Generate documents

General

With Intrexx, document templates for the following word-processing programs can be generated from application view pages:

• LibreOffice

  Recommended

• iText

  Is already included when Intrexx is installed. iText can be selected in the portal properties. iText can be used to generate simple reports without images and tables. this word-processing program is, however, not recommended for more complex reports.

Templates which you create with Intrexx can be designed and extended using all the options available to you in Office programs. When you are finished, all the templates in your application are available to download as a data record.

Enter text editor as external program

In order to use the full range of functions in the document generator, an appropriate text processor should be installed to edit *.odt files (such as OpenOffice / LibreOffice).

During installation, Intrexx recognizes whether LibreOffice is already installed so that the settings described here are made automatically.

If this is not the case please enter the program path via the main menu "Extras / Options / General / External programs". If you do not specify an external program, you will be reminded of this with a notification when configuring the template generation.

Default settings for document generation

The default settings for the document format and the LibreOffice options are defined in the portal properties. There, enter the root directory for LibreOffice from the perspective of the server. Click here for more information.

Configure the document generation

Create a new application based on the Basic application template.

In the new application select the application node and create a new view page using the context menu "New/view page". This automatically opens the properties dialog of the page. Close it by clicking on "OK". Now switch to the "All Entries" page.

Copy the view table.

Switch back to the view page and insert the view table there.

Activate the setting "Use for document generation" on the "Documents" tab. Then click on "Create new document".

Enter a template name and then click on "Next".

The table, which is on the view page, is already selected for the template context here. Click on "Finish".

With click on "Edit template" the template will be opened in the text editor and can be edited there.

From the table, placeholders are generated which are used as textmarkers in the template.

In the portal properties, you can define presets for the template's layout.

Configure a button

So that users can trigger the document generation, you need a button with the action "Create document" on the view page configured for document generation.

Template name

Select the template that should be used to generate documents when the user clicks on the button.

Output format

You can select from the following output formats here:

• Server default

  Uses the format configured in the portal properties.

• Use template

  Outputs in the ODT format.

• PDF

  Generates the document as a PDF.

Layout

The generation will attempt to position the elements in accordance with the view page's layout but this cannot be guaranteed. The data from the view page will be placed dynamically in the new document in place of the placeholders. Tables are constructed using Velocity markup here. If your document has a page break, you can decide whether the heading should be repeated.

Document action in processes

With the process element "Document action", a document can be generated when a data record is added or changed; this document can then be saved directly to a data record.