In Sparx Enterprise Architect it is possible to insert hyperlinks to other model elements, particularly to other packages, in notes and linked documents. These hyperlinks appear as well in generated RTF reports. No surprise, they are displayed with the same label as defined in the tool. However, for links to packages (which become sections in the document) I'd like the hyperlink to be displayed with the section number that the package is associated with in the document.
E.g., instead of "see ThatOtherPackage" I want to have "see section 4.2" in the document.
Is that possible, and if it is: how can I achieve it?
This is not possible, at least not in the current version (9.3.935) of EA.
The reason is that in an RTF template, element notes are indivisible. In other words, you can't "get at" the contents of a note (such as a hyperlink) to perform any preprocessing (such as a substitution).
In addition, it would be very hard to determine at "compile-time" what section number a package would get. The EA API, while richly featured, does not provide any way to insert code into the RTF generation process.
Hyperlinks are pretty weak things in EA and you'd have more options if you used connectors instead. But I still don't see a way to find the section number during generation.
Related
I have a data dictionary report in Enterprise Architect (same as in this question: How can I exclude a "report.specification" from a Report in Enterprise Architect?) and I would like a table of contents that is clickable (has links).
The current report does generate bookmarks, but if it is possible, I'd like to have a "live" Table of Contents in the output PDF.
This isn't possible in EA right now
Closest developper response I could get for this issue is this forum post:
I talked with Sparx on this topic as I had the same question.
Their response...
"The 3rd party add-in we use for generating these documents does not
support the TOC hyperlinking - so unfortunately the only alternative
is to open the document in another application like Open Office or
Word and simply right-click and update the TOC."
You can always open the Document in Word or Adobe Reader and use the Navigation Pane:
(Word 2013)
1. Click View on the ribbon
2. In the show Section, click Navigation Pane
(Acrobat Reader)
Use the Bookmarks Pane
Also, I find that when generated as a .rtf or .pdf report, the Table of Contents generates with the wrong Style, messing with the Navigation Pane.
Generating the Document in Word format solves this issue
Another Solution:
You can generate the report without the table of contents with Word, create the table of contents when generated and then export it to whatever format you need
Edit:
After some digging, I found that in Word, you can update the TOC and then ctrl+click the numbers to jump pages.
You cannot do this with a pdf
I have a word document file which is a form.
I try to complete it. Here is a screenshot of how it is looks like
When I type in the grey box there is a limitation in length and when I reach it, it won't let me type more.
I am not sure of what it is, however I want to insert an image or a table but I can't.
How can I make it?
The field you are trying to enter information into is a Legacy Text Form Field in Word 2010. In order to have a data entry area within the form that will accept text, tables, and images, delete this field and replace it with a Rich Text Content Control. This control is found on Word's Developer Tab:
Instructions for Displaying Word Developer Tab (if needed)
Like the legacy form fields, content controls allow manual or programmatic entry of data as well the ability to restrict editing of the data within the content control. Gregory K. Maxey has posted an incredibly detailed tutorial on creating forms with content controls, programming the content entry via VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and restricting editing of the control's contents (all of which is available using the Rich Text Content Control):
Create Forms with Content Controls by Gregory K. Maxey
The same author also has an additional posting on content controls where he provides links to and offers explanations of more advanced content control abilities such as data mapping:
Content Controls (Additional Information) by Gregory K. Maxey
Lastly, Microsoft also provides some guidance on programming content controls via .NET (which I think may be beyond the scope of your question, but which I include for future readers):
MSDN: How to Add Content Controls to Word Documents
The above Title is my Manager's words, not mine. :)
This is a follow-up to a question that I posted previously. After reading my assessment on the impacts of converting Word Templates from PC to Mac, I have now been asked to investigate whether Word Templates can be replaced with a "Platform-independent Web-based solution" (her words, not mine). She has suggested using Adobe Forms (ie. Adobe Designer).
Personally, I think the only truly platform-independent web-based solution is text files or html forms. What do other people think?
It's called WordprocessingML (aka. WordXML, WordML)...
Overview of WordprocessingML [Word 2003 XML Reference] at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa212812(office.11).aspx.
MSDN Search for "WordML" at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Search/en-US?query=WordML&ac=3
It could be called XForms...
The Web was suppose to be platform-independent electronic documents. In other words, if you truly want platform-independence, then I agree with you and your forms should be in HTML. Yet, HTML forms are really not a good development platform. That is why Adobe, Microsoft, and others provide "form" solutions. XForms is an attempt to make developing and using HTML forms more flexible, overcome its limitations, and provide a platform-independent object model for completing HTML forms. You might want to look at XForms at http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/.
But, I wouldn't call it PDF
In my opinion, working with PDF files is difficult. I have not looked at the file format specification, but I heard it is not trivial. Moreover, you need a custom editor and you are locked into one vendor, which is Adobe. (Yet, there are other open-source and vendors who support the file format.) Adobe is not know for creating programs that are easy to use.
My Suggestion
If you are already using Word, then moving to WordML should be fairly easy. You can easily convert your existing Word documents into WordML by simply saving them as XML from the Save Dialog; therefore, you can automate this process through code. In addition, I believe WordML supports form templates (the actual form) and data documents (the actual data for a form).
It's called PDF...
At the core (and without the million of extra unnecessary features" that's exactly the niche that Adobe PDFs were designed to fill.
I'd suggest you look more into Adobe Acrobat Professional for more info. Although, I don't think there's any good way to directly convert Word docs to PDF format.
Note: This question should be moved to Super User since it's not really programming related
Google Docs meets those requirements of a Platform-independent Web-based solution. Your mileage will vary with Google Docs though - if you just want to use it for letters, it's good. Much beyond that, it's rather limited. Unless you get the Premier (read: Corporate) version which you have to pay for, you won't be able to programmatically fiddle with the templates.
If you want a "Platform-independent solution", go with ODF or OOXML. You can make either "web-based" to your hearts content - maybe with HTML5 or another solution such as Flash or Silverlight.
I am doing a report which contains more 1000 records by using pdfptable of itext. it is not easy to seek a particular record, so i am wondering if there is any way to add bookmark in a pdfpcell.
To add bookmarks into a pdf using iTextSharp, you have to use the Chapter and/or Section objects. While technically, you can make this work, the Chapter and Section objects have some limitations and some pretty large overhead, especially for 1000's of items. Also, I have never been able to stop the chapter and section numbers from being displayed in my document, which is probably an issue for you if your content is in pdfpcells.
This link provides a good introduction to adding Bookmarks to a pdf. Scroll down to almost the end of the article for the Bookmark section.
Also in this article, is information about setting LocalDestinations in a pdf. These don't show up as Bookmarks, and they require both a 'Goto' link and a 'Destination'. So, if you were willing or able to create an index page in your pdf, this might be a better solution. Your index page would contain all of the 'Goto' links, and the content in your pdfpcells would be the LocalDestinations.
Are there any good alternatives to Adobe Acrobat for creating interactive PDFs? The terminology is a little fuzzy here - by interactive, I mean "able to be filled in", and not necessarily "scriptable". So this form would be for data collection, rather than report generation which seems to be the common scenario for pdf-related questions on SO.
The trick is that they need to be fillable using Adobe Reader. For those who have not experienced the many frustrations of Acrobat - by default, Reader cannot fill in a form unless it was created using Acrobat Pro >8.0 and has specifically enabled usage rights. That's fine and it basically works (except then Pro users can't save their data - WTF?).
Because I am getting frustrated, I would ideally like to avoid Adobe products altogether (that is on the design side, for the users Reader is still a necessity or I would just do it as a db-backed web form). I'm wondering if anyone has has good experiences with alternatives? Either software libraries or products?
Thanks!
EDIT - Thanks, matt b - I'd seen iText before but didn't know it could create forms. Unfortunately, it looks like Reader cannot save filled-in data to the forms generated by iText (or generated by OO Writer). I've got the nasty feeling that what I want is fundamentally impossible except using Adobe's own rights management tools. If there are other ideas. I'd love to hear them.
You can create fillable form PDFs using OpenOffice.org as well as LibreOffice.
To create the initial form elements in the *.odt documents, enable the View --> Toolbars --> Form Controls tools, which allow you to add clickable checkboxes + radiobuttons, fillable text fields, pushbuttons and some more to the page(s).
When you're finished with your document, use File --> Export as PDF with the checkbox Create PDF form enabled.
Now your PDF form will be editable (and saveable!) with any non-Adobe PDF viewer.
NOTE, however: Adobe uses an own proprietary way to create and fill PDF forms. Adobe Reader does only support to fill PDF forms which were created by an Adobe product (and which have been assigned 'extended rights' so Reader can indeed save the formdata alongside the document).
Adobe Reader will not work with PDF forms you created with OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice ('work' in the sense of: 'allows you to fill+save the form data'.). The technical mechanism behind this is that Adobe digitally sign their form documents with their own key (which is known to the Adobe Reader, and which you agreed to not reverse engineer when you accepted the Adobe Reader EULA...). --
This means:
Non-Adobe PDF Readers will not be able to 'fill+save' forms created with Adobe products (they can 'fill+print' them however).
Adobe PDF readers will refuse to 'fill+save' forms created with non-Adobe products (they will 'fill+print' them however).
The latter two points will be true for all the tools and utilities mentioned in the other answers to this question. If I'm mistaken here, please let me know in a comment...
iText is pretty much the standard in the java-world for generating PDF files programmatically. Perhaps it can also be used to create PDFs with forms in them as you would like?
The open source page layout tool Scribus has a bunch of features oriented to creating interactive PDF forms. I haven't personally used them, but they appear reasonably complete and are covered by the tutorial.
Scribus is worth knowing about if you ever need to do serious page layout in any case.
XSL FO is some thing we used to create PDF files out of existing form data. Unless you want the fillable pdf to be sent out the client, this is a valid option.
IText lets you create Annotations (there are essentially 3 types of 'interactive' components - forms (old style FDF and new XFA) and Annotations. Acrobat and lots of third party tools should let you modify the Annotations values.
There is also a DotNet version of IText called ISharp - both are freeand extremely powerful.
CutePDF Pro allows you to turn a PDF into an interactive form.
Foxit reader allows you to save any pdf with the filled in fields.
I recently dabbled with Scribus. I found it to be an excellent tool if one has enough time to configure and play around with it. I highly recommend it. Wufoo is also very good.
I am not a fan of Acrobat / Adobe. A software should make my life easier not challenge me at every step.
If you search the net with these keywords - FREE FORM CREATOR and you can add the word HTML5.
You will find an array of sites where you can log online and all your clients can have their separate login, fill in data and the form remains in the Cloud and declutter your hard drive. All stakeholders can access the form and edit at anytime. The account can be used as a folder for your business. These forms can be accessed on any device and any platform.
Many of these forms are HTML5 driven, they are so beautiful and fluid. Keep away from macros, they carry viruses.
www.homebasedofficeservices.com