause

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The CaptureAllDataElements Command

Discussion of this command is best done in the context of “relevance”.  Relevance refers to the set of algorithms that XpressDox uses to decide whether a particular control for a data element should appear on the interview or not. Commands such as «ChooseFromList()» and other Choose commands will cause the

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Working with Page Breaks

Using a page break in a template is fairly straightforward, even when the page break is conditional. In other words, when the page break is to be included or excluded on the basis of an «If» command. For example: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. «If(Type = ‘Long’)»……………………………Page

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