Hi,

I have a case open with IBI for needing a cover page before the table of contents in a compound report, but they are saying that it is not possible at this time. There is a new feature request to add a cover page that would allow images and text (no report data or graphs) before the toc in the works, but even that would not help me as I pull information from a table like a report to create the cover page (client name report type version etc...).

I am posting here to see if anyone has any creative ideas for doing this. I know the forum always have a lot of creativity flowing so if anyone has any ideas, help is appreciated!

I am also using page master layout to incorporate page numbers. If i do the compound report the old fashioned way then I lose the page numbers because my reports have multiple reports (components) per page. And if one component runs over then it doesn't know what page it's one etc...

(At this point my option is to create a java class file that uses PDFReader and PDfWriter classes to combine two pdf reports that are created in webfocus... all I can think of right now).

Any suggestions for page numbers, cover pages or compound reports would be great. I have a sample fex of my compound report below:




SET HTMLARCHIVE=ON
COMPOUND LAYOUT PCHOLD FORMAT PDF
UNITS=IN, $


OBJECT=TOC,
NAME='Table of Contents',
TEXT='Table of Contents',
MARKUP=ON,
TOC-NUMBERING=ON,
color=RGB(0 0 0),
size=10,
ORIENTATION=LANDSCAPE,
POSITION=(0.728 0.832),
DIMENSION=(9.625 7.021),
font='ARIAL', $

OBJECT=bookmarks ,$
SECTION=section1,
LAYOUT=ON,
METADATA='0.5^0.5^0.5^0.5',
MERGE=OFF,
PAGESIZE=Letter,
ORIENTATION=LANDSCAPE, $

PAGELAYOUT=ALL, NAME='Page Master', $
OBJECT=STRING, NAME='text3', TEXT=' ', POSITION=(5.208 8.063), MARKUP=ON, WRAP=ON, DIMENSION=(0.625 0.208), METADATA=' OUTERHTML:

^lt;Page #^gt;

', $
OBJECT=STRING, NAME='text2', TEXT='', POSITION=(8.958 0.354), MARKUP=ON, WRAP=ON, DIMENSION=(1.771 0.208), METADATA=' OUTERHTML:

', $
COMPONENT='DfltCmpt1', POSITION=(0 0), DIMENSION=(0 0), $

PAGELAYOUT=1,
NAME='Page layout 1',
text='Page layout 1',
TOC-LEVEL=1,
BOTTOMMARGIN=0.5,
TOPMARGIN=0.5,
METADATA='BOTTOMMARGIN=0.5,TOPMARGIN=0.5,LEFTMARGIN=0,RIGHTMARGIN=0,', $

COMPONENT='report1',
TEXT='report1',
TOC-LEVEL=2,
POSITION=(0.729 0.874),
DIMENSION=(* *),
METADATA='Z-INDEX: 100; LEFT: 0.729in; OVERFLOW: auto; WIDTH: 5in; POSITION: absolute; TOP: 0.874in; HEIGHT: 1.771in', $

COMPONENT='report2',
TEXT='report2',
TOC-LEVEL=2,
POSITION=(+0.000 +0.206),
DIMENSION=(* *),
RELATIVE-TO='report1',
RELATIVE-POINT=BOTTOM-LEFT, POSITION-POINT=TOP-LEFT, METADATA='Z-INDEX: 100; LEFT: 0.729in; OVERFLOW: auto; WIDTH: 5in; POSITION: absolute; TOP: 2.851in; HEIGHT: 1.563in', $

COMPONENT='report3',
TEXT='report3',
TOC-LEVEL=2,
POSITION=(+0.000 +0.208),
DIMENSION=(* *),
RELATIVE-TO='report2',
RELATIVE-POINT=BOTTOM-LEFT,
POSITION-POINT=TOP-LEFT,
METADATA='Z-INDEX: 100; LEFT: 0.729in; OVERFLOW: auto; WIDTH: 5.104in; POSITION: absolute; TOP: 4.622in; HEIGHT: 1.875in', $
END

SET COMPONENT='DfltCmpt1'
TABLE FILE SYSCOLUM
" "
SUM TBNAME NOPRINT
IF READLIMIT EQ 1
ON TABLE SET PREVIEW ON
ON TABLE SET PAGE-NUM NOLEAD
ON TABLE PCHOLD FORMAT PDF
ON TABLE SET STYLE *
END


SET COMPONENT='report1'
TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT CAR COUNTRY RETAIL_COST
ON TABLE PCHOLD FORMAT PDF
ON TABLE SET PAGE-NUM OFF
END

SET COMPONENT='report2'
TABLE FILE CAR
HEADING
"PRINT CAR DEALER_COST
WHERE COUNTRY EQ 'ITALY'
ON TABLE PCHOLD FORMAT PDF
ON TABLE SET PAGE-NUM OFF
END

SET COMPONENT='report3'
TABLE FILE CAR
HEADING
"PRINT CAR DEALER_COST
WHERE COUNTRY EQ 'ENGLAND'
ON TABLE PCHOLD FORMAT PDF
ON TABLE SET PAGE-NUM OFF
END
COMPOUND END

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kerry,

Dev, SIT, UAT, Production:7.6.6
Dev Sandbox:7.6.11

Dev Studio - 7.6.6

You could make your cover page one big heading. as the first report

TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT CAR NOPRINT
ON TABLE PCHOLD FORMAT PDF

HEADING
"THIS IS MY COVER PAGE"
END


You could insert what ever you need and style it a style sheet.

Or am I being to simple here?

Prarie,

From the sounds of it, that is what he is doing already and why the New feature in the works won't help .

Slfmr,

I'm going to go on the more annoying side of things. Is it possible to create a table of contents through a report?

If you were to use the SET LINES = X command you could take the amount of lines produced by the report in the end and figure out where each report breaks. Its not the most glamorous of solutions, but its a workaround.


When the new feature does finally get here, maybe instead of using a report to generate your cover page you could use a variable and then you would still be utilizing text to satisfy your cover page.

This might help...

we're currently moving from our old BI tool to WebFOCUS.

The old didn't exactly do what we wanted considering compound pdf. Although the situation is totally different, the problem is the same.

I've downloaded PDFTK ( pdf-toolkit ) which is freeware. It can do various stuff with pdf's. Including combining them to one big PDF.

In the old BI-tool.
Run Report A : export als Part_A.pdf ( + memorize outputfile name )
Run Report B : export als Part_B.pdf ( + memorize outputfile name )
Run Report C : export als Part_C.pdf ( + memorize outputfile name )

Dos Call PDFTK Part_A.pdf Part_B.pdf Part_C.pdf -output Report.pdf ( pseudo-code, is not exact syntax )

Or... when in a seperate folder : Call PDFTK *.pdf -output Report.pdf

It might be a workaround...

Greets,dave

I need to concur with Dave's suggestion. I had to use a similar approach. I downloaded something called PdfMerge.
Regards,Twanette

Here's what we do for the TOC and other non-webfocus reports that we insert into a book.

1. We run all of our reportcaster jobs with the output as PDF. Each report has a specific report name in the order that we want the reports to appear. These reports are saved on a network drive.

2. The table of contents is a word document that is saved off as the first name in the file. Other spreadsheets, reports, etc. are saved as a pdf document in the network drive in the order that we want the report to appear.

3. We use section numbering such as A-1 for each report. We turn off page numbering in WF as the page numbers will be assigned later in PDF professional.

4. We use PDF professional to merge the documents together. We can save the merge for next month or if revisions are made.

5. We create hyperlinks for the TOC to the sections.

Its takes about 20 minutes to prepare a 200 page book.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions.

I can't just make my first page a heading because it will still follow the table of contents ( I tried it).

EWoerle, what you suggest would work (after a lot of work.. as I started to attempt this), but i could have 10 reports or 2 on one page and I haven't been able to get the page numbering working this way ... much less a table of contents. That's why I went the Page Master Layout route.... but here I am stuck again. What reporting tool doesn't allow for a cover page? Boggles my mind!

Dave and Twanetter... yes I have a java class that uses pdfreader and writer to combine so I am thinking of doing something similar to what you suggest.

Dan I did look at PDF Professional also... but since I currently don't have it I think java may be the way for me to go.

Thank you all for your replies and help. IBI also suggested not using Page Master Layout and only using Bookmarks to give me my table of contents. I might consider trying this as well but I think that would have me figuring out page numbers manually again. Easiest thing would be the merge.

Thanks again!