When you select a Palette element, it remains selected by default in the template content editor until you select a new tool. You can either continue by using this default setting and click the Select element to return to your cursor, or you can change the preference for this setting to disable it. Click and for the Keep current palette tool selected after insertion in template preference, select No.
If you have a fairly complex template, you can describe each block in the template using Name and Description properties. The name and description fields are empty by default, the name content displays in the template, and the description content can be displayed in the template element hint field. This can help others reuse the template.
You can edit the content for Text, Styled text, Image, Include file, Bookmark, Comment, Template comment, and Hyperlink elements. Double-click the element from the template content editor to open the content editor window for the element.
By design, only the first line of content entered for elements that use the Content property display in the template content editor. Subsequent lines of text are hidden so that the template designer can focus on the structure of the template at a given time rather than the content of individual elements.
Incorrect formatting values
Tooltips
If you hover your cursor on the field for a selected property, a tooltip displays to give you additional information about the permitted values.
In the Microsoft Word and PDF output formats, consecutive tables appear as a single table in the generated output. The columns do not have the same width across these merged tables unless the col width property is set for each of the tables. When tables are merged, it is possible that the same row might display multiple times if the same data is displaying for multiple tables. You can use the once per table property to remove the duplicate rows.
Reports that have queries on tables might not display the data as you expect. Add queries to rows for consistent display.
When clearing information from queries, Clear queries and Clear all work differently. Clear queries is only available when you select an element that has a query. Clear all removes all of the queries, attributes, filters, sorts, and conditions on the element you have selected and its child elements, if they also have queries or attributes assigned to them. Master pages, styles, and formatting properties are not removed.
Use native sorts whenever possible. Native sorts are more effective and generate documents faster than Rational Publishing Engine sorts.
Use native filters whenever possible. Native filters are more effective and generate document faster than Rational Publishing Engine filters.
If you rename a variable, the name is not updated in a script expression or native filter and creates a reference error. When you rename a variable, ensure that you revise the name in the script expressions and native filters as well.
If you find that a style is not being applied as expected, it might be for one of the following reasons:
Multiple methods of styling
Avoid using more than one of the three methods for applying styles in a template. You might get mixed results in the output and have difficulty troubleshooting. When you must apply additional styling to an element that uses a particular style, apply the customization to a child element. For example, you might want to change the color of a single paragraph that uses a style. Apply the style to the paragraph element and change the color property for the text element that the paragraph contains.In Document Studio, click You can click Customize and deselect the RPE Reference Search or JavaScript Search tabs to remove them from the Search window.
to open the Search window. The use of the File Search and JavaScript Search tabs is not supported.You can locate a query or attribute in the Data Source Schemas view from the element it is applied to by right-clicking an element and selecting . The Data Source Schema view opens and the query or attribute is highlighted.
You can search for a list of queries and attributes by right-clicking an element and selecting . The Search view opens and a list of queries and attributes displays. You can double-click a query or attribute in the results to edit its content.
You can search for a list of variable assignments used in an element by right-clicking the element the variable is assigned to and selecting . The Search view opens and a list of variable assignments displays. You can double-click a variable assignment in the results to edit it.
You can search for a list of variable assignments, attributes, and queries used in an element by right-clicking an element and selecting . The Search view opens and a list displays. You can double-click an item in the results to edit it.
You can search for a list of elements that use a specific query or attribute in a template by right-clicking the query or attribute in the Data Source Schemas view and selecting Search data references. The Search view opens and a list of occurrences displays. You can double-click an occurrence in the results to edit it.
After you perform a search, you can click a column heading to sort the results.
Create special versions of the input sources and keep changing them to evaluate conditions contained in the templates.
Processing of a template is made faster, by limiting the amount of data returned by each query. You can configure the number of data objects per query in the preferences. For example, instead of showing the a complete module with 100 objects, only the first 10 objects are processed.
Input sources can be deactivated by setting their ignore property to true in the document specification. Test a template with single input sources first before testing it with all input sources simultaneously.
You can use relative paths, HTTP paths , or HTTPS paths to related resources in document specifications. When you use relative paths, you can change the directory structure of your files or move them to the central asset management system and still access the files necessary to generate documents. You are prompted to choose between using relative paths or absolute paths when the document specification is saved, when the template is in the same folder as the document specification, when the template is in a child folder of the folder that contains the document specification, or when the template is in a parent folder of the folder that contains the document specification. You cannot specify a relative path to a parent folder of a parent folder.
From the Document Specification view, you can right-click a data source and select Preview data to see the XML data that will be included in your report before you generate it.