Create documents based on templates

[alfuser123]

Hi all

Could someone share some insight on the capabilities of Alfresco to create a document based on a template. The template would be divided into sections allowing the users to paste/ input text in each section. All formatting is applied by the template.

The document should be a Word DOC but we can transform and workflow the document post-creation.

The use-case is to allow rapid creation of quotations and other documents through a simple format-free interface, following which a workflow would be applied.

Thanks for everyones input - it's valued.

Craig

[invictus9]

I would love to see one of these applications!

To answer a small part of your question: Yes, there is a way to create a document via a template. You can start here: http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Template_Guide – basically, you can tell Alfresco to create a new document by binding a template to an existing document. If your existing document were an XML document, you could turn it into another format using transformation rules indicated by the Freemarker Template Language. The XML document would be free to have links to other documents which could then be included and recursively expanded by the template engine. The output format would be your choosing; I might suggest, for instance, Open Document format, which is XML-based, and can be easily opened by MS-Word. It is only a small part of your question.

[alfuser123]

Thanks mate. It sounds like a killer set of features, but it also isn't trivial by the sounds of it. Thanks for pointing me in the direction; I'd still need to understand how a theme could be applied to the document through the template.

Does anyone have something like this built? (Is there a bounty type system to pay for functionality?)

Cheers

[invictus9]

Does anyone have something like this built? (Is there a bounty type system to pay for functionality?)

Cheers

I have seen bounties offered on several of these boards, but I have no idea of the effectiveness of the process.

You would have to be pretty clear what your specification is; consultant prefer to bill by the hour for "I'll know it when I see it" specs.

Just to expand on one aspect of what I was suggesting earlier: Look into DocBook, http://docbook.org – a documentation format in XML which is often used for preparation of technical documents. One advantage to using DocBook is that it is an intermediate format that can readily be translated into other formats, including Open Document Format, PDF, HTML, etc. With the inclusion of stylesheets (CSS), you could define a lot about the look and feel.

[buurd]

We use a functionallity that is called MetadataWriter.

We use a webscript to show a form to the user, then we copy an empty word-document (.doc), sets the metadata on the new document (both alfresco properties and inside the document). The "template" is prepared to show the metadata at specific locations in the document. When someone opens the document they are presented with a header that shows the latest metadata from Alfresco, like the document-version.

Our usecase it that we have a lot of documents going in and out of the building and it is hard to know if the supplier has the latest version. Therefore we use Alfresco to write the version (and some other properties like projectnumber etc) inside the document to remove the manual process of updating those fields in the document.

Best regards
Roland

[scopio]

Hi Roland, I am also trying to write some alfresco properties including custom meta data back into the word document properties using MetadataWriter. But I am still struggling to get this MetadataWriter working. There are not much help guides around. can you please put me in the right direction.
Regards,
Ruwan.

[arihantj]

Hi
I want to create template using java. I am new in Alfresco.
So please share some basic step like how to create template using java and share java code.


Thanks and Regards,
Arihant