Create Report That Defines Custom Page Headers

This example shows how to create a report that includes custom header values on each page. In this example, you define a custom mlreportgen.report.Report class and a custom template that includes holes in the header. You then update the class to reference the custom template and holes, and use the class to generate a PDF report that fills the holes.

Create the Custom Report Class

To create a custom report class that you can use to define header information, use the mlreportgen.report.Report.customizeReport method. Specify the mlreportgen.report.Report class and its templates in a folder, @MyClass.

mlreportgen.report.Report.customizeReport("@MyReport");

The mlreportgen.report.Report.customizeReport method creates a class definition file named MyReport in the @MyReport folder, and stores the template files for each report type in the @MyReport\resources\templates folder.

Create the Custom Template

The mlreportgen.report.Report.customizeReport method creates HTML, PDF, and Microsoft^® Word templates from the default templates used by the default mlreportgen.report.Report class. In this example, you create a custom PDF template to define a header with holes.

To simplify the code that creates the template, import the mlreportgen.dom namespace and specify the folder paths of the old and new templates.

import mlreportgen.dom.*
templateBasePath = "@MyReport/resources/templates";
templateType = "pdf";
templateName = "default";
oldTemplatePath = fullfile(templateBasePath, ...
 templateType,templateName);
newTemplatePath = oldTemplatePath+"_withHeader";

Create an mlreportgen.dom.Template object based on the default template.

template = Template(newTemplatePath,templateType,oldTemplatePath);
open(template);

Create the header for the template. The "default" input argument value specifies that the report includes the header on each page. For more information, see PageType.

header = PDFPageHeader("default");

Define the header content. In this example, you define holes that you fill with a client name and a security level. Include the static content, Client: and Security Level: , and then add a hole next to each piece of static content.

clientName = Paragraph("Client: ");
clientName.WhiteSpace = "preserve";
append(clientName,TemplateHole("Client"))
securityPara = Paragraph("Security Level: ");
securityPara.WhiteSpace = "preserve";
append(securityPara,TemplateHole("SecurityLevel"));

To format the header content, create an invisible table that defines the layout of the content, and append the table to the header.

tbl = Table([clientName,securityPara]);
tbl.Width = "100%";
tbl.TableEntriesVAlign = "middle";
rightEntry = tbl.entry(1,2);
rightEntry.Style = {HAlign("right")};
append(header, tbl);
append(header, HorizontalRule);
template.CurrentPageLayout.PageHeaders = header;

Close and preview the template. The template includes the static content. The angle brackets indicate the holes.

close(template);
tmplview(template);

Modify the Custom Report

Next, update the custom mlreportgen.report.Report class to use the custom template by specifying the holes as properties in the class. In the @MyReport folder, open the MyReport class definition file. Update the properties definition section to list Client and SecurityLevel.

properties
  Client
  SecurityLevel
end 

The getDefaultTemplatePath method in the class definition file retrieves the template for the report. Update this method to use the new PDF templates, but use the default values for the other supported document types.

function templatePath = getDefaultTemplatePath(rpt)         
  templateBasePath = fullfile(fileparts(mfilename("fullpath")), ...
  "resources","templates",rpt.Type);
    switch lower(rpt.Type)
      case "pdf"
        templatePath = fullfile(templateBasePath, ...
         "default_withHeader.pdftx");
      case "docx"
        templatePath = fullfile(templateBasePath,"default.dotx");
      case "html"
        templatePath = fullfile(templateBasePath,"default.htmtx");
      otherwise
         error("Unsupported report type: %s", type);
    end
end

Generate a Sample Report

Next, you can generate reports with the custom header content.

import mlreportgen.report.*
rpt = MyReport("test","pdf");

To fill the hole content, assign the content to the Client and SecurityLevel properties that you added to the custom mlreportgen.report.Report class.

rpt.Client = "John Doe";
rpt.SecurityLevel = "Top Secret";

Then, add content or other reporters to the report. Reporters that have a Layout property define their own layout by default that overrides the report layout. You can also specify that these reporters use the layout of the report that contains them by setting the UseReportLayout property of the reporter to true. In this example, add a title page, and set the layout of the title page to the layout of the custom report.

tp = TitlePage(Title="Report for John Doe");
tp.Layout.UseReportLayout = true;
append(rpt,tp);

Add a table of contents, a chapter, and example content for the chapter, and append them to the report.

toc = TableOfContents;
toc.Layout.UseReportLayout = true;
append(rpt,toc);
ch = Chapter("Example Chapter");
ch.Layout.UseReportLayout = true;
append(ch,"Example content");
append(rpt,ch);

View the report to see the results.

close(rpt);
rptview(rpt);

The header of each page contains the static content and the filled holes.