Document Designer Layouts

Sections can hold all Element types and are used to hold and organize the main content of a Document Designer template.

While it would be possible to put all of a document’s content into one Section, breaking out parts of the document into multiple Sections promotes organization and simpler administration, as well as giving admins additional options that can be defined per Section.

When a Section Layout is selected in the Template Flow, the following properties can be modified in the Properties pane:

Use a Continuous Section to split a single Document Designer section into two or more continuous sections without a page break between each section. A continuous section functions as a child of the parent section and inherits the margins, page orientation, and background image of the parent section. When dragged, a continuous section moves with its parent section. Parent and continuous sections are identified by icons that display in the section’s header.

A Continuous Section property is available in the Section Properties panel. The Section Properties panel is accessed by clicking a specific section of a Document Designer template. Selecting the Continuous Section checkbox makes the selected section a child of the preceding section.

Tips and Consideration for Continuous Sections

Consider the following tips when using the new Continuous Section feature:

• The Continuous checkbox is disabled for the section at the beginning of a layout and the sections after the Header, Footer, and Table of Contents elements.

• Administrators can apply conditions and loops to both sections and continuous sections. When the Apply to Continuous Sections checkbox is selected from the Loop dialog or the Conditional dialog for the parent section, the loop or condition applies to all of the continuous sections.

  

• Administrators can control if looped section elements include page breaks between each loop iteration. The setting affects both simple and advanced loops. When this setting is enabled, page breaks will occur for each loop iteration (same behavior as Oracle CPQ 22A and earlier). Upon Oracle CPQ 22B upgrade, the Page break each loop iteration is enabled for existing section-level loops. All new section-level loops, defined after the Oracle CPQ 22B upgrade, default to the Page break each loop iteration as disabled. This setting allows administrators more flexibility in the pagination of documents. For example, if a document designer template is set up with continuous sections with loops, each transaction line was on a separate page within the document. The user can enable or disable the page break on each loop iteration as they desire within the document. If enabled, the page breaks remain between each transaction line. If disabled, the transaction lines are presented continuously.

  

• Page-related properties are disabled when working with continuous sections. Only non-page-related properties are editable in continuous sections.
• When a section and a continuous section are both selected, the Section Properties panel does not display any properties.
• Administrators cannot delete a section with continuous sections unless the Continuous Section checkbox is unchecked for the sections.

The Table of Contents Layout is typically one of the first Layouts in the Template Flow.  Each line in the Table of Contents is determined by the template’s Heading Styles and the Heading Elements throughout the template.

In a PDF or DOCX output, the reader can click each line in the Table of Contents to be taken to where the Header is in the document. For an RTF output, depending on what program the file is opened in, the Table of Contents may or may not function in this manner.

The Table of Contents will only reference Heading Elements whose Heading Styles are in the selected Heading Style Set and have Add to Table of Contents? set to Yes.

For more information on Heading Style Sets and Heading Styles, see the topic Heading Styles and Style Sets in Document Designer. For more information on Heading Elements, see the topic Document Designer Elements.

The Header & Footer Layout applies a header and or footer to all Layouts below it in the Template Flow. Text, Image, Table, Spacer, and XSL Snippet Elements can be added to a Header & Footer Layout to create the header and/or footer content.

All Layouts that do not have a Header & Footer Element above them in the Template Flow will not have a header or footer applied to them. A Header & Footer will apply to all Layouts below it in the Template Flow until another Header & Footer Element is defined.

If there are Layouts that should not have Header and Footer content, the admin should create one or more empty Header & Footer Layouts to apply to these Layouts.

When a Header & Footer Layout is selected in the Template Flow, the following properties can be modified in the Properties pane:

Header and Footer Margins

Separate header and footer margin fields are now available and can be applied to sub-sections individually. The top and bottom margins of a section are applied after the Header and Footer margins are applied.

To access the Margin fields, click on a header or footer to open the Properties panel for the header and footer.