Automate document generation in C++, create print-ready reports of any complexity with C++ SDK. This Cloud-based solution is built around templates, data sources and a powerful LINQ-syntax, giving C++ developers the flexibility to fit precise technical and business requirements.
Using this C++ library, you can programmatically build highly customized reports on any operating system. Richly formatted documents like contracts, orders, invoices, shipment reports, sales proposals, inventories can be assembled on the fly as a part of your C++ software.
The importance of Document Automation and Report Generation has grown immensely over the past decades. Almost every company has a need to generate documents and deliver them to partners or customers on time. Moreover, it is usually a decisive factor in financial success. Implementing such technologies can result in significant financial savings by reducing manual data entry, human error, proofreading and paperwork. For these reasons, document automation and reporting tools are an integral part of many modern software solutions that aim to provide advanced analytical features to users.
Generally speaking, report generation is a process that combines text, data and graphics into a single entity and exports the result in a convenient visual form to the required document format, such as DOCX, PDF, ODT, HTML, PPTX, XLSX, etc.
GroupDocs Assembly for C++ is a Cloud-based solution for generating documents using templates and data sources. The document template acts as a base-frame, which, in addition to the standard content (text, tables, charts, etc.), includes special placeholder fields for inserting values from the data source. Not only individual values can be inserted, but also entire arrays of data in the form of tables and graphs.
The template also contains programming constructs - document generation rules - that control data selection and condition processing. Binding data to a document template uses LINQ-expression syntax, which allows developers to process data in a generic way, regardless of the type of data source used. In this way, our C++ Cloud SDK gives you flexibility in content generation and a powerful set of methods for data processing.
This product also supports Mail Merge functionality in case you want to create and send batches of personalized letters to customers. You just need to insert Mail Merge fields to the document template and pass it to the Cloud API together with a data source.
Regardless of the scale and type of document automation you are going to implement, there are three steps to build a report in C++:
Designing templates is a difficult task. In addition to a clear understanding of the requirements for the final document, analytical and programming skills are required. A good template design should reflect the customer's view on a particular issue. The most effective approach is to combine tabular data and graphics in the right balance, determined by business requirements.
As mentioned above, the template structure usually contains some fixed blocks of content (text, images, logos, etc.) mixed with special programming constructs that control document assembly logic. These document generation rules are defined with a special expression syntax, which enables developers to do the following:
You can learn more about template syntax in our Developer Guide.
GroupDocs Assembly for C++ does not require any external software or third-party tools to be installed. This is a Cloud-based solution, where all programming interactions are performed over the network using the REST API.
For more information on supported I/O formats, please visit our Documentation.
All GroupDocs products are fully compliant with industry security standards: data transfer is carried out using the SSL protocol, which eliminates the possibility of information being intercepted by third parties. To connect to GroupDocs Cloud Services, you need to use personal access keys. Please refer to the Quick Start guide.
The following code example shows how to generate reports using C++.
using namespace groupdocs::assembly;
using namespace groupdocs::assembly::cloud::api;
auto config = std::make_shared<Configuration>(L"####-####-####-####-####", L"##################");
auto assemblyApi = std::make_shared<AssemblyApi>(config);
auto fileName = L"Input1.docx";
auto dataFile = L"Input2.docx";
auto requestFileContent = std::shared_ptr<std::istream>(
new std::ifstream(std::filesystem::path(fileName), std::istream::binary));
std::shared_ptr<UploadFileRequest> uploadDocumentRequest(
new UploadFileRequest(
requestFileContent, std::make_shared<std::wstring>(fileName)
)
);
assemblyApi->uploadFile(uploadDocumentRequest);
auto fileInfo = std::make_shared<TemplateFileInfo>();
fileInfo->setFilePath(fileName);
auto assembleOptions = std::make_shared<AssembleOptions>();
assembleOptions->setSaveFormat("docx");
assembleOptions->setReportData(std::filesystem::path(dataFile));
assembleOptions->setTemplateFileInfo(fileInfo);
auto request = std::make_shared<AssembleDocumentRequest>(assembleOptions);
assemblyApi->assembleDocument(request);Clone GroupDocs.Assembly Cloud SDK for C++ source code from GitHub. You can find detailed information on building and configuring the SDK in the "How to use the SDK" section.
To quickly get the necessary security credentials and access our REST API, please follow these Instructions in the documentation.
Refer to the Repository Documentation to see the details.