Template Content and Styles Preview Structure

To preview the content and styles in your templates, you can use the function tmplview. tmplview creates a set of documents based on the content in the main body of a template, document parts, and stylesheet. By default, tmplview displays the generated main body document.

File Output Structure

tmplview generates files in a directory based on the name and type of the template in the format "templateName_templateType_preview". For example, a PDF template with the name "myTemplate" has the directory name "myTemplate_PDF_preview". tmplview generates the following documents in that directory:

templateBody — Document that contains the content in the main template body
stylesheet — Document that contains the styles in the stylesheet of the template

The function also generates a subdirectory named "docpart_templates" that contains documents demonstrating the content in each template document part. For example in the HTML template created in Create and Preview Template, there are three template documents parts: BookReporter, ReportTOC, and ReportChapter. In the subdirectory "docpart_templates", tmplview generates:

"BookReporter.htmx" — Document that contains the content in the template document part, BookReporter
"ReportTOC.htmx" — Document that contains the content in the template document part, ReportTOC
"ReportChapter.htmx" — Document that contains the content n the template document part, ReportChapter

Snippet of MATLAB Files panel showing the file structure of the book reporter template preview

Hole Representation

Holes are placeholders in a template that are filled with content as you generate a report. Each hole in the template body and template document parts is indicated by text in the format,

<HOLE: myTemplateHole, TYPE: block>

where "myTemplateHole" is the name of the hole. The hole type can be either "block" or "inline". For more information on hole types, see Add Holes in Microsoft Word Templates and Add Holes in HTML and PDF Templates. In order to give an accurate preview of how content used to fill the hole will appear, tmplview does not add formatting to the text that represents a hole.

Style Representation

tmplview divides the generated stylesheet document into these sections:

Text styles
Paragraph styles
Table styles
List styles

If tmplview cannot identify a CSS style in an HTML or PDF template as one of these styles, the style appears as raw CSS in a separate section at the end of the stylesheet document.

Text and Paragraph Styles Sections

The stylesheet document displays text and paragraph styles as the style name formatted with the style. For example, a text style named "myTextStyle" that formats text to be bold and underlined displays as myTextStyle. The stylesheet document displays any linked styles in both the text and paragraph styles sections.

For HTML and PDF templates, you can define styles for preformatted elements. The paragraph styles section labels Preformatted elements with "(Preformatted)". For example, a style for a preformatted element called myPreStyle displays as myPreStyle (Preformatted).

HTML and PDF templates also allow you to define a default style for report elements. These styles use the label "(Default <type> style)". For example, the following style makes all paragraphs in the document bold, p {font-weight:bold;} displays as (Default paragraph style).

Table Styles Section

The table styles section displays each defined style using FormalTable elements and the same generic table content. The preview table is large enough to display formatting specified for any number of these mlreportgen.dom.TemplateTableStyle properties: HeaderFormats, FooterFormats, FirstColumnFormats, LastColumnFormats, OddColumnFormats, EvenColumnFormats, OddRowFormats, EvenRowFormats, TopLeftEntryFormats, TopRightEntryFormats, BottomLeftEntryFormats, and BottomRightEntryFormats.

Table style representation for a style named testTable

List Styles Section

For HTML and PDF templates, the stylesheet document displays list styles in this format:

List style representation for a style named testList in an HTML or PDF template

The list style name appends (ordered) or (unordered) based on whether the style is used with OrderedList or UnorderedList DOM elements. For Microsoft^® Word templates, the stylesheet document does not make that distinction because both unordered and ordered list styles can be used to format OrderedList or UnorderedList DOM elements.

Other Styles Section

If tmplview cannot identify a CSS style in an HTML or PDF template as a text, paragraph, preformatted, table, or list style, the style appears in the "Other Styles" section at the end of the stylesheet document. For example, these two CSS styles format holes.

Two CSS styles

All the styles in the "Other Styles" section display as raw CSS.