Footing – XpressDox
The «Footing()» command can be used to place text below a data element on the interview. Use the Heading and Footing commands to bring some context to the fields on the interview, or insert breaks
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The «Footing()» command can be used to place text below a data element on the interview. Use the Heading and Footing commands to bring some context to the fields on the interview, or insert breaks
Particularly in a situation where users of a template might want to use numeric values input according to different regions, this command can be used by the template author to make sure that template runners
When concatenating strings together (see Concatenating Strings), it is not always easy to visualize what the end result will look like. This is especially the case when the strings being concatenated are a mixture of
Dates can be formatted according to patterns defined in the fillpoints. Command structure: «FormatDate(Date_of_Engagement,”yyyy-MM-dd”)» «FormatDate(Date_of_Signature,”MMM d yyyy”)» «FormatDate(Date_of_Dismissal,”d MMMM, yyyy”)» «FormatDate(Date_of_Signature,”MMMM o yyyy”)» «FormatDate(Date_of_Signature,”dddd MMMM o yyyy”)» These examples would result in something
A numeric value can be formatted in many different ways under control of a pattern string.
If ever you get stuck in XpressDox, please remember that help is always close at hand. Here are 6 ways to find help when using the program.
Learning XpressDox is a bit like learning a new language. It takes a little practice (and patience) to become fluent. Although there are many commands at your fingertips, this article addresses some of the most common ones. Start here and you will be well on your well to authoring great templates!
If you have calculated (or been supplied) an elapsed time in seconds, then you can format that into a nicely legible format without having to divide by 60 for minutes, etc. «FormatSeconds(‘3675′,’HH:mm:ss’)» will render as
If a value has been captured as a time of day, then it can be formatted and inserted into the merged document in a format desired by the template author. For example, a user may
You have probably come across the terms “data element”, “fillpoint”, “dataset”. This article aims to address in detail what each of the terms mean, and help you understand how all the elements in the document assembly process fit together.
This function was introduced to enable the entire dataset to be saved as a BLOB in a data base. Typically, this function will be used in the context of a SetDataSourceData function, something like this: «SetDataSourceData(‘StagingDataSource’,Guid(),
Putting some thought into how you name your data elements has a huge pay off later on. The re-use of data is a big advantage in document automation but this can only be done if the data element names are the same. Consistency is key.
Throughout the XpressDox documentation, reference is made to Commands and also to Functions. Syntactically commands and functions appear the same, but their functionality is different and in some cases this difference is important. A rule
There is a lot to be said on the subject of best practices, and there is absolutely no “one right perfect way” of doing things. This article is intended to give some ideas as you
The interview is a very important part of any application developed in XpressDox as this is the user experience. You will get a long way with Manage Interview but for some further understanding, it is
This function is used to extract a value from a list. In the first example, the data element contains a number (an integer) which is used to get an item from a list, where the
You have already learnt how to mark up a document to be a template so mostly this article is a refresher. But you might also find some additional useful tips!
When designing interviews that will be integrated into other applications, there are commands which should be considered: EnableWebLocalSave Enables the “Save Local” feature in the browser interview. EnableWebPreview Enable the preview on integrated
In some situations, the name of a file to be included in the document is contained in the Data Set. In these cases, instead of IncludeTemplate, the command InsertDocument is used.
This function does as its name implies: gets a value from the Windows registry. For example: «SetV(‘UserPrivileges’,GetRegistryValue(‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\Accounting\Options\UserPrivileges’)» This will get the registry value HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\Accounting\Options\UserPrivileges and put it into the
These commands will enable the template author to control the workflow around templates which are uploaded and run on an XpressDox server. SendWebEMail You can provide as many of these commands as necessary. The
The GetValidFileName function will examine a value for characters which are illegal in a file name, and either remove those illegal characters, or replace them with a string supplied to the function.
Formatting functions can be applied to any data element name where the value of the data element is to be included in the resulting text, that is when the data element name would otherwise exist in a Merge Field all on its own, or inside a List command.
All XpressDox commands regarding repeating data Here is a consolidated list of all XpressDox commands regarding the handling of repeating data. Click on each command for a more detailed article. ForEach() Repeat data
This function returns a new GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) whenever it is called. The usages for GUIDs are discussed in various places, a starting point would be this Wikipedia article. An example of usage in
