Please note : This help page is not for the latest version of Enterprise Architect. The latest help can be found here.

Virtual Documents

Both standard and custom report templates generate documents that present information reflecting the organization of the Project Browser. You can also generate RTF and HTML documents independent of that organization, grouping and ordering individual packages and elements according to whatever criteria you want to apply. For this purpose, you use virtual documents.

You can create separate virtual documents describing, say, the Requirements, Use Cases or Design elements of a project, based on individual Model Document elements. Alternatively, you can make these separate sections of one report, retaining their own different formats but with common headers and footers and a central contents list, organized under a Master Document package element. This combined document could apply your corporate standards. You can create as many virtual documents as you want, for as many combinations of information as you need.

Elements, Templates and Content Definitions

Topic

Detail

See also

Document Elements

Master Document and Model Document elements are available from the Documentation page of the Diagram Toolbox; on the Toolbox, select More tools | Documentation.

 

Doctool

 

When you drag the Master Document and Model Document elements onto a diagram, the following symbols display, respectively:

 

MasterDoc                               d_ModelDocElement

 

The Documentation Toolbox page also provides the Document Artifact element, into which you can generate a virtual document or through which you can add a linked document to an element.

 

Diagram Toolbox

 

 

 

 

 

 

Create Model Document

Create Master Document

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Document Artifact

Generate Report to an Artifact Element

Templates

For each Model Document element, you can create a custom template; for example, a specifically-designed Requirements template for a Requirements document, or a Use Case template for a section on Use Cases.

For HTML documentation, you identify the template on the report generation dialog; for RTF documents, you specify the template name as the value of the RTFTemplate Tagged Value.

The Master Document element has its own RTFTemplate Tagged Value, which defines the headers, footers and central contents list; you can import your corporate standards template and insert its name in the Tagged Value.

The template in the Master Document overrides the templates in the Model Documents; for example, header and footer definitions in the Master Document template override any header and footer definitions in the Model Document templates. In this way, you can apply consistent and continuous styles and page numbering throughout the report generated through the Master Document.

If you want the Model Documents to have their own styles, applied through their own RTFTemplate Tagged Values, either leave the Master Document RTFTemplate Tagged Value blank (for completely separate overall styles) or remove the definition of specific styles from the Master Document template.

 

Design Custom RTF Templates

 

 

 

Import RTF Template

 

Content

The content of the report is defined as either:

•A list of packages (defined as attributes) dragged onto the element in whatever order or combination is most appropriate to your requirements; you can easily add or delete packages as necessary
 
or
•(Not for HTML reports) a standard model search (identified by Tagged Values) created within the Model Search facility; note that diagram searches are not supported - when you generate the document, this search captures the required data throughout the model and populates the document

 

You can control the sequence in which information is presented in the document by, for example, changing the sequence of packages in the Model Document or the sequence of Model Documents in the Master Document.

 

 

Add Packages to Model Document

Delete Package in Model Document

 

Create and Modify Searches

 

 

Document Order

Notes

•In a Model Document for an RTF report, you should not define both a list of packages and a search; if both are present, when you generate the RTF document it is created from the package list only
•You cannot use RTF Bookmarking in Master Document elements, which effectively replace RTF Bookmarking in Word
 
RTF Bookmarking requires each bookmark to be unique; when you generate a report with a standard RTF template (including in a single Model Document element), each bookmark is unique and there is a 1:1 association between the Elements-details being generated and the elements in the repository
 
As Master Documents are intended to contain multiple sub-documents, the association ceases to be 1:1; there is no simple method that enables the generated data to be uniquely identified directly in association with the original element
 

Learn more

Learning Center topics

•(Alt+F1) | Reporting | Rich Text Reports | Generate a Virtual Document