What’s New: Enhanced Document Reporting Features (For Developers) (2024 release wave 2)
Word layout enhancements for document reports in Business Central 2024 release wave 2, aimed at developers: a new Word add-in with layout controls (developer comments, hide empty table, row, column, hide field if zero), Word sections with merge data item, themeable layouts, and font and alignment fixes.
- Introduction and Word Add-in Installation
- Word Add-in Features and Layout Controls
- Developer Comments in Layouts
- Hide Empty Table Feature
- Hide Empty Table Row Feature
- Hide Empty Table Column Feature
- Hide Field if Zero Feature
- Hide zeros and word section support
- Controlling layouts with word sections demo
- Developer documentation and section capabilities
- Themeable reports and office themes demo
- Theme documentation and small improvements
- Font support and alignment fixes
Overview
The video covers what is new for developers who build Word layouts for document reports in the 2024 release wave 2. It starts with installing the Word add-in from the Office App Store, then demonstrates the new layout controls: developer comments, hide empty table, hide empty table row, hide empty table column and hide field if zero.
It then shows Word sections working in layouts that use the merge data item property, and themeable reports where Office themes change fonts and colors. It closes with smaller changes: a fix for alignment in repeaters, Planet, PostNet and IMB barcode fonts in the service, and the Aptos font, which the presenter says will be available by October. The presenter notes the add-in is labeled preview in his version but will appear as the normal published version when the recording is watched.
Key points
- The Word add-in is installed from the Office App Store and adds layout controls for document reports.
- Developer comments are added with the insert layout comment action and are hidden from end users in the generated document.
- Hide if empty table removes the whole table when the repeater has no data; mark the full table and apply the control.
- Hide table row if empty depends on a chosen field in the repeater; hide empty table column is applied to the header cell, for example for discount columns.
- Hide field if zero works on any field in the layout, not only repeater fields, and can be combined with hide column to remove all-zero columns.
- Word sections can now be used in layouts that use the merge data item property, to control margins, orientation, columns, watermarks, headers and footers. The documentation warning about this limit is described as no longer valid.
- Themeable reports let users change the Office theme in Word and upload the layout again. Shipped layouts with themeable in the name support this, and the developer docs explain how to make your own layouts themeable.
Features
| Feature | Status | At |
|---|---|---|
| Word Add-in for Document Reports | status not stated, demoed | 0:06 |
| Developer Comments Layout Control | status not stated, demoed | 0:27 |
| Hide If Empty Table Layout Control | status not stated, demoed | 6:01 |
| Hide Empty Table Row Layout Control | status not stated, demoed | 7:43 |
| Hide Empty Table Column Layout Control | status not stated, demoed | 9:56 |
| Hide Field If Zero Layout Control | status not stated, demoed | 11:22 |
| Word Sections Support for Merge Data Item | status not stated, demoed | 13:06 |
| Themeable reports with Office themes | status not stated, demoed | 18:57 |
| Word alignment bug fix | status not stated | 22:53 |
| Planet PostNet and IMB font support | status not stated | 23:49 |
| Aptos font availability | status not stated | 24:23 |
AL objects mentioned
As heard in the captions. A name that matches one object page by exact type and name links to it; the others stay as named.
- page “report layouts page” at 3:13
- report “report 1303” at 3:47
- report “invoice report” at 14:32
- page “report layout page” at 19:37
Not found in BC28-30: page “report layouts page”, report “report 1303”, report “invoice report”, page “report layout page”.
Quotes
- 0:06 “in this 2024 release Wave 2 session we’re going to talk about words we’re going to talk about how you can use word as”
- 0:06 “a main new feature in the 2024 release Wave 2 is a new word add-in for document reports with this you can solve a”
- 2:00 “in my version it states preview in your version when you watch this recording there will be no preview it will just be the”
- 4:40 “this is not something we want our customers to see uh this is just a hidden comment you can see it’s a hidden comment”
- 7:03 “if I simply Mark the full table and go to business Central menu and choose hide if empty hide temp empty table this encapsulates”
- 13:06 “in business Central 2024 release Wave 2 if you have reports that use the word merge data item property to iterate over some things”
- 18:36 “this version of the documentation has a warning about word word merge data item for from the past this is no longer the case”
- 19:17 “with themeable reports in business Central 2024 release Wave 2 you can now do exactly that take any of these themeable layouts download them”
- 23:34 “this bug in word has been a pain for some time because whenever you downloaded a word layout word would change all the alignment”
- 24:09 “we added Planet PostNet and IMB funds to the business Central service so that you can now use these in document layouts”
Disclaimers in the video
- 2:00 preview: in my version it states preview in your version when you watch this recording there will be no preview it will just be the the the normal published version
- 24:23 coming-later: we’ll make sure that these fonts are also available in the business Central service by October
Presenters (as heard): Kenny pontop.