How to manage variables and conditions with RowMerge?

You have already created your first RowMerge template? RowMerge provides a set of variables and syntaxes to generate increasingly sophisticated documents.

Conditions: #if

Sometimes you want your template to adapt its behavior to your rows. For example write she for females and he for males. You could add a column in your table specifying he or she, but it wouldn't be elegant, and it's likely that your table already includes the information about their gender under a form or another.

You can use the {{#if}} instruction to decide what should be included in your generated document. This instruction follows one of the 2 following formats:

{{#if;column_name;second_argument;operator}}text to display if TRUE{{#end}}

or

{{#if;column_name;second_argument;operator}}text to display if TRUE{{#else}}text to display if FALSE{{#end}}

Where:

• column_name is the name of the column you want to test
• second_argument can be either a column name or a constant.
• operator can be <, <=, >, >=, == or !=.

Let's get back to our example. Our table contains a column with either Mr or Mrs. Here is how you can user that information to decide if your document should state she or he.

{{#if;Gender;"Mr";==}}he{{#else}}she{#end}}

Get data from several Tables: #joinrows

Ready to go a step further? You can generate a RowMerge document using data from several tables with the {{#joinrows}} instruction.

You need to let RowShare know how tables relate to each other: each other table needs to share one column with your main table. For example, if you want to join a table of tasks and a table of employees to identify the owner of each task, both tables need to list the task owner name or task owner ID.

This instruction follows this format:

 {{#joinrows;linked_table_ID;column_of_the_current_table;column_of_the_linked_table}}

Here is the explanation of each parameter:

• linked_table_ID: the id of the external table (you find the ID in its URL, it's the last part after rowshare.com/t/).
• column_of_the_current_table: the column name in the table hosting the RowMerge template
• column_of_the_linked_table: the column name in the other table

After having inserted the text you want to repeat for each corresponding row in the other table, add #endrowsto end this section.

 {{#endrows}}

Column Formats

It is possible to specify the display format of your information by using: {{name_of_the_column:format}}.

Here are the main supported formats:

• {{name_of_the_column:c}}for a currency
• {{name_of_the_column:p}}for a percentage
• {{name_of_the_column:d}}for a date
• {{name_of_the_column:image}}for an image

For other format options, check Microsoft web site for number formats and for date formats.

Focus on Images

For Pictures, you can use additional optional parameters, following this syntax:

{{name_of_the_column:image:horizontal scale:vertical scale:width goal:height goal}

Each setting after image is optional, but you need to include the colons if you use at least one of these parameters:

• Horizontal Scale and Vertical Scale: Integers representing a percentage. They represent the scale you want to apply to your picture.
• Width Goal and Heigth Goal: Integers representing the picture target size. Specify only one to keep initial aspect ratio. Width and Height Goals can be specified in 3 units:
  • px: pixels
  • cm: centimeters
  • twips (no format extension)

Examples:

• {{name_of_the_column:image:50:50::}} Picture resized to 50% of its original height and width
• {{name_of_the_column:image:::400px:}} 400 pixels wide, automatic width
• {{name_of_the_column:image::::29cm}} 29 centimeters high, automatic width
• {{name_of_the_column:image:::500:1000}} 500 twips wide, 1000 twips high

Generated Files: decide their name and number

One file per row or a single file for all rows?

If you run a RowMerge job on several rows, by default, a ZIP archive is created with a document for each row.

You can specify that you want a single file containing all rows. This is done by adding at the end of the document the {{#beginrows}} , {{#endrows}}and{{#onefile}}instructions.

The {{#onefile}} instruction indicates that only one file will be produced, whereas the{{#beginrows}} and {{#endrows}} tags show which area of the template will be repeated for each of your table's rows. In this case, the full document will be duplicated for each row. But you could have a document header that wouldn't be repeated and therefore left outside of the{{#beginrows}} {{#endrows}}section.

You can download the complete example by clicking here.

You can add options to {{#beginrows}} and {{#joinrows}} to limit loading or to sort rows:

• Min: set to 0 to avoid line breaks
• Max: Maximum number of rows loaded
• OrderBy:Name_Of_The_Column: Sorting in ascending order
• OrderByDescending:Name_Of_The_Column: Sorting in descending order

File Name: #filename

You can edit the name of the generated file(s) by using the command {{#FileName;name_of_file}}:

As illustrated above, you can add the contents of a column to the file name to make it more descriptive: {{#FileName;Name_of_the_file_{Column}}}.

You can download an example here.

Zip Archive File Name: #zipfilename

Similarly, you can edit the name of the generated archive by using the command {{#ZipFileName;name_of_file}}:

You can download an example here.

JavaScript and more

In RowMerge document templates, it's also possible to add JavaScript code and use Word formulas.

Our team at RowShare is also available to create RowMerge templates for you. Share your need and ask for a quote.