Customizing report template

Visual Paradigm for UML (VP-UML) provides a documentation template designer for you to design your own report. This tutorial teaches how to design report template to generate use case report to PDF format.

January 7, 2010
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To create custom template for documentation generation:
  1. Select Tools > Report > Generate PDF Report to open Generate PDF dialog.
    generate pdf report
  2. Once the Generate PDF dialog is opened, select <NEW> from Template combo box to create a template.
    add new report template
  3. Let's name the template as Use Case Diagram.
    name report template
  4. The first step to create a template is to define what kind of diagram will be looped through the report. Press the Diagram Loop button to create a loop.
    add diagram
  5. Select Use Case Diagram in the tree, and then press the right arrow button to add it into the loop.
    add ucd for diagram loop
  6. Click the Diagram Image icon to include the diagram image in report.
    add diagram image
  7. Now let's create a summary table to show what are included under the use case diagram. Press the Add Element Summary icon to insert the summary table of the diagram.
    add element summary
  8. Select Use Case on the tree and press the right arrow button to add it to the included element list.
    add use case for element summary
  9. After you specify what elements will be included in the summary table, you can then specify the properties which you want to show. Press the Add Property Column button to insert a property.
    add prop col for element summary
  10. You can then select the property from the list on the right hand side of the dialog. Let's select the Documentation property.
    select doc for prop col
  11. The Add Property Column Above/Below buttons let you insert property column before or after the current property.
    add prop col below
  12. Let's specify 2 more properties, the Rank of the use case also the Details.Author (Author of use case details).
    specified more prop col
  13. Let's also include the details of use case's in report. Press the Add Element Loop icon to insert use case element.
    add element loop
  14. Select Use Case in the tree and press the right arrow button to add it to the included element list.
    add use case for element loop
  15. Let's include the sub-diagrams of use case in our report. Press the Add Diagram Summary icon to insert a summary table of use case's sub-diagram.
    add diagram summary
  16. Select the diagram types on the tree and press the right arrow button to add them to the included diagram list.
    add diagram types for diagram summary
  17. After specify the diagram types of sub-diagram, press the Add Property Column icon to add a property of the sub-diagram.
    add prop col for diagram summary
  18. You can select the property from the list on the right hand side of the dialog. Let's select Documentation property.
    select doc for prop col
  19. Once you finish defining the template, you can have a preview of the report. Press the Preview Template Structure button can preview the report structure but not the report content.
    press preview template structure
  20. The preview of report structure will be shown at the bottom of the dialog.
    show structure
  21. Press the Preview Template Content button to preview the exact report.
    press preview template content
  22. The preview of report structure together with content will be shown at the bottom part of the dialog. You can select the element on the tree to navigate within the report. Note that the preview may have small difference to the actual generated report.
    show element summary content
    show subdiagram summary content
  23. Element can be re-ordered by right click on it and select Move Up/Move Down.
    move element down
  24. If there are diagrams or model elements you do not want to show in report, you can select them in preview and then right-click to disable Generate in order to ignore them in report.
    not gen some elements
  25. Various options such as cover page, header, footer and info of report can be configured in the report template designer as well. Press the Options button to configure them.
    press options
  26. Let's configure the Cover Page by specifying the Title, Organization name also the Logo image.
    cover page details
  27. Press OK button to confirm your configurations and close the dialog.
  28. Once you finish defining the template, press the Save button to save it.
    save report template
  29. The template can also be exported for future use.
    export report template
  30. Press the Close button to close the Report Template dialog.
  31. Here is the generated PDF report.
    generated report
    use case summary
    sub diagram summary

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Comments (4)

written by Danilo Gurovich on January 29, 2011

You could have a style sheet to customize the fonts and font sizes used for the report generation. A big problem I've had is the report constantly having the wrong font sizes for my needs with no way to change.

written by Jick Yeung on January 31, 2011

Dear Danilo,

Thank you for your post. Could you provide me with a sample (project) showing your problem, as well as a description of what you would expected? You can send me the file by submitting a ticket at:
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/support/technicalsupport.jsp

Look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
Jick Yeung

written by andisheh on August 9, 2011

Thank you for your post
i need to know how i can change a documentation generate for persion fonts.how can changes them to right to left from left to right?

written by andisheh on August 10, 2011

please responde me

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