Synopsis:

 

How do I display items in my publication conditionally in XF Designer 2011?

 

Answer:

 

You can display elements of your publication conditionally. However, there are different ways to conditionally display items based upon where they are in your document and the display condition.

 

 

Items in Body of Document Displayed Based on XML Data

 

Items such as paragraphs or tables that need to be displayed conditionally based upon the value of your xml data is a condition that is set on an object. In XF Designer, select the object and chose Conditional Formatting in the Formatting section of the Home tab. Then select Show or Hide Object to set the visibility property to “hidden” and specify the condition in the box, which means an XPath expression. In order to do this you have to assign a data source to the document. Here is a screenshot:

 

 

Alternatively, you can insert a conditional section in the Insert tab by selecting “Conditional Section” in the Dynamic Content section. Here is another screenshot:

 

 

 

Displaying Table Rows Conditionally

 

If you have a table and want to exclude certain rows from displaying, then you should set the condition on the table-row-repeat of the table (which you can select in the red navigation bar at the bottom of the window). You can then change the Visibility property in the Properties dialog bar under the Positioning section. Click the right arrow by visibility and choose the Conditional Values and then Edit Conditions… and add your test condition. Then you can choose a static value for each condition including the default. Choose collapse for rows you do not want to appear. To check if data exists, just put the element you want to check in the expression box. For example, in the CD Catalog example that we provide, if you want to list only the products that have the price less than 10, you would set it this way:

 

 

The items that have prices greater than 10 will not appear in the table.

The result looks like this:

 

 

 

Items such as Headers and Footers, or Cover Pages Displayed Conditionally Based on Page Location

 

Displaying certain pages or conditional headers and footers based up page location (first page, odd pages, even pages, etc) is done through pagination settings not conditional formatting. The Pagination dialog bar can be opened or closed from the View tab. When it is open, you will see two separate sections: Page Layouts and Pages. Essentially, you create a separate Page Layout for each type of page you want to see (such as a cover page, pages with headers and footers) and then you assign Page Sets to the Page Layouts. To create a new Page Layout, right click on the bold “Page Layouts” heading in the Pagination dialog bar and choose “New Page Layout”. Then, give it a name, such as “CoverPage”. You can then set backgrounds, change the orientation, etc. for your CoverPage. You can then add a new Page Set in a similar manner and assign it to use CoverPage, or use your existing Page Set (right click on your Page Set and select Properties…”). When you assign a Page Layout, you can choose an occurrence condition. If you only have one Page Set and use multiple Page Layouts, you will then see ComplexMaster1 next to your Page Set name. The conditions can be edited using the “Properties…” menu and the conditional options include: First Page, Last Page, Odd Pages, Even Pages, Blank Pages, Non Blank Pages, and All Others.

 

Because text in the body of the document is described through XSL-FO constructs, in which contents can flow from one page to another, the location of certain objects in the body is not known until the document is rendered. Other than footnotes, which are well documented and supported in XSL-FO, displaying items in places other than first page, odd pages, even pages, last page, etc. conditionally based upon page numbers can be tricky.

If you have any questions please contact support@ecrion.com and we will try to help you.