Variable use in column value

There are a lot of variables at your disposal. All variables that exist in Orders2CSVPRO are shown in the help section, and you can also use default Magento variables. The way that you indicate a variable, is by using the format shown below in code example.

The variables are divided up into different types. A general section which can be used in all types ofCSV’s.

And there a variables that can only be used in different types. There are groups of variables for invoice, shipment and credit memo, which can only be used in that CSV types.

Variables related to product are found under each type, and general variables that can be used in all type under Product and Product Bundle, which include variables related to the bundle group and the single items in the bundle.

Formatting variables

There are some standard formatting options available in the Orders2CSVPRO module. These formatting can be used on all variables, whether or not they are computed or single. The last tab in help pages, is a list of all the available formatting options.

You use formatting for a single variable on the way shown below here:

If you have inline code the formatting of that is as follows

Coding inline in value field

With Orders2CSVPRO inline code you can make the export file very specialized. You can do everything from simple math stuff to very complex PHP code. I will give a short introduction to what you can do, but there is many more options to generate custom values. The format of inline coding in Orders2CSVPRO is as follows

The above example is very simple, here we just take one value and subtracts another.

The power of this function is very massive, because you can use different types of PHP code directly in the value field. An example could be that you to print the a text and calculate the average item price, this can be done by below code:

You have ordered {{format_integer invoice_data_total_qty}} item with an average price of  ##{{format_convert_price invoice_data_subtotal_incl_tax}}/{{format_integer invoice_data_total_qty}}##

Be sure that you are signed up for ext4mage newsletter, because we will be sending out tips and examples of ways to use inline coding.

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User manual

Intro

The notify4errors module from ext4mage.com makes it possible to see errors and notifications that your users experience. It records error, warning and notification messages from your system, and also records all 404 page not found errors that happens. All recordings is shown with information about the call and the users system, so that it is possible to use the data to debug the problems.

This document is a guide to teach you how to use the module. For installation instructions please see the installation manual.

System options

Set up the general options for the use of the module.

Field description:

• Messages levels – which messages shall be saved (errors, warnings and notices)
• Capture CMS no-route – shall 404 page not found errors be captured
• Capture CMS no-cookie – shall request where customer do not have cookie enabled be captured

Log of errors

The first you see when you click on ext4mage->notify4errors is a list off all notification that is recorded in the module. You can then click on it to see more information about an recording. 

View recording

All information about the recording will now be shown, based on which type it is different information will be shown. If the recording is a messages then the message text will be shown

Some of the information shown is also related to the users how got the error

See more about the magento extension notify4errors

System options

Set up the general options, and give information to make the help section and preview function work.

Field description:

• Is module active – whether or not the HTML2PDF module shall be used, when in No, the default Magento PDF’s will be used, but the preview function will still work
• Show on customer My Account – weather or not the PDF’s shall be visible to the customers
• Is in development mode –to test you PDF’s, see more in Development mode section of this manual
• License code – the code you are given from ext4mage when buying this module
• Order id for preview – used in help and preview function of the module
• Product in order for help – used in help screen, the specified product id must be contained in the above specified order
• Bundle product in order for help - used in help screen, the specified product id must be contained in the above specified order
• Creditmemo number for preview – used in help and preview function, because of Magento “feature / error” this has to be the real id and not the incremental_id. In this case the number is not 100000001 but just 1, you can see this number in the address line when you view the Creditmemo in standard Magento.

System options – Sales emails

If you want to make use of the function to attach the PDF and Terms and Conditions to the different email, you go into Sales->Sales Emails

Field description (is available for each email type):

• Attach HTML2PDF Order PDF to mail – should the order/invoice/shipment/creditmemo PDF be sent with the sales email
• Attach Terms and Conditions as html/txt file  – attach the Terms and Condition to the sales email, works both with HTML and plain text

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Overview

HTML2PDF has different element, which can be combined to create a complete template for a PDF print. Within these elements you can use different types of variables related to the type of print and element. The way HTML2PDF is made will make reuse very simple.

Element description

Following main elements exist in HTML2PDF:

Template:
This is the head element. In your template you setup all general settings, and also the other elements that shall be combined into the final PDF.

Text:
Here all text elements are held, that being header, footer and main text for all types of PDF prints. The different text elements can be used in various templates, meaning that you can have a single header and footer that can be reused in all templates. All text written in this element can contain html format, read more about this in text setup section.

Table:
Building the product table is done in this element. It has information about the table, such as style, width, layout and so forth. Within this element you define multiple columns with information about column header text, value, style and so forth. This table can also be reused in different templates.

Elements relationship

The illustration below describes the internal relationship, from the template point of view:

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Table element setup

In this step you setup a product table. The first screen you will see, is a list of all the tables that exist, you are now able to edit one of them or make a new table from scratch.

If you will make a new from an existing, open the old and change Title and click Save As

General – element information

Either way you choose the first screen you will see is the one below; here you setup the general stuff about the table in hand. 

Field description:

• Table style – general style elements the use in whole table
• Header style – style elements that will be added to the header of each column
• Even product row style – style elements that will be used in even rows in the table
• Odd product row style – style elements that will be used in odd rows in the table

Using cellspacing and borders in you tables can conflict, so if the borders are missing cellspacing could be the sinner. In this case use cellpadding instead.

The row style will be implemented on the <tr> object, so write you style with that in mind

Table columns

The next thing you want to setup in your table is the different column. There is no limit in the module of how many columns that you can have.

On each column you have to decide how the different product type information shall be shown. The 4 types of product types can be handled like described in this table:

The screen for setting up the column is as below 

Field description:

• Custom style – general style elements for this column
• Width – the width of the column in percent
• Sort order – in which order this column shall be shown, from left to right
• XX product format – how to show the product type, see the table above
• Product format – the content of the column for the product, html code can be used.
• Option format – if product has options this is the content for options, html code can be used
• Bundle itemsgroup format – bundle product have groups of item, this field set how that should be shown, html code can be used
• Bundle item format – the content to be shown with each product item in the bundle group, html code can be used.

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Text element setup

Under the text element you setup the text that you need in your final PDF. It comes in 4 types:

• Header – the top of each PDF page
• Footer – the bottom of each PDF page
• Main – the general text for the PDF, this is where all you main text should go
• Cross sell – this is the text for the cross sell element in the pdf’s

All text elements can be used in many different templates, for example can you use the same header in all types of template for all stores types. The input field for the content is a WYSIWYG editor, like the one you know from Magento CMS, and that makes the editing of the content very easy even if you do not HTML or PHP.

You can make a page-break by using the inbuilt editor function – translated into <!—pagebreak-->

Remember to include the product table variable, to tell the system where in you main text your product table should be inserted. And also include the cross_sell variable if you want to show cross sell element. 

Field description:

• Type – select the type of text this is, option are header, footer and main
• Text content – the field to type in the content. See more about using variables and formatting in the sections Using variables and Using formatting

Design your PDF with tables and not div or anything like that. The PDF generator works best with table layouts, so build like that to avoid problems. Also inline style with padding and spacing do not always have the wanted effect, so try to avoid using that.

PNG images can be used but can give performance problems – use gif or jpg images instead

Making Cross-sell text element

You can include a list of cross-sell items into your PDF. The list of products is based upon the items in the order, so the products have to have cross-sell items for anything to show. The cross-sell element is build up in paragraphs, so each section will only be shown if there is a product there.

For each product that you want to show, you will have to start with the tag {{cross_x_start}} (replace the x with product number) and end with the tag {{cross_x_end}}. This way the extension will only show everything in between the two tags if there is a product.

Under ext4mage->help you can see all the variables that can be used in the cross-sell element. In help you will only see the first 4 items in the cross-sell. You can set up in the template how many items should be collect for that specific template.

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Template setup

This is the master of the HTML2PDF module; here you collect the different elements into the final template used for printing the PDF.

When you press print in the different screen in Magento, then the active template based on type and store is selected. If no templates is present for the PDF type and store the default Magento PDF layout will be chosen. Are there multiple templates which are matching, the template to be chosen random.

First screen you will see when editing a template is the general tap, here you setup main information about the template in hand.

Field description:

• Type – select the type of print the template should be applied to, can be Order, Invoice, Shipment and Credit Memo.
• Store view – Select the stores that this template shall be active for
• Number of cross-sell items – Is the number of cross-sell items that should be collected, still only the ones defined in the cross-sell text element will be shown
• Active from – Set an date from which this template should be used, can be empty
• Active to – Set a date until which this template should be used, can be empty

In the next tab you select the text and table elements that should be used in this template

The last tab contains information about the general style and setup of the template in hand. 

It is still possible to set a different font, font-size and color within the single text element. But not all font-types are supported.

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Using variables

There are a lot of variables at your disposal when making a text or table element. All HTML2PDF accessible variables are shown in the help section, but beside these all default Magento variables can also be used. The way that you indicate a variable, is by using the format shown below in code example and screen print.

{{variable_code}}        //the format
{{order_data_status}}    //example, will print the status of the order

The variables are divided up into the types of PDF that you can create. There are a general section of variables which can be used in all types of PDF’s. 

And there a variables that can only be used in a specific type. There are groups of variables for invoice, shipment and credit memo, which can only be used for that specific type of PDF.

Some variables are to be used in the product table, which is general for all types of PDF’s and all types of product. In the help screens these are under the Product tab.

There are also variables specific for bundle product types, which include variables related to the bundle group and the single items in the bundle.

When creating a new text or table, and you need to debug. Then setup in System Configuration the specific order, invoice or product id and then see all the available variables in the help pages.

Download the tables with variables to CSV or Excel to sort and search trough. Do this and you can easy find the exact variable you are looking for.

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Using formatting

There are some standard formatting options available in the HTML2PDF module. These formatting can be used on all variables, whether or not they are computed or single. See more about computed variables in section Using inline coding.

The last tab in help pages, is a list of all the available formatting options. 

The way you use formatting is like follows for a single variable

{{formatting variable_code}}        //the format
{{format_price order_data_subtotal}}
  //example, will print the subtotal of order with the correct currency formatting

If you have inline code the formatting of that is as follows

##formatting the_code##             //the format
##format_price {{order_data_subtotal }}-{{order_data_discount}}##
  //example, will print the subtotal minus the discount with the correct currency formatting

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Using inline coding

This is where things get very powerful and a bit complex. If you do not know PHP just a bit, then be careful about which code you type in here.

What you can do with HTML2PDF inline code, is everything from simple math stuff to very complex PHP code. I will here give a short taste of what you can do, but there is a lot of other possibilities. The format of inline coding in HTML2PDF is as follows

## the_code##            //the format
##{order_data_subtotal }}-{{order_data_discount}}##
  //will print the subtotal minus the discount

The above example is very simple, here we just take one value and subtracts another.

The below example from the example template delivered with HTML2PDF is more complex. Here we want to show the picture of a product in the product table, for that we need 2 different variables. The first one is Magento build-in media function (also know from Magento CMS) to get the correct path, and then the products image URL. But before we can render the image we have to check if it exists, otherwise the PDF generator will give an error. The way we do that is  by checking if the product URL has the text  “no_selection” (found by looking in the help page variables), and if it is not equal that we render the image. 

Not all PHP function can be used. Example: if expression cannot be used, instead use the conditional operator ?: - the eval function is used in HTML2PDF, you can read more about it on php.net

It can be a bit tricky to get the inline code to work, but setting HTML2PDF in development mode can be very useful when creating and testing inline code

Be sure that you are signed up for ext4mage newsletter, because we will be sending out tips and examples of ways to use inline coding.

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