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PDF Templates
Merging Detail Data
Conga Composer has the unique ability to use data from a Salesforce Report or SOQL query as detail
data (e.g., invoice line items for each invoice). PDF templates, however, have no way to dynamically
expand to accommodate an unlimited number of detail rows. (If you need that flexibility in handling detail
data, consider using a Word-, Excel-, PowerPoint-, or HTML Email-based template which do support
dynamic detail data.)
With PDF templates, you may lay out a fixed number of rows to accommodate detail data by creating
fields in the format DatasetName.FieldName, DatasetName.FieldName_1, DatasetName.FieldName_2,
and so on.
Here’s how:
1. Open the Template Builder window. Copy the field you’d like to use to the clipboard.
2. Decide how many rows of data you want to accommodate in your PDF template. Because
PDF templates cannot dynamically add rows of detail data as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and
HTML Email templates do, you’ll need to build a row of merge fields to accommodate each
result/record in your report or query.
3. Switch to your PDF program and create a merge field for the field you copied to the
clipboard in step 1. This field will represent the field from the first row of data in your
report/query.
4. Create another merge field, perhaps on the next line down on your template. This field will
represent the field from the second row of data. The name of the field must be the same as the
previous field, except with an “_1” appended to the end to indicate the second row of data.
5. Repeat the creation of merge fields, each time incrementing the suffix number, e.g. “_2”, then
“_3”, and so on.
© 2014 Conga Release 8 13