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Designer Report Flow

DynamicPDF Designer defines a general layout out for a PDF report as a template that is then saved as a DLEX file. DynamicPDF then uses its LayoutEngine to generate the actual PDF report from the DLEX file.

The DynamicPDF Designer defines a general layout of a PDF report as a template that is saved as a DLEX file. A DLEX file is XML and defined by DynamicPDF's DLEX schema (DLEX). The DynamicPDF LayoutEngine then uses the DLEX to generate the actual PDF report.

In the Designer you can,

  • set page heights, widths and margins,
  • set header and footer sections,
  • add elements to any section,
  • include multiple reports in a single report, and
  • add static pages before or after reports.

The Designer generates a template for a report as a DLEX file. The actual report is generated by the LayoutEngine as follows:

  1. A new page is added to the PDF using the defined dimensions and margins specified in the DLEX file.
  2. The header and footer are placed on the page.
  3. The detail section (defined in the DLEX file) is then added for every record in the the recordset.
  4. As applicable, any sub-reports are added to the report's details.
  5. The report is complete upon reaching the end of the recordset. If a recordset contains more than a single page of data, then a new page is created and the records for that page are added.
  6. Repeat the steps 1 to 3 until all records have been displayed.
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The designer-usersguide-examples GitHub project contains numerous examples illustrating the many different components of a DLEX document. The Samples folder in your DynamicPDF cloud storage also contains numerous example projects. Refer to the Designer Examples documentation for more information.