dRofus contains a rich set of predefined reports ready to use. This is the most common and simple way to get data from dRofus to a PDF. In some situations however you need greater control over the data or the layout in the reports, or you simply want to create a new type of report that does not exist. For these cases this document aids you in using the Ecrion XF Designer tool to create reports from dRofus. You could use another tool if you prefer, as long as you could use XML1 as a data source, but we have chosen to use XF Designer because it is in our opinion a high quality tool that is powerful and simple to use and has great support of the XML standards that dRofus is using. It also gives you the ability to export the final report layout for importing back into dRofus so everybody, without XF Designer, could generate a report in dRofus using the new layout.
XF Designer is based on the XML standard and it would be a great benefit to have some knowledge of XML technologies such as XPATH.
Getting Started
Installing XF Designer
The tool and license can be found at http://www.ecrion.com/products/xfdesigner/overview.aspx.
Using the Sample Package
You can download a sample package, containing example reports and data sets and this document, from http://www.drofus.com. The sample package contains:
- Reports: Example reports that can be used as a starting point for creating similar reports or simply to learn how to use XF Designer. Documentation for each report template is explained in chapter 5.1. In the sub folder pdf you can see a preview of the samples.
- Building Blocks: Building blocks are reusable template parts that can be used in multiple report templates. The building blocks are explained in chapter 0.
- Stylesheets: Stylesheets are documents that can define common styles (fonts, sizes, colors etc.) that enable you to quickly change styles in multiple reports in one place. The sample style sheet is explained in chapter 5.4
- Images: Images used in the samples.
- Video tutorials: Screen casts with examples of how to create reports and using the samples.
- XSL: Common special xsl files to include in reports to simplify some tasks.
- XML: Sample data sets for the sample reports and using with XF Designer