User Reference

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

When including part (or all) of one document into another, which is the basis of the BaseTemplate, IncludeTemplate and InsertDocument commands, there is always an issue about what formatting (styles, fonts, etc.) should be applied in the resulting document. XpressDox provides three options for this.

The background to this command probably needs a bit of experience in authoring more complex templates. Because XpressDox uses XSLT technology to format the documents, it is possible to use XSLT and XPath expressions to control some of the processing.

This command enables you to apply section headings to different parts of the data capture UI.

Documents containing XpressDox syntax are called templates, and are constructed in Microsoft® Office Word with the fixed text typed as in any normal document, but the pieces of variable data are entered as Merge Fields. A Merge Field is the name of the data element, enclosed inside the field markers, which are << and >>.

XpressDox Docussembly™ document assembly syntax is fairly straightforward, and by paying attention to these few rules you can ensure your templates work first time, every time. This articles describes the syntax rules for data element names, command names, and functions, and describes when to use quote marks.

Every folder where templates can be stored, and from which they are selected with the Run Template function, can have a configuration saved in it. When a folder is selected as the Configuration for folder, it means that the configuration settings entered on the screen will be saved in that folder.

The Document Save Folder will be the default folder to which documents produced by running a template will be saved. When a template has been run, the user will be asked to provide a name for the document via a Save File dialog, and at that stage will be able to change the place where the document is saved.

In XpressDox Docussembly™ document assembly software any number of Helper Folders can be configured. A typical example of a folder for which this type of shortcut is defined would be one in which letterheads or other standard templates like fax headers, etc. are kept. In this way these standard templates can be kept separately to the templates that use them.

These are data elements that appear as data elements on standard templates. A typical example is the user’s email address and telephone extension on a letterhead. In order to save a user typing their own details into the data capture UI every time they run a template, the Standard Data Elements feature allows them to enter these details into the configuration of a folder.

The Data Sources facility provides a way for data captured into some other system to be merged into templates. For example, users may wish to be able to have address and other contact information from Microsoft® Outlook inserted into letters. This would be achieved by defining the Outlook Contacts as a Data Source.

This tab is only available for the Home folder. It enables the user to specify a number of templates that they use frequently, and these templates are then presented in the Microsoft® Office Word UI in a menu, so that the user can have quick access to them.

XpressDox Docussembly™ document assembly software allows you to configure your installation to centralize letterheads, clause libraries, data sources, and XpressDox Explorer. This is a powerful yet simple way to scale the benefits of XpressDox Docussembly™ across your organization.

Although other systems have concepts like ‘Private Folders’ and ‘Shared Folders’, these concepts are not necessary as such in XpressDox, as they can be provided for, and more flexibly, by the combination of the features of Merged Configuration and Helper Folders.

The Template Author’s Toolkit has a large collection of commonly used Merge Fields, including formatting functions of various types. And once some templates have been defined, they can be included into the toolkit as schemas, and then the data elements which were defined in those templates become available for insertion into the template currently being authored.

It is possible for field markers to be re-defined on any given installation of XpressDox. The decision to do this needs to be taken seriously because as soon as any significant number of templates have been authored using a particular choice of Merge Field markers, a change to the markers will require a change to all the templates authored up to that point.

As well as configuring the folders where documents and data are to be stored, the filename which will be given to the saved documents and data can be defined, using the ‘Pattern for saved file name’ described in configuring standard folders.

Although XpressDox does a lot to make sure it leaves no unwanted empty paragraphs behind, it is sometimes necessary to manually remove the unwanted paragraphs. The RemoveParagraph() command will empower the template author to do this.

The <<CurrencySymbol()>> command will insert the currency symbol as defined in the Regional Settings into the document.

Extract an item from a list given the number of the item.

Once you’ve worked through the quick start guide to XpressDox Docussembly™ you will be keen to take your document assembly skills to a new level. The XpressDox User Reference introduces all the document assembly software commands and functions you need to produce your documents efficiently and effectively each time, every time.

XpressDox Docussembly™ document assembly software makes it easy to perform advanced document assembly functions, like selecting a single instance of a repeated data element, including data from a data source, and using the ‘Refresh’ and ‘Save’ options with templates using data sources.

XpressDox has been designed to fill marked-up templates in two general situations: The first is when data is captured and stored as part of an application; and, the second is to assist users who use the system within Microsoft® Office Word to produce standard documents.

Here are some examples to illustrate the concept which enables the results of calculations to be stored for further use in the template, and even for future templates.

The ForEach and If commands are called ‘block commands’ because they are terminated with a separate End command. Between the start and end of the block there are other Merge Fields. There is a special behaviour related to block commands to help with eliminating unwanted empty paragraphs when the start and end appear on different paragraphs.

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.

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.

Sometimes it would be useful to be able to customize a source template for more than just the letter body. For example, it may be that the Data Set contains data for more than one set of addressees and the source document needs to be able to indicate which of these addressees is to be included on the base template.

Letterheads are of special interest because they are used as the basis for many documents. With XpressDox it is possible to create one letterhead template, and by referring to it with the BaseTemplate command, use that template as the basis for many other documents without having to specify the letterhead formatting in those documents.

The central issue with repeating data is that the number of repeated data elements is not known at the time the template is authored, and so XpressDox offers the ForEach, List and Ordinal commands as a way of processing a variable number of repeated data elements.

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 is referred to as a Data Set, and must be in XML format. The template then addresses the data elements in that Data Set by referring to them in Merge Fields.

Names of data elements can sometimes not be very descriptive, and so their usefulness as labels of data capture controls is debatable. The Caption command empowers the template author with a tool for providing understandable names to data elements on the data capture interview.

This function aids in selection of the correct definite article in a sentence.

Replace all occurrences of one string in a source string with another string.

This function converts number to words in various languages

The Now function inserts the current date and/or time into the document.

Max and Min calculate the maximum and minimum, respectively, of two numbers.

Dates can be formatted in many different ways and languages.

This function converts spaces to “hard” or non-breaking spaces.

This function will add a value to the value of an XpressDox variable.

Templates with many data elements might result in data capture interviews being constructed by XpressDox which are intimidating to the template user. The Tab command assists the template author in laying out the data capture interview.

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

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.

The CreateDataElement function adds a new data element to the data set for the template.

The Conditional Capture feature of XpressDox will automatically hide merge fields on the data capture interview. This happens when the document assembly logic in the template renders a data element to be irrelevant in a particular situation.

The calculation features of XpressDox require that values conform to a specific format. This format permits numeric digits, an optional leading sign (+ or -) and an optional decimal point. Thousands separators, spaces and other such characters are not permitted. The RenderAsNumeric function assists with this.

Including in or excluding text from a document can be achieved in a straightforward manner with the If, Else and When commands.

Using the SetCustomDocumentProperty command in an XpressDox template, a Word Custom Document Property can be defined in the merged document.

An amount of money can be stored as a numeric value, and rendered as a natural language phrase when needed. The Currency function does this.

Sometimes a template author will want to record the reasons for using specific commands or document logic, and record this inside the template itself. The Comment command is available for this.

Commands and functions appear the same, but their functionality is different and in some cases this difference is important.

The SetInitialValue command enables a template author to provide an initial value for a data element to be captured in the interview screen.

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

It is unkind to a user to expect them to fill in the full names of a person and then to type in the initials of that person. The ExtractInitials function relieves the user of this burden.

A numeric value can be formatted in many different ways under control of a pattern string.

The CountOf function returns the number of times one string occurs within another.

The <<Script()>> command enables the template author to give a name to a chunk of text, and to use that chunk repeatedly in a template. The chunk of text can consist of from a few words to one or more paragraphs. This named chunk can then be inserted into the document at a number of places using the <<UseScript()>> command.

Using the <<Rule()>> command the template author can make sure that data values entered by the user in the interview for a template are syntactically correct and to some extent that they are consistent with each other.

Running a template on an old version of XpressDox might give rise to confusing error messages if new features are used.

XpressDox supports the user-facing interface in the language of the user. Bi-lingual interviews are also supported.

The most common problem reported with installing XpressDox for Microsoft® Word 2010 is that XpressDox just doesn’t appear in the Word ribbon after xpressdox.exe (or xpressdox-word-2010×64.exe) has been downloaded and run.

The InterviewTitle command can be used to set the title to something more meaningful to the user than the default title

<<AlignCaptions(Right)>> will cause the right hand side of all of the captions to be aligned just to the left of their respective controls on the interview.

A reseller who invests a lot of time into a set of templates may want to protect those templates from being used by unauthorised users. The RestrictToLicenses command helps with this.

Leading and trailing white space can be removed from a value using the Trim function

The default system behaviour resulting in multiple versions of merged files being saved into a folder can be switched off by the SetSavedDocumentNameVersioning command.

A template author can specify, by template, which templates should be merged and saved in PDF format using the SaveAsPDF command.

The user can be presented with a series of interview forms that are navigated via Next and Back buttons.

There are a number of processing phases performed when a template is run. Understanding these phases is useful when using the advanced file handling and other features of XpressDox.

An entire template can be merged into another template using the <<IncludeTemplate>> command.

Related templates can be run with one command using <<RunTemplates>>

The RunWordMacro command will cause the named macros to be run after the template and data have been merged.

While a template is being run, the MergeTemplate function can be used to cause further templates to be run after that template has been completed.

There are various ways that XpressDox functions can be used to test the contents of strings and manipulate strings. Some examples are given.

Using the <<Define()>> command, the template author can define the interview layout properties of a data element.

The WindowsLogonUserFunction enables the template author to gain access to the Windows® user name with which the person running the template logged on to Windows®.

Various functions are available which change the case of values

This function provides a table lookup mechanism for retrieving values from a table of values.

The Gender function enables the template author to insert the correct gender-related pronouns in the finished document.

The “th” in “25th December 2011″ can be produced using the OrdinalSuffix function.

Any control on an XpressDox interview can be linked to a data source so that data in that control, or any other control, governs which data is to be retrieved.

Optimized parsing can be switched off using this command, for particular situations which warrant it.

XpressDox can fill PDF forms with data from an XpressDox interview, or any other data.

Attach a hyperlink to a heading or footing in the interview.

This command will create a control in the interview that allows the user (when the template is being run) to choose the data from a data source.

Sometimes, if a data element has an empty value, then the paragraph containing that data element should be removed from the merged document. The ShowIfHasValue function achieves this.

A PlaceHolder can be used to include conditional headings and/or footings on an interview.