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Custom Export Editor

Custom Export was introduced in the fourth version instead of HTML/TXT Output Editor used in the third version. Now it allows you not only to create and use templates for exporting data to web pages and text files, but also to integrate your database with other applications.

In the current version you can use Custom Export to configure and automate the following operations:

exporting data to a text file;
generating a web page;
creating and sending messages directly from your database using an external e-mail client (Outlook Express, The Bat, etc). Learn more...
copying data from your database into the Windows clipboard to insert it into any application later on;
inserting data from your database into an open Microsoft Word document or generating MS Word documents automatically based on the database data.

Location

Use the Designer > Edit Custom Export Templates... menu item to edit Custom Export Templates.

Use the File > Import/Export > Custom Export... menu command to export data using the created templates.

To make the export operation available with one mouse click or a key combination, see the Toolbar Editor and Script Designer sections.

Introduction

Like with the Report Style Template, the Custom Export template can be described as a set of areas each being the constitute of the output document. For example, the Multiple database software records in one text file template includes the following areas:

Start Part will be included at the beginning of the output file;
Record Data Part is used to place the output data from the exported database software records, inserted once for each exported database software record in the middle of the exported file;
End Part will be included at the end of the output file.

To direct the field of exported database software records to the output area, type their names within [] brackets: [Field Name]. You can also use the quick-insert buttons (3) to insert fields, variables or mathematical formulas. (See below).

Thus, if areas are given the following values:

Start Part:	List of My Items ----------------------- Item Title, Price -----------------------
Record Data:	[Title], [Price]
End Part:	----------------------- Report End

the output could be something like this:

List of My Items
-----------------------
Item Title, Price
-----------------------
Phone, 100$
Car, 12000$
TV, 240EUR
-----------------------
Report End

You can also use special tags and format to customize output.

Custom Export Editor Interface

1 - lists of templates to select for editing. Using the last item of this list, you can also sort your templates;
2 - list of areas used to select the area for editing.
3 - quick insert and format buttons to insert fields, vars or formulas. To learn more, see the Text Formulas section.
4 - templates management buttons used to modify template properties, create new template or delete an existing template.
5 - Area editor used to edit the current area.

Click the Preview button to see how the output file has been created using the active template.

You can specify the Edit Custom Export Area action to open only one area for quick edit. It's convenient if you have to modify one of the template areas often.

Template Properties

To open the Template Properties window, click the Modify Properties... button (4):

Other options can vary depending on the type of the selected template:

Template Name. Specify the name of the template used to identify the template.
Output file(s) extension. Specify the extension of the output file(s).
Replace the "Return" tag with. You have an option to replace the line break tag with any other in the exported file. This option is especially useful when exporting to HTML files;
Replace HTML tags. If selected, special HTML tags ("<", ">" etc.) will be replaced with their HTML equivalents (< " > etc).
Export data to the active MS Word Document. If this option is enabled and there is an opened MS Word document, the data will be exported to it, beginning from the current cursor position.

Two export methods

Virtually for all template types (HTML, Text, MS Word, E-mail) there are two export methods:

1. Export database software records separately. In this case each database software record will be exported independent from others. It means that you can get the following as a result:

separate web pages;
separate text files;
separate Word documents or e-mail messages for each database software record.

2. Export database software records all together. In this case the main template area is divided into three areas: Begin, Record Data, End, (see an example in the Introduction section) and all database software records will be exported into one place. It means that you can get the following as a result:

one web page;
one text file;
one MS Word file or all database software records inserted into the active document
data from all database software records sent in one message.