CUSTIS.Generator.Docx

Generates docx document from docx template using data in JSON-format. This is a port from novodocx with some improvements.

Getting started

1. Install CUSTIS.Generator.Docx package
2. Prepare docx-template (see instructions below)
3. Populate template with your data:

var jsonData = "{'someData': 'hello'}"; // data to populate template with
var templateFile = "template.docx"; // file with template 

// populate file with data
var docProcessor = new WordDocumentProcessor(NullLogger<WordDocumentProcessor>.Instance);
using var filled = await docProcessor.PopulateDocumentTemplate(templateFile, jsonData);

// save file
await using var resultFileStream = new FileStream("destination.docx", FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write);
await filled.CopyToAsync(resultFileStream);

How to create template

Open Developer Tab in MS Word and enter Design Mode (instructions).

Simple text

1. Use Plain Text Content Control if you need to render text without line breaks
2. Open Properties
3. Fill Tag with the field name from JSON

Data sample:

var jsonData = @"{'name': 'CUSTIS.Generator.Docx'}";

Output: Hello, CUSTIS.Generator.Docx!

HTML

1. Use Rich Text Content Control if you need to render HTML
2. Open Properties
3. Fill Tag with the field name from JSON

Limitations: only <p>, <br>, <ol>, <ul>, <li> tags are processed. All other tags are skipped.

Data sample:

var jsonData = @"{'formatted': 'Hello,<br/>CUSTIS.<red>Generator</red>.Docx!'}";

Output:

Hello,
CUSTIS.Generator.Docx!

Repeated data (arrays)

1. Use Repeated Section Control if you need to render array
2. Open Properties
3. Fill Tag with the name of array from JSON
4. Use either Plain or Rich Text Content Controls inside Repeated Section Control to render text

Arrays can be rendered as paragraphs, lists or even tables. You can render nested arrays too (with any number of nested lists).

Data sample:

var jsonData = @"{'sports': [{'name': 'swimming'}, {'name': 'football'}]}";

Output:

Sports:
1. Name: swimming
2. Name: football

Visibility conditions

You can manage visibility of content using conditional expressions.

1. Wrap the content into Plain or Rich Text Content Control
2. Open Properties
3. Fill Tag with visible: expression (e.g. visible: myField == 'git')

You can use other content controls inside visibility control.

Supported expressions:

• operand, !operand;
• op1 == op2, op1 != op2;
• only for ints: op1 < op2, op1 > op2, op1 <= op2, op1 >= op2.

Examples of expressions with their result (including !null, null == null, etc.) could be found in ExpressionEvaluatorTests.

Advanced features

Json Path expressions can be used to query data (use it as Tag in Word content control). CUSTIS.Generator.Docx uses Json.NET (from Newtonsoft). You can get some samples of JSON path here.

Limitations

MS Word doesn't allow to repeat columns. The workaround is to create multiple tables (with 1, 2, ... columns) and to wrap each table in visibility expression.

Release

1. Change version in Directory.Build.props
2. Use internal CUSTIS git to push to nuget

Links

• Some info about creating Word templates