How Do I Use Regional Profiles?

Regional Profiles provide a useful method for pre-formatting number, currency, time and date settings in Lasernet. Regional Profiles can then be used to generate forms tailored to specific countries or regions. For example, the 17th March 2016, is usually represented as 17/03/2016 in the UK, whereas in the USA it is usually presented as 03/17/2016. Regional Profiles will automatically perform conversion where they are applied.

Access Regional Profiles

To access the Regional Profile settings in Lasernet, click the Profiles tab in the Tools menu. If the Regional Profile button is not visible, click the button shown at the bottom right of the following image. This will bring up any hidden options.

All the Regional Profiles in the open build will now be shown in the main Lasernet window. By default, there will only be one.

Double-click any Regional Profile to bring up the profile properties window. From here, the profiles can now be customized. To add a new profile, click the Add button in the Toolbar.

Lasernet comes with pre-installed Regional Profiles, which can be viewed by clicking the Import button. This will bring up a list of installed profiles that can be edited or a new profile created. To edit an existing profile or create a new one, click the different tab sections at the top of a profile to bring up the relevant editable settings.

Use the Profiles

To use a Regional Profile in a form and on a rearrange, follow these steps:

1. Open the rearrange properties and open the Input tab. Choose the Format category for the data from the following options: Number, Currency, Time, or Date.

This will bring up two new tabs called Input format and Output format:

2. To enable the Regional Profiles on the input or output of the selected rearrange, select the Override form input format checkbox.

Note

To correctly display data we recommend you use both an input and an output profile, even if they are the same.

You must always use an Input Regional Profile and ensure that it reflects the data that is being passed in, as this ‘tells’ Lasernet what input format to expect so that it can be interpreted correctly. For example, if your data contains a date in the format 17/03/2016, then make sure you use an input profile that has the date setting as dd/MM/yyyy.

The drop-down box will show all of the regional profiles in the build. Once a regional profile is selected, the changes to the data format can be previewed using the Preview button or by clicking Shift + F5.

Example

The following are two examples of using Regional Profiles to convert data into another country’s correct format.

Currency – Converting a UK-formatted value to a German format.

Date – Converting a UK-formatted date to a USA format.