When building your template, you will be frequently adding data values into the Design Surface. Whenever you complete this action, you will be creating what is called a Field. A Field is a placeholder in your document template that is used at run time to retrieve the information from your data source and insert into the document when rendered.

 

Fields will show up in the Design Surface by default with a gray background and an XPath expression (the location of the information in your data source). You can resize these elements in the Design Surface for your design needs, but in your output document the Field will be replaced with the value from your data no matter what the length is. You should keep Dynamic behaviors such as this in mind when working with Fields.

 

Notice in Figure 1 there is a difference between how the static text is displayed and the field is displayed. This "number" field will be populated with an invoice number from the data source when the document is produced.

 

Figure 1: The Field is represented in the design surface as a gray box.        

 

When working with fields, you will need to learn about how to add them, format the data, modify, and understand other options related to adding fields into repeating elements in your document template.

Visit the links below to learn more about your options related to fields:

 

How to Insert and Edit a Field

Creating Advanced Expressions