Information
  • Author: Appian Corporation
  • Type: Plug-in (Function & Smart Service)
  • Support: This is an Appian supported plug-in. To the extent that this plug-in does not conform to its documentation, please submit a ticket to Appian Technical Support. Appian does not support customer-created customizations or outdated versions of the plug-in.
  • Industry: All Industries
  • Compatible Version(s): 25.2
  • First Released:
  • Last Updated:
  • Cost: Free - Appian Supported
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Home » AppMarket » Dynamic Document Generator

Dynamic Document Generator

Overview

This version is for Appian 22.3 and above. Cloud customers on a lower version of Appian that want to install this plugin should open a support case. Self-managed customers can find the latest jar for Appian 22.2 and lower version in the folder pre-22.3

Convert, merge and generate DOCX, PDF and XML files automatically in an Appian process

Key Features & Functionality

  • PDF from single DOCX with Fonts
    • Convert multiple DOCX files into a single PDF. Please note that the translation from DOCX to PDF is not always 1:1. The template may need to be tweaked or simplified to achieve the desired results.
  • PDF from DOCX without Fonts
    • Convert multiple DOCX files into a single PDF. Please note that the translation from DOCX to PDF is not always 1:1. The template may need to be tweaked or simplified to achieve the desired results. This will not support fonts.
  • PDF from XSL-FO Transformation
    • Uses XSLT to convert an XML to XSL-FO which is then converted to PDF
  • PDF from HTML
    • Converts an HTML document into a single page PDF.
  • PDF from HTML Transformation
    • Uses XSLT to convert an XML to HTML which is then converted to PDF
  • Text Doc from XSLT
    • Uses XSLT to convert an XML to a plain text document (such as HTML, another XML doc, etc).
  • DOCX from XHTML With Styling
    • Converts a valid XHTML file into a DOCX, allowing you to provide your own template file for style reference. Useful for creating dynamic documents that are editable
  • DOCX Merge
    • Merges one or more DOCX files together. If a header or footer exists in any document, they will be removed during the merge process.
    • A configurable separator can be specified: none, line break or page break

Function: xsltransform - Transform source XML using XSL Transform

Anonymous

  • we are seeing some issues when converting the docx document to PDF when the docx document has bullet list. The converted PDF document it is not retaining the bullet list. Could you please check this issue and provide a fix for this issue. Currently it is impacting several places in one of Application

     

  • in reply to jaime.casanueva

    This exception seems to be occurring in the Smart ServiceException building. Could you please:

    1. Try changing the pauseOnError input to false, run the process, and check the tomcat-stdOut log

    2. Could you share an example of the docx file that is throwing this error?

    To update your log4j properties file, you need to create a support case (if on cloud). If self-managed the instructions are here: docs.appian.com/.../Customizing_Application_Logging.html

  • Hello,

    We have a problem with the plugin when trying to transform to pdf, and we only get this error:

    2023-03-14 08:20:40,988 [Appian Work Item - 38334 - WorkID 708 - execution02 - process 2120504 - model 4153 : UnattendedJavaActivityRequest] ERROR com.a                                                                                ppiancorp.process.engine.UnattendedJavaActivityRequest - An error occurred while executing activity: id=19689, classname=com.appiancorp.ps.xmlfo.ss.PdfF                                                                                romHtml
    com.appiancorp.suiteapi.process.exceptions.SmartServiceException: java.lang.Exception: java.lang.NullPointerException

    Please, can you tell me how to add more trace from log4j "appian_log4j.properties"?

    Thanks and best regards

  • Hello - We are using this plugin in various projects and it appears that all the titles on PDFs are overlapping. We are also having an issue when we try to translate the PDFs. Can you please advise how to fix the issue for overlapping headers and any advice for translations use with this plugin? Our environments will also be upgraded to 23.1 in the coming weeks.

  • in reply to vijaym19

    Did you get any solution on this?

  • in reply to kashmirapawar

    We are using it on appian 21.4

  • We are getting java.lang.Exception: java.lang.NullPointerException while using pdf from HTML on on environment. on another environment it is working. In the logs also there are no details Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.NullPointerException. The only difference is between OS. one is on OS 7 on which it works and OS 8 on which it isn't. can you please help here? 

  • in reply to Appian AppMarket

    What is entailed in a Security Update for the plugin? Working through an analysis of the plug in and looking for any additional details as to what is updated as part of the security updates.

  • in reply to Michael Chirlin

    Thank you Michael for getting back. We are indeed passing the docx file as the existing document, it was working with the previous (admittedly quite old) version of the plugin, it was saving the new version as a pdf. It was not the same smart service though as we were not passing the font files. Looks like we need to change our logic slightly then.

  • in reply to chandhinir0002

    The latest version of this plugin uses Batik 1.16. Which version of the plugin are you using?

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