Clarion Community Help

The Report to PDF Procedure template provides exact control as to when to use the output document format, global overrides of selected string settings, and report controls that need to be hidden or skipped when this output format is enabled.

The following options are provided (and only available if the associated Global Extension is active):

Populate on Report

The Report to PDF Global Extension populates this template in all reports by default. Select Never if you do not want this report to be directed to a PDF document. Select Always if you want this output type available always for this report at runtime. Select Conditional if you need to make this output available based on a certain condition, specified in the next prompt.

Condition

This prompt is available if you have specified Conditional in the Populate on Report prompt above. A condition can be a simple variable or an expression. If the variable or expression evaluates to non-zero, the PDF document output capability will be active for this report at runtime.

Press the “E” button to call the Expression Editor. This dialog is used to help you construct syntactically correct expressions to use in the Condition prompt.

General Tab Options

Output Name Type

If you have directed that the report print to a PDF document file, specify a Fixed, Variable or Runtime name here. Fixed will use a default name. Variable can be used to designate a fixed name based on a variable condition at runtime, like a date, user name, order number, etc.

Runtime allows the end user to specify a custom name and optional folder to direct the PDF document to.

When a report is generated, PDF pages are generated based on the number of pages generated by the report. Bookmarks identifying jumps to each page can be designated below.

PDF Options

PDF Options include special features only targeted to PDF document types:

Document Title

Enter string text or variable (using the !variable format) to populate the Document Title PDF document tag. This information is usually seen in the title bar of the PDF Viewer.

Application Name

Enter string text or variable (using the !variable format) to populate the Application Name PDF document tag. This tag is usually used for other programs to access special information from the PDF through web pages, in this case, the application/PDF name tag.

Program Name

Enter string text or variable (using the !variable format) to populate the Program Name PDF document tag. This tag is usually seen used by other programs to access special information from the PDF through web pages, in this case, the programname/PDF name tag.

Subject

Enter string text or variable (using the !variable format) to populate the Subject PDF document tag. This tag is usually seen used by other programs to access special information from the PDF through web pages, in this case, the subject/PDF name tag.

Author

Enter string text or variable (using the !variable format) to populate the Author PDF document tag. This tag is usually seen used by other programs to access special information from the PDF through web pages, in this case, the author/PDF name tag.

Keywords

Enter string text or variable (using the !variable format) to populate the Keywords PDF document tag. This tag is usually seen used by other programs to access special information from the PDF through web pages, in this case, the keywords/PDF name tag.

Use Pages as Parent Bookmark

PDF documents provide bookmarks that are similar to a hyperlinked Table of Contents. Check this box to designate that bookmarks will be created for each report page generated.

        Use Scan Copy Mode

This option supports use of any image format and any font. The WMF pages are converted to PNG so the resulting PDF is an exact copy.

System Requirements 1. If you use this option you must deploy ClaRunExt.dll (located in the BIN folder). 2. The systems where this is deployed must have the Microsoft VC++ (x86) 2005 runtime installed 3. The systems where this is deployed must have the Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 runtime installed Both of these requirements can easily be installed using SetupBuilder, or with the ClaRunExtSetup.exe that can be found in the Clarion BIN folder. Compress Text and Compress Images When generating a report to PDF, you can compress text and line art, and compress all report images. Compression can significantly reduce the size of a PDF file with little or no loss of detail and precision. Security Press the Security button to access the following security and permissions options for this generated PDF document: Encrypt Document From the drop list select the appropriate option to Never, Always, or Conditionally encrypt this the generated PDF file. If Conditional is selected, enter a valid expression (variable or constant value) in the Condition entry. Likewise enter a valid variable or constant value in the Password entry(Example: GLO:Password or 'mypassword'). If you are encrypting the document, a password is required. Access Rights A variety of user access rights are listed here on the Security dialog. As with encryption, check the Use a variable to specify user access rights? box, and specify a variable name or expression in the Expression entry. If the value in the Expression line is TRUE, the checked access rights will be granted to the user. Controls Tab Options The Controls tab displays a list box of every report control's Field equate label that is populated on the report structure. A Field equate label (FEQ) can represent text displayed on the generated report output, but can also identify report logic for Headers, Footers, Detail Bands, Form Bands, and Break structures. Select a control in the list box, and press the Properties button to modify a report's target FEQ. The Report to PDF Procedure template supports nearly all report controls, with the exception of .WMF and .BMP files stored in IMAGE controls, and LIST controls. Controls' PDF Properties HIDE (Omit printing) If a report's FEQ targets a field used specifically for special documents generation (i.e., Hyperlinks, Bookmarks, etc.), check this box to hide (omit) this FEQ from the report's printed output. SKIP (Omit processing) A report's contents can be redirected to multiple types of output documents when using the new Advanced Report Generation templates. Check this box to designate that the selected FEQ will not be used for this type of generated document output (e.g., PDF). For example, you would want to skip a control used to generate a special XML tag when generating to PDF. HIDE on PDF (Omit display on PDF) Check this box to hide the selected control in the output PDF document. This should be used for controls that generate hidden PDF document information, and do not need to be displayed. Add Field Action A PDF document is one of the most common document formats used in the office and on the web today. One of the reasons for this is its document versatility. You can embed many types of special document features throughout the document output. Check this box to designate that the selected report FEQ will use one of these special field types. Field Action Select Hyperlink, Command Line, Annotation, or Page Action from the drop list. This setting will control the Field Action prompts that follow. Hyperlink Field Action: Target Origin This prompt is only active if you are not SKIPing the control. Select Control Text to allow the PDF generator to create a hyperlink for this control into the output document. For example, you may have a control in your data table that stores hyperlinks to customer's websites. As the control is generated to PDF, the column's text (i.e. 'http://www.softvelocity.com') will be hypertext. Select HardCoded from the drop list, and press the ellipsis button on the Target prompt to select a variable that holds PDF specific information that will be assigned to a report's FEQ that is static (always generated). By contrast, select Dynamic from the drop list, and press the ellipsis button on the Target prompt to select a variable that holds PDF specific information that will be assigned to a report's FEQ that is conditionally generated. A example of this could be a Detail band that is conditionally generated based on a table column's value. The target variable may hold special PDF tag information that displays additional color, text, formatting, etc. Hyperlink Type This prompt is used to seed the proper hyperlink syntax to the target origin. HTTP Adds “HTTP:” text in front of the selected Target Origin. MAIL Adds “mailto:” text in front of the selected Target Origin. FTP Adds “FTP:” text in front of the selected Target Origin. NEWS Adds “news:” text in front of the selected Target Origin. Other An additional prompt, Other Type appears with this choice. Enter anything into the Other Type prompt. This choice is used if you need to add any custom hyperlink that's not included above to your Target Origin. Other Dynamic An additional prompt, Other Type, appears with this choice. Press the ellipsis button to select a variable that will hold the custom hyperlink type information. This choice is used if you need to add any dynamically changing or conditional hyperlink that's not included above to your Target Origin. None ' Adds no additional text to the Target Origin Hyperlink Boxed Check this box if you would like this hyperlink to have a box drawn around it in the PDF document. Box Color This prompt is enabled if the Hyperlink Boxed check box is checked. The color that you select here is assigned to the box border generated. Command Line Field Action prompts: A PDF document can have hot links that can be used to execute an external program. Command Press the ellipsis button to select a valid executable program to run from this control specified in the PDF document output. As always, the program should be in a relative path to the PDF document location. Parameters Use this prompt and associated ellipsis button to construct an optional parameter list that can be used with the Command program selected above. Hyperlink Boxed Check this box if you would like this command line link to have a box drawn around it in the PDF document. Box Color This prompt is enabled if the Hyperlink Boxed check box is checked. The color that you select here is assigned to the box border generated. Annotation Field Action prompts: A PDF annotation is used to provide additional information in a specific area of the PDF document. You normally double-click on an annotation area and a popup window is displayed with additional information. Annotation Text Origin Select Control Text to allow the PDF generator to create an annotation mark for this control into the output document. Select HardCoded from the drop list, and press the ellipsis button on the Target prompt to select a variable that holds PDF specific information that will be assigned to a report's FEQ that is static (always generated). By contrast, select Dynamic from the drop list, and press the ellipsis button on the Target prompt to select a variable that holds PDF specific information that will be assigned to a report's FEQ that is conditionally generated. A example of this could be a Detail band that is conditionally generated based on a table column's value. The target variable may hold special PDF tag information that displays additional color, text, formatting, etc. Page Action Field Action prompts: Page Action in a PDF document allows a hot link to other pages in the PDF document. Action Select the target location of the page Action from the drop list. These options are self-explanatory. Hyperlink Boxed Check this box if you would like this Page Action link to have a box drawn around it in the PDF document. Box Color This prompt is enabled if the Hyperlink Boxed check box is checked. The color that you select here is assigned to the box border generated. Add Bookmark Check this box to allow a report's Field Equate Label's contents to be added to the PDF document's bookmarks Bookmark Text Origin Select Control Text to allow the PDF generator to create a bookmark based on the control's value into the output document. Select HardCoded from the drop list, and press the ellipsis button on the Target prompt to select a variable that holds PDF specific bookmark information that will be assigned to a report's FEQ that is static (always generated). By contrast, select Dynamic from the drop list, and press the ellipsis button on the Target prompt to select a variable that holds PDF specific bookmark information that will be assigned to a report's FEQ that is conditionally generated. A example of this could be a Detail band that is conditionally generated based on a table column's value. The target variable may hold special PDF tag information that displays additional color, text, formatting, etc. Add Bookmark Parent Check this box to designate that this bookmark will be attached to a parent bookmark that is named below. Parent Bookmark Select a parent bookmark that will include the selected control's bookmark in the generated PDF output. Use PDF Font**

Check this box to replace the current font used on the report for this control and replace it with a new name. Select a valid PDF font replacement from the drop list provided.