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XpressDox Support

The Left and Right Functions

The substring function provides all the functionality to extract pieces of a string, but Left and Right make some operations easier. Left returns the leftmost characters, and Right the rightmost characters. In particular, extracting a substring at the end of a string can be quite complicated, needing knowledge of the

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The Lookup Function

This function has many uses, but in particular it is a great benefit when templates are being used in different regions where there a slight but significant changes in language. For example, a template being used anywhere in North America would need to take into account the different spellings of

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The InterviewRelevance Command

Overview When XpressDox constructs an interview, it uses the document assembly instructions in the template to guide the layout of the interview.  For example, if the first occurrence in the template of a fillpoint referencing the Name data element appears before the first occurrence of  Date_Of_Birth, then the data element Name will appear

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Version 5.2.1 (2013-07-17)

2013-07-17 Version 5.2.1 The Number-to-Words utility has been modified to handle different Regional Settings more effectively. The Clauses utility, which was upgraded in version 5.2.0, has undergone further improvements.  In particular, inserted clauses can now have fillpoints in them, and the fillpoints will be completed using the data set that

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Version 5.2.0 (2013-06-28)

2013-06-28 Version 5.2.0 A long-standing problem has been the error messages that XSLT issues during document assembly time where those messages look something like “Expected token, found ‘.’”, with no context.  This could lead to a lot of trouble-shooting effort to find the offending fillpoint.  The «Debug()» command placed at the

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Version 5.1.6 (2013-06-12)

2013-06-12 Version 5.1.6 This is mainly a bug-fix release, and some new features have been included. The new features are: The Empty Marker set with SetEmptyMarker can be, or start or end with, one or more spaces. The IncludeFileData command now supports <..> syntax in the construction of the file

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The SetCoreFileProperty Function

When viewing the  Word Advanced Properties for a document, there are a number of properties that appear, such as the Author, Comments, Keywords, etc.  Using the SetCoreFileProperty function, some of these Advanced properties can be set in the document which is merged from a template. For example «SetCoreFileProperty(‘Author’,WindowsLogonUser())» will set

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Version 5.1.3 (2013-04-26)

2013-04-26 Version 5.1.3 This is mainly a bug-fix release, but two new features have also been released. The new features are: The ForEvery command which was released in 5.1.1 has now been deprecated.  Instead, the ForEach command now uses the ultra-fast mechanism introduced with ForEvery.  Any usage of ForEvery will

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The InsertInto Function

This function permits something like: «InsertInto(Name,4,’.’)» So that if Name is “F.R Basset” then the value “F.R. Basset” is inserted into the document by the function.

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Version 5.1.0 (2013-03-20)

2013-03-20 Version 5.1.0 It is now possible to run XpressDox templates from within Outlook (2010 and 2013). After this version, the template author will be informed of new version availability automatically. Data sources can be configured so that the template author controls more of the look and feel of the

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TabOrientation

In both the Desktop and Web versions of XpressDox, tabs (see Using Tabs in the interview) are always orientated horizontally, but this can be changed:   Web: The TabOrientation command offers a way of changing that to orientate the tabs vertically in the Web. Desktop (Word): The TabOrientation command only

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Version 5.0.1 (2013-03-11)

2013-03-11 Version 5.0.1 The RepeaterCaption command will provide a caption for a repeater:  in the desktop version of XpressDox this is applicable only to the CaptureInGrid situation, whereas in the browser (Cloud) version it will always be applicable. Some bug fixes have been applied: A multi-paragraph block (e.g. If or

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The RepeaterCaption Command

With this command the template author can provide a caption on the interview for a repeater. Command structure: «RepeaterCaption(Child,Details of the Children)»   Desktop vs browser: In the desktop version of XpressDox, this applies only to repeaters which are captured in a grid, but in the browser (cloud version), it will always apply no

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Interact with External Programs

With version 5 of XpressDox it is possible to instantiate COM (Common Object Model) and .NET objects and address their methods and properties.  There are a huge number of applications which are exposed via the COM mechanism, including all the Microsoft Office modules. The functions which implement these features are

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The MakeNoise Function

Sometimes, particularly when debugging a complicated template, you might want to be notified in some way that the execution has reached a particular place in the template. «MakeNoise()» will do this, by making a sound when it is executed. In fact, the function takes one parameter, which is the name of the Windows

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The CaptureInGrid Command

CaptureInGrid offers a different way to present repeating data to the user and that is in a grid format –  a bit like a spreadsheet.   Command structure: «CaptureInGrid(Child,Yes)»   Examples of usage: «ForEach(Child)» First Names: «FirstNames» Date of birth: «FormatDate(DateOfBirth,’MMMM d, yyyy’)» Attends School: «AttendsSchool»«ChooseFromList(AttendsSchool,Yes,No)» «End()» The original mechanism for capturing repeated

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Run Text Files as Templates

Because XpressDox has such a rich set of text manipulation features, it is not only ideal for traditional document assembly, but also for tasks such as generating web pages, XML and even program code. Prior to version 5 of XpressDox,  it has been possible to structure a Word document as if

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The DropDownPanel Command

Please note that this has not been implemented on the web as yet. There are situations where many data elements need to be captured in a specific context on the interview, but the interview looks clumsy when they are all displayed together. The «DropDownPanel()» command enables the template author to group

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XpressDox Arrays

Arrays are similar to variables, and have a very similar set of functions to manipulate them.  XpressDox arrays can be indexed using data of (almost) any type for the index – i.e. you can index with strings or numerics, or both in the same array.  For this reason instead of

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The ceiling and floor functions

These are two XSLT functions and so have been available since the inception of XpressDox, but have recently been added to the Command Editor.  In essence, they perform the equivalent of a “round up” (ceiling) and “round down” (floor) to the nearest integer. For example, if the value 25 has been captured

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Implement an optional option with ReplaceField

In the article Define layout in a base template, a mechanism for hard-wiring various fields in a letterhead base template is discussed. Now suppose that it’s not a letterhead that is the base, but the outline of an agreement on which other agreements will be based.  In this base agreement

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