Working with PDF Documents

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# Working with PDF Documents

This document covers the following topics:

- General Information

- About the Adapter Listener

- Example

- Built-in Events

- Advanced Data Binding and Rendering

## General Information

There are 2 different ways to generate PDF documents for Natural page layouts:

- REPORT and REPORT2 control
  You can fill a report dynamically at runtime from within your Natural program. According to the defined report, a PDF document is generated. This approach defines the look and feel of the PDF at runtime and therefore requires some programming in the corresponding Natural programs. For further information, see the description of the REPORT and the REPORT2 control.

  The REPORT2 control can be used with responsive and non responsive pages. In difference to the REPORT control, the REPORT2 control does not require to additionally render the data in the page itself. It can be used to simply trigger the generation of a PDF report from a Java or Natural program.

- Adapter Listener (com.softwareag.cis.server.adapterlistener.PDFFOPListener)
  You can define the look and feel of the PDF document at design time. To do this, you create a specific PDF print form using the Layout Painter. This approach defines the PDF in a descriptive way and requires no programming on the Natural side. This approach is described in the topics below.

## About the Adapter Listener

Using the adapter listener `com.softwareag.cis.server.adapterlistener.PDFFOPListener`, you can bind a NATPAGE page layout to a PDF print layout. The data in the PDF layout is descriptively bound to the properties of the NATPAGE page layout at design time. The NATPAGE page layout and the PDF print layout share the same data which is provided from the Natural program.

## Example

The following steps describe how to add PDF support to a NATPAGE. You will find a running example in the Natural for Ajax demos.

1. In your NATPAGE page layout, set the property `adapterlisteners` to "com.softwareag.cis.server.adapterlistener.PDFFOPListener". If you have already applied another adapter listener, append the new listener using a semicolon.

       <natpage adapterlisteners="com.softwareag.cis.server.adapterlistener.PDFFOPListener"
       ...

2. Add a button or an icon (or any other control that binds to a method) to the NATPAGE page layout, and as method apply the name "onPrintPDF".

       <button name="Generate Invoice" method="onPrintPDF">
       </button>
       ...

3. Create a PDF print form in the same project as your NATPAGE page layout. The name of the print form must be the same as the name of your page, appended with "_fop". For example, if the name of your page is "PDF_FOP_Demo.xml", the name of the PDF print form must be "PDF_FOP_Demo_fop.xml".

4. In the PDF print form, you use specific CISFO controls to define the rendering and the binding to the data. Use the Layout Painter to add and modify the corresponding CISFO controls. For detailed information on these controls, see PDF Page Layout.

   For the PDF_FOP_Demo_fop.xml layout, no Natural adapter will be generated. The data binding between the NATPAGE and the PDF print form is done via naming conventions. For example, the FIELD control with the name "invoiceNumber" which is defined in the NATPAGE is bound to the corresponding CISFO control in the PDF print form, as shown below.

       <natpage...
           ...
           <field valueprop="invoiceNumber" width="200">
           </field>
       ...
       </natpage>

       <cisfo:foppage2 ...
           ...
           <cisfo:celltext2 text="Sales Order:">
               <cisfo:textreplace2 valueprop="invoiceNumber">
               </cisfo:textreplace2>
           </cisfo:celltext2>
       ...
       </cisfo:foppage2>

## Built-in Events

When using the adapter listener `com.softwareag.cis.server.adapterlistener.PDFFOPListener`, the following events are supported and can be bound to a control's method property:

Event | Description
--- | ---
`onPrintPDF` | Creates a PDF document and opens it in a modal pop-up.
`onUploadPDF` | Uploads the PDF document to the Natural server. See also Documents in Some Common Rules for all Controls.

## Advanced Data Binding and Rendering

Some advanced topics regarding the data binding between the properties defined in the NATPAGE page layout and the PDF print form are covered below.

- Displaying Field Lists

- Customizing Decimal Digits in Grids

- Customizing Boolean Texts in Grids

- Multi Language Settings with Boolean Texts

- Whitespace Handling

### Displaying Field Lists

Example:

    <njx:fieldlist fieldlistprop="myfieldlist" fieldcount="5" hdist="10">
        <njx:fielditem valueprop="myvalue" width="130" invisiblemode="invisible">
        </njx:fielditem>
    </njx:fieldlist>

In the corresponding *_fop.xml layout, the items of the above field list can be referenced as follows:

    <cisfo:celltext2 text="First Item">
        <cisfo:textreplace2 valueprop="myfieldlist.items[0].myvalue">
        </cisfo:textreplace2>
    </cisfo:celltext2>
    ...
    <cisfo:celltext2 text="Second Item">
        <cisfo:textreplace2 valueprop="myfieldlist.items[1].myvalue">
        </cisfo:textreplace2>
    </cisfo:celltext2>

Note that within the *_fop.xml layouts, indexing starts with 0.

### Customizing Decimal Digits in Grids

To customize the decimal digits for all items in a grid, you simply add an XCIDATADEF field and refer to this central field as shown in the example below:

    <xcidatadef dataprop="myDecimalDigits" datatype="int">
    </xcidatadef>

    <cisfo:repeat2>
      <cisfo:row2>
        <cisfo:replace2 valueprop="unitPrice" datatype="float"
                        decimaldigitsprop="/myDecimalDigits" bordercolor="black"
                        borderstyle="solid" borderwidth="1pt" padding="2pt"
                        textalign="right">
        </cisfo:replace2>
        <cisfo:replace2 valueprop="price" datatype="float"
                        decimaldigitsprop="/myDecimalDigits" bordercolor="black"
                        borderstyle="solid" borderwidth="1pt" padding="2pt"
                        textalign="right">
        </cisfo:replace2>
      </cisfo:row2>
    </cisfo:repeat2>

If you would like to customize the decimal digits per item in a grid, add a corresponding XCIDATADEF field as a grid column as shown in the example below:

    <textgridsss2 griddataprop="orderedProducts" rowcount="3" width="100%">
        <column name="Unit Price" property="unitPrice" width="100">
        </column>
        <column name="Price" property="price" width="100">
        </column>
        <xcidatadef dataprop="itemDecimalDigits" datatype="int">
        </xcidatadef>
    </textgridsss2>

The name "itemDecimalDigits" is not fixed. You can choose any valid property name. From within the corresponding *_fop.xml layout, you can refer to this setting as follows:

    <cisfo:repeat2>
      <cisfo:row2>
        <cisfo:replace2 valueprop="unitPrice" datatype="float"
                        decimaldigitsprop="itemDecimalDigits" bordercolor="black"
                        borderstyle="solid" borderwidth="1pt" padding="2pt"
                        textalign="right">
        </cisfo:replace2>
        <cisfo:replace2 valueprop="price" datatype="float"
                        decimaldigitsprop="itemDecimalDigits" bordercolor="black"
                        borderstyle="solid" borderwidth="1pt" padding="2pt"
                        textalign="right">
        </cisfo:replace2>
      </cisfo:row2>
    </cisfo:repeat2>

### Customizing Boolean Texts in Grids

To customize the Boolean texts for all items in a grid, you simply add an XCIDATADEF field and refer to this central field as shown in the example below:

    <xcidatadef dataprop="mybooleantexts">
    </xcidatadef>

    <cisfo:repeat2>
      <cisfo:row2>
        <cisfo:replace2 valueprop="myChoice" datatype="boolean"
                        booleantextprop="/mybooleantexts" bordercolor="black"
                        borderstyle="solid" borderwidth="1pt" padding="2pt"
                        textalign="right">
        </cisfo:replace2>
        ...
      </cisfo:row2>
    </cisfo:repeat2>

If you would like to customize the Boolean texts per item in a grid, add a corresponding XCIDATADEF field as a grid column as shown in the example below:

    <textgridsss2 griddataprop="orderedProducts" rowcount="3" width="100%">
        <column name="Choice" property="myChoice" datatype="xs:boolean" width="100">
        </column>
        ...
        <xcidatadef dataprop="itemBooleanTexts" >
        </xcidatadef>
    </textgridsss2>

The name "itemBooleanTexts" is not fixed. You can choose any valid property name. From within the corresponding *_fop.xml layout, you can refer to this setting as follows:

    <cisfo:repeat2>
      <cisfo:row2>
        <cisfo:replace2 valueprop="myChoice" datatype="boolean"
                        booleantextprop="itemBooleanTexts" bordercolor="black"
                        borderstyle="solid" borderwidth="1pt" padding="2pt"
                        textalign="right">
        </cisfo:replace2>
        ...
      </cisfo:row2>
    </cisfo:repeat2>

### Multi Language Settings with Boolean Texts

`textid` properties are currently not available for Boolean texts. However, you can set the text value in the Natural application depending on the language. Example:

    IF *LANGUAGE = 2
    THEN
       MYBOOLEANVALUES:="Ja;Nein;"
    ELSE
       MYBOOLEANVALUES:="Yes;No;"
    END-IF

### Whitespace Handling

In most cases you choose specific `cisfo:*` controls and containers to reflect the intended whitespaces like line-breaks, tabs and spaces in your reports. However, in some cases you may have the need to simply apply existing text with whitespaces as values of `cisfo:*` controls or the `REPORT` and `REPORT2` control data fields. If you do this, per default spaces and tabs are collapsed. This means, for instance, five spaces are collapsed into one space, and a line-break or a tab is simply rendered as one space. You can customize this behavior for the following controls:

- CISFO:TEXT2

- CISFO:REPLACE2

- CISFO:TEXTREPLACE2

- CISFO:STYLE2

These controls support two properties: `whitespacepreserve` and `tabspaces` (see chapter Application Designer > PDF and FOP Services).

You also can customize this behavior for `TEXT` fields in the `REPORT` and `REPORT2` control data structure. Set the property `whitespacehandling` to true if you want to customize whitespace handling for specific report text fields. This will generate two additional fields - WHITESPACEPRESERVE and TABSPACES in the Natural data structure.

You’ll find corresponding samples in the NaturalAjaxDemos.

### On this page

- General Information
- About the Adapter Listener
- Example
- Built-in Events
- Advanced Data Binding and Rendering