Last week I made my first steps with XML-Publisher 5.6 Desktop and I am very pleased with the simplicity you can create a report in such a short time. When you follow these instructions you can see it yourself. After you have installed the XML-Publisher 5.6 Desktop you open Microsoft Word and you are ready to create the report.
You can start with the header of the report and place for example a logo in the header. In the left corner you see a XML-Publisher menu.
First you have to
load the XML Data
When de data is loaded the creation of the report is ready to start. To insert a field in the report use the menu: Insert >> Field
showing a pop-up
Now you can select a field and double-click it or drag it to the place in the report. Before you can preview the report you have to save the file as a RTF-file. To get a preview of the report select preview >> PDF,HTML,EXCEL and RTF. I used PDF
Template Preview Report in PDF
You can type some lines with or without a field inserted:
Dear Sirs/Madam,
According to our records as of AS_OF_DATE, we show the following open balances.
Table
To insert a table in the report you can use the Table Wizard or Table/Form. I preferred to use Table/Form
When you select Table/Form you get a pop-up with the data and you can create a table.
See User Guide for more details
After setting the properties and changes in the lay-out it looks like this.
The template looks like this:
The PDF preview like this:
Cell Highlighting
To highlight (For example color red) the cell(s) of amounts > 150000 you enter a field into the cell(s) of the table. By double clicking on the field you can change the name and the properties. In this example the field is named "COL1". The code has to be placed in the field “Status Bar†or “Help Key (F1)†At this moment I don’t know the differences between these two fields. Please let me know if you do.
<?if:TRANS_AMOUNT>150000?><xsl:attribute xdofo:ctx="block" name="background-color">red</xsl:attribute><?end if?>
The preview PDF
Totals
To get the totals of the Amount you have to place in the field “Status Bar†of Amount and the Amount Remaining or in a new field in the same cell of the table the following code: <?add-page-total:TotalFieldName;’element’?> In this case it looks like:
For Amount <?add-page-total:TA;’TRANS_AMOUNT’?>
For Amount Remaining: <?add-page-total:TAR;’TRANS_AMOUNT_REMAINING’?>
Place the code of the totals in a new field:For AMOUNT <?show-page-total:TA;’#,##0.00′?>For Amount Remaining <?show-page-total:TAR;’#,##0.00′?>
Page total is not available for output types: HTML, RTF, Excel.
The preview PDF :
Sort
To sort the data on Date place the following code in the field “For each “(FE). <?sort: TRANSACTION_DATE?>
The preview PDF :
My next step:
The code has to be placed in the field “Status Bar†or “Help Key (F1)†At this moment I don’t know the differences between these two fields. Please let me know if you do.
Hello.
The difference between the two is that the Help Key can hold more text. When I read about it they claimed it was unlimited but at some point it stops allowing you to insert any more text. I’m not sure what the difference is otherwise or why they would restrict you. Maybe someone out there knows?