Home → Using LincDoc 3.0 → eForm Administration → LincDoc markup - MS Word/OpenOffice

4.3. LincDoc markup - MS Word/OpenOffice

This page describes the syntax used by the LincDoc system when marking up a Microsoft Word or OpenOffice source document.

Fields

A field is identified by two "less than" symbols followed by the field name followed by 2 "greater than" symbols, e.g., <<firstName>>. Rules for field names:

Can only be composed of letters, numbers, and underscores
Must start with a letter or underscore
Must be 63 characters or less

Hidden fields

These fields never display in a generated document, but they will be part of the data entry process: <<firstName[hidden]>>

Codelists

There are 2 types of field widgets backed by a codelist: listboxes and comboboxes. By default, when a document is generated the code is inserted; in order to insert the actual code this syntax should be used (assume we have a field called product): <<product.code>> Similarly the label can be explicitly set like this: <<product.label>> The multi-value fields syntax for using the code is this: <<product#.code>>

Multivalue (a.k.a. multirow) fields inside tables

Sometimes a document needs to query the user to input multiple values for a particular set of fields that are to go into a table in the final document, and the number of values required is only known when executing the eForm. LincDoc will recognize this situation when any source document contains a simple 2 row table with the first row being a header row and the second row containing a template which describes what values are to be gathered at data entry time. Here is a simple example of such a table:

First Name	Middle Initial	Last Name
<<fname#>>	<<minitial#>>	<<lname#>>

Note how the field references end with a pound sign which tells the LincDoc system that these fields are to contain multiple values. At data entry time the user will have the capability to enter as many rows of values as necessary.

Multivalue table assumptions/notes

This technique does NOT work for PDF source documents. You must either use .doc, .docx or .odt (OpenOffice).

The first row of the table is a header row, if and only if the table has 2 rows. In other words, the header row is optional (in which case you would have a table with just one row).

The first cell in the 2nd row of the table must contain at least one field reference, and that reference must be the type that ends in a pound sign as demonstrated above.

The table must be a simple table with no split or merged cells.

The field names in the table must not end with a digit. For example, do not do this:

First Name	Middle Initial	Last Name
<<fname1#>>	<<minitial1#>>	<<lname1#>>

Similarly, you must not create a field that ends with a digit, and the prefix of the field name matches another field inside a multi-value table. Using the above example, you would not want to create a field (external to the table) named fname1.
It is ok to embed multiple pound fields inside a single cell. For example,

Name	Age	Address
<<name#>>	<<age#>>	Street: <<street#>> City: <<city#>> State: <<state#>> Zip code: <<zip#>>

Conditional text

Conditional text allows you to dynamically include paragraphs or text in your completed documents. This functionality is only available in document packages in LincDoc's Enterprise Edition. See Document Package Markup for more details.

Knowledge Tags

This page was: Helpful | Not Helpful

← 1. eForms design