Document specifications

A document specification can be created and edited in the Launcher. The document specification defines the document templates, data sources, and the output formats to be used to create a report. Before documents can be generated, templates and data sources must be connected accessible from the location of the document specification.

A single document specification can use multiple templates or refer to a template more than once in a document specification. For each template instance, a data source must be configured separately. The document specification does not package its templates or other resources with the output files. If you move a document specification to a different location or computer, you must move the related templates and resources to a location that is accessible from the new document specification location. The document specification does not affect the data source. The document specification associates the data sources with the document template, since the document template associates to the data source schema and not directly to the data source.

You can specify the run time options, like output formats and output destination, for the engine to use. You can also set log and debug options.

The following table lists the elements in a document specification.
Element Description
Metadata Global settings for document generation.
Output The selected output formats. If the output path is not specified, the output is considered to be unconfigured and marked in red. Unique names for each output type are generated in the current user temporary folder. If you choose to save the HTML output, you must also copy the additional folder and files such as the image folder and style sheet file that are generated for this output type.
Target Configured document output.
Templates The list of templates used by the document specification.
Data sources The list of data sources that are configured for the template. Each data source in the document specification matches only one data source schema in the template.
Variables The list of variables that are defined in the template. The variables define the values to be used when generating the output.
In addition to defining the template and output formats, you can perform the following actions from the Launcher application:

Clean your work area to delete the content of the temporary files and output files that are generated by Rational® Publishing Engine. However, make sure that you are not running another instance of Rational Publishing Engine before you clean your work area.


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