4.7.1 How To Import A Word Document
Import the Word document to the Form Versions screen
- In the Form Templates screen, press the [Import] button at the top.
- Press [Select MS Word File].
- Choose to either create a new folder or place the import form in an existing folder, and press [Import].
- The form will now be opened in the Designer.
- If you are happy with the import you can start editing it.
- If you are not happy with the form, close the form and delete it.
Make some changes to the document in Word, save it and import this version to Zegeba.
Note: If for some reason the import failed, first check that the document is not open in Word. If not, then try to edit the Word document and remove or simplify complicated formatting. For instance: if there are a mix of text boxes you may try to place the text directly into the document and delete the text boxes. Then run the Importer again.
The Word Importer will import text, tables and images and place them in the Zegeba form approximately in the same way as they are designed in the document. You may however need to move them and style them to get the look you want:
- Text is converted to Zegeba Text Label elements of various font sizes. Check that these sizes look the way you want, particularly when printed in a PDF report.
- Word tables are converted to Zegeba grids, but you may want to style the grids further with borders, background colors, cell padding, etc.
- Images will be imported but may need to be resized and perhaps put in a grid row with no borders to get the exact size and placement you want on the page.
Importing without annotating the Word document
Here is a basic checklist form made in Word:
When you import this document, the new form is opened in the Designer (see picture below). If you’re happy with this you can save the design and reopen it to get access to the complete form design functionality in the Designer.
You can now select the Text Label elements (“H”) one by one and change their type in Element Properties > Settings > Element Type. In the picture above we would change “Customer Name” to a Text Input element, “Date” to a Date element and the Hs in the column below “Inspected Okay” to a Multiple Select element (to get a checkbox).
Importing with annotations
Instead of changing all the element properties after import you may choose to type import annotations for each element in the Word form to tell the Import Converter exactly what you want. This may speed up the conversion process considerably, especially if you have many large forms.
The most basic annotation just states what kind of element you want. In our example, annotating some element types in the Word form with {DATE}, {CHECK}, {TEXT}:
…results in these elements when imported:
See Managing: 4.7.2 Lists of document import annotations for a list of all the codes you can use.
In addition til element types you can decide the ID you want an element to have by using this format: {ELEMENTTYPE|#element_ID}. For instance {NUMBER|#part_number} will result in a Number element with the Element ID part_number.
What if you want a specific label to be set during import? As we see from the example above, text strings are automatically imported to Text Label elements with the text used a the label of that element – like “Car no” in the form above. However, if you put a type code just behind such a string, say “Car No {NUMBER}“, the converter will interpret the string just before the { bracket as a label and create a Number element with the label “Car No”.
Here is another example of this. This annotated Word table:
…will create this form in Zegeba after import:
As you see, the form ready to use directly after the import.
For Text Label elements you can also put the label in the import code as follows: {This is the label I want|#element ID}.
