MS Word template

MS Word template is a file in the .docx format containing placeholders that will be replaced with new data. Word templates (except the text values) can render images and tables content.

Table of contents:

• Placeholders
• Tables
• Images
• Formatters
• Languages and translations
• Template examples
• Code examples

Placeholders

Placeholders are used when you need to populate the .docx file with data. Each placeholder starts and ends with the opening { and closing } brace correspondingly and refer data field by field id or a System name. For example:

{2500000024117643203}

It also is possible to refer to subfields of any level by adding corresponding id(s)/System name(s) separated by a dot. For example:

{customer.order.item.quantity}

The exact formatting (font style, size, color, etc.) you have applied to the placeholder in the template will be used in the resulting text.

Formatters

A custom Formatter is a unique identification that changes the way how the text should look. For instance, "John" can be printed in the uppercase "JOHN", lowercase john, bold John, or italic John. To format a placeholder in the desired format, we use ? parameter to separate the data type system name (or an ID) from the formatter. After the ? character, you should specify a formatter ID in the form formatterId=something. For example, to convert a text to an uppercase:

{field138?formatterId=140737488357569}

You can find the list of available formatters and set default formatters for each primitive data type on the Builder Formatters page.

Note: You do not have to specify custom formatter with each field. Set default formatters correctly and use custom formatters only when a particular field should be rendered differently. When using custom formatter, please pay attention to the syntax which is case sensitive and does not allow for spaces and other non-printable characters to be inserted before of after the "=" sign.

Languages and translations

Codejig supports template generation in different languages. By default, the text will be rendered in the language currently used by the user on a website.
Using the native Java code, you can select a language that will be used for the template generation:

Binary generateDocViewWithTemplateAndLanguage(AbstractEntity item,
				   Binary template,
				   EntityType type,
				   String filename,
				   Map  map,
				   String languageTag
			       );

or

Binary generateDocViewWithLanguage(AbstractEntity item,
				   Binary template,
				   EntityType type,
				   String filename,
				   String languageTag
			       );

You can also specify the language directly in the template placeholders.
To extend a placeholder with a custom language, you should use parameter lang alongside the language tag. Example: {field137?lang=en}. The list of supported language tags can be found here. If you're going to use custom formatter and custom language, you need to write them separating by & character.
Example: {field137?formatterId=151&lang=en} or {field137?lang=en&formatterId=151}.

Codejig supports older versions of formatters (for ex. {field137?138}) and you don`t need to rewrite them in your templates. However, if you want to set a language parameter to a field, you should rewrite its formatter in a new way.

Template examples

You can find the list of free Word templates here. The list of templates includes:

• Invoice Base
• Invoice Default
• Invoice Contrast
• CV maker

Feel free to download and explore them. Note that some tricks were made to create a document layout. For example, with no cell borders, a table can become invisible. Or additional blank rows/columns can be added to create a margin.
You can see how the "Base.docx" document looked during the development stage in the picture below.

Code examples

To generate a Word template, Java native code is used. A .docx Document is saved in a Binary data type. ViewBasedExportService is required to perform an export.

To import the ViewBasedExportService use:

import com.codejig.builder.infrastructure.ViewBasedExportService;

To create a ViewBasedExportService object:

ViewBasedExportService exportService = (ViewBasedExportService) 
applicationContext.getBean("viewBasedExportService");

In the example below, the generateDocViewWithTemplate function of an exportService object was used. It has the following parameters:

• AbstractEntity item: codejig data type.
• Binary template: file in a .docx format.
• EntityType type: null.
• String filename: name of the resulting file.
• Map map: null.
• Return type: Binary

generateDocViewWithTemplateAndLanguage function also belongs to the ViewBasedExportService class. It has additional String languageTag parameter, where languageTag is a language code.

generateDocViewWithLanguage is the same as generateDocViewWithTemplateAndLanguage, but it doesn't have Map map parameter.

These three functions of a ViewBasedExportService can be used to generate a Word document from a template.

More information
CODE
Translate Data
Language codes
System names