When the file name of the merged document is provided either in the configuration, or using the «SetSavedDocumentFileName()» command, then XpressDox will save that merged document regardless of whether or not the user checks the Save Merged Document? check box on the data capture interview for that template.

Conditional Capture can sometimes result in unexpected behaviour, where data elements either are unexpectedly removed from the data capture interview, or appear on the interviewwhen they shouldn't. This recipe gives some tips on how to trouble shoot these situations.

The SetMultipleDocumentFilter empowers the template author to designate a filter which will apply when the Document per Repeated Item is used.

In complex templates, the balancing of End and Else commands with the matching If or ForEach can become difficult. This recipe explains how to use the Template Painter and the Debug command.

The Rule command can be included into many templates, and hard rules can be softened.

When a template is run, XpressDox constructs a data capture interview which is guided by the XpressDox merge fields which are coded in the template. The CaptureLater command is one of the commands which can be used to influence this.

There are times when it is necessary to concatenate the values of data elements, variables and/or hard-coded strings together to form a value which is then stored in a variable. The concat function does this.

The term “relevance” refers to the algorithms used by XpressDox to determine whether the control to capture a data element in the interview should even appear in the interview. In the simplest case, the fillpoint «CompanyRegistrationDate» will cause a simple text control to appear in the interview for data element...

Normally pictures, logos, etc., are handled without problems by XpressDox. But sometimes the pictures go missing from the merged document and are replaced by a red X in a box. This recipe discusses why this can happen and gives some advice on how to correct the situation.

Suppose you would like to write a sentence something like one of the following, depending on the age of a child: My child <ChildName> is a teenager and is allowed to watch movies rated for 13 and older. OR My child <ChildName> is not a teenager but in any case, being <Age>,...

Sometimes it is syntactically impractical to use the characters < and > in a particular context. For example, you might want to use a Dynamic Caption which is something like this (to use the word “names” or “name” in the caption depending on the number of children): «Caption(DependantNames,Enter the <IIf(count(Child)...

Suppose you want to get the date of the last day of a month. There are a number of ways to achieve this with XpressDox. With version 8.2.1 of XpressDox, this can now very easily be achieved using the LastDayInMonth function. Brute Force Method Assume that you have a data...

Working with strings in XpressDox templates   StartsWith The StartsWith function is used to test whether a string starts with a given string: «If(StartsWith(Surname,'van ')»«Title» «Surname» is probably of Dutch descent.«End()» «If(StartsWith(Surname,'van ')»«SetV('LastPart',substring-after(Surname,'van '))»«End()» In previous versions this command was known as starts-with. Backward compatibility ensures that XpressDox will still...

Radio buttons and check boxes provide a way of enabling users to make quick choices. The results of these can be either sort, terse text values or can indeed be whole paragraphs.

This article provides guidance on possible solutions when XpressDox does not load, either immediately after installation, or at a later stage.

XpressDox will create a data capture interview automatically, using the data elements defined on the template. The sequence in which the data elements appear on the interview can be controlled with the CaptureDataElement command, and the Heading and Tab commands can assist with further layout.

The official XpressDox Cookbook contains various recipes for different aspects of XpressDox. It is intended to complement the User Reference. The latter document is comprehensive in that it covers all of the XpressDox commands and functions, but does so to a limited depth. The Cookbook is designed to give in-depth...

The InsertFormattedText command will accept HTML text as input, convert it to an XpressDox document and then include it as if it were done with an IncludeTemplate command. Sometimes the data in a data element is not an entire HTML document, but a snippet. This snippet then needs to be...

XpressDox uses XSLT technology to insert data elements into Merge Fields. This means that a vast amount of functionality is available to the experienced user, especially the XSLT functions, which are used to format data. XpressDox functions and XSLT functions can be mixed in one Merge Field

Convert text into lower case   Regardless of the case of the value entered into the interview or imported from a database, that value can be converted into lower case.   Command structure: «ToLower(Type)» “Plaintiff” becomes “plaintiff”     Additional parameters on the ToLower function: Double clicking on the “ToLower”...

The core process of XpressDox is the merging of data into a template to produce a final merged document. The XpressDox merging engine thus needs two things: a set of data to merge, and a template into which to merge the data. The data which XpressDox merges into a template...

Conditional processing is one of the most powerful features of XpressDox Docussembly™. In particular, this applies to removing empty lines from a merged document. One application of this is removing address lines which contain empty data.

One of strengths of XpressDox Docussembly™ is the fact that even novice users can create their own templates with very little training. In fact a novice user can create their first template in under 5 minutes.

Sometimes a letterhead needs to dictate not just things like the company’s logo and fairly static items like the directors’ names, but also the position of the addressee information and data elements like 'Your Reference' and 'Our Reference', for example.

You may not want to have to define 3 or 4 or some maximum number of address line data elements, and have the user capture them one at a time, and still provide conditional formatting logic to suppress any empty data elements. XpressDox document assembly supports this by the concept...