B4J Tutorial [XLUtils] Creating MS Word Documents

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XLUtils v2.00 adds support for creating MS Word documents, and converting Word documents to PDF.
It is done in a similar way to BCTextEngine, using custom BBCode. This works very nicely with B4X smart strings feature.

Full example:
B4X:
Dim wd As WordUtils
wd.Initialize
Dim doc As WordDocument = wd.CreateDocument
doc.Append($"[p]Word document with two lines.
This is the second line.[/p]"$)
Dim f As String = doc.SaveAs(File.DirApp, "1.docx", True)
Wait For (wd.OpenWord(f)) Complete (Success As Boolean)

wd.OpenWord and wd.PowerShellConvertToPdf are Windows only methods and depend on MS Word being installed. All other methods are based on jPOI (Apache POI) and do not depend on anything else.

With a few exceptions, the document is made of paragraphs ([p]) with rich text.
Text outside of the paragraphs is ignored.
The rich text tags (case insensitive):
b - bold
u - underline. It supports the following optional attributes: color and pattern. Pattern should be one of the following values: https://poi.apache.org/apidocs/4.0/org/apache/poi/xwpf/usermodel/UnderlinePatterns.html
See the attached example.
embossed - text becomes embossed.
shadow - shadow is added to the text.
color - text color. Can be one of the following color names (case insensitive): Black, Blue, Cyan, Green, Magenta, Red, Yellow, White, DarkBlue, DarkCyan, DarkGreen, DarkMagenta, DarkRed, DarkYellow, DarkGray and Gray.
Or: a hex value - 0xff00ff00
B4X:
$"[color=red]text here[/color]"$
font - font name:
B4X:
$"[font=Arial]text here[/font]"$
textsize - text size.
break - adds a new line. This tag is used internally.
i - italic.
strike - strikethrough text
img - adds an image. It expects the following attributes: Dir, FileName, Width and Height. png and jpg images are supported. This is a self-closed tag.
Pass "assets" for assets files.
B4X:
$"[img Dir=assets FileName="file name.png" Width=50 Height=50/]"$
highlight - text highlight color. One of the named colors listed above. Hex values are not supported.
B4X:
$"[highlight=Yellow]text here[/highlight]"$
bookmark - Internal links can point to the bookmark:
B4X:
$"[bookmark=anchor_name/]"$
url - An external or internal link: https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/xlutils-word-bookmarks-urls-and-page-breaks.131826/

The paragraph tag supports the following attributes:
Alignment - horizontal alignment. One of the values listed here: https://poi.apache.org/apidocs/4.0/org/apache/poi/xwpf/usermodel/ParagraphAlignment.html
B4X:
$"[p Alignment=Center][b]text[/b] here[/p]"$
IndentationLeft - left indentation:
B4X:
$"[p Alignment=Left IndentationLeft=30][b]text[/b] here[/p]"$
PageBreak - if true, the paragraph will start on a new page.

The header and footer are set with the header or footer tags:
B4X:
$"[header]
[p]this text will go to the header[/p]
[/header]"$

Tables:
Tables are created with the Table tag.
This tag expects two attributes: rows and cols, number of rows and columns. It also accepts the Alignment attribute with one of the following values: left, center or right.
A table must hold rows and cells:
B4X:
doc.Append($"[table rows=2 cols=3]
    [row]
        [cell width=100][p]1, 1[/p][/cell]
        [cell width=100][p]1, 2[/p][/cell]
        [cell width=100][p]1, 3[/p][/cell]
    [/row]
    [row]
        [cell][p]2, 1[/p][/cell]
        [cell][p]2, 2[/p][/cell]
        [cell][p]2, 3[/p][/cell]
    [/row]
[/table]
    "$)

Don't forget to add one or more paragraphs in the cells.
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The row tag supports the following attributes: height and RepeatHeader - whether the header should repeat if the table spans multiple pages.
The cell tag supports the following attributes: color - cell background color, VerticalAlignment - Top, Center, Both or Bottom, width, RowSpan and ColSpan (see post #7).
 

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  • WordExample.zip
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Last edited:

Erel

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XLUtils v2.01 adds support for merging cells horizontally and vertically.

It is done with ColSpan and RowSpan Cell attributes. There is a subtle difference in the behavior of these two attributes.
B4X:
    doc.Append($"
[table rows=3 cols=3]
    [row]
        [cell width=100][p Alignment=Center]first[/p][/cell]
        [cell ColSpan=2 width=200][p Alignment=Center]2 + 3[/p][/cell]
        No third cell!
    [/row]
    [row]
        [cell][p Alignment=Center]first[/p][/cell]
        [cell RowSpan=2 VerticalAlignment=Center]
[p Alignment=Center]second
and
second[/p][/cell]
        [cell width=100][p Alignment=Center]third[/p][/cell]
    [/row]
    [row]
        [cell][p Alignment=Center]first[/p][/cell]
        [cell][p]*** we need to keep this cell but it will not appear ***[/p][/cell]
        [cell][p Alignment=Center]third[/p][/cell]
    [/row]
[/table]
    "$)
1624196057813.png

The horizontally merged cells are omitted in the table declaration.
The vertically merged cells are kept but there content is ignored.
 

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  • WordExample.zip
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