Identify Line Items in the Input (Patterns)

Add

Clicking the Add button brings up a dialog allowing a new criterion to be manually added.

Remove

Removes the selected criterion.

Move Up

Moves the selected criterion up one place.

Move Down

Moves the selected criterion down one place.

Edit

Clicking the Edit button brings up a dialog allowing you to manually change the properties of the selected criterion.

Pattern Expression

The Pattern Expression field can be used for defining a set of criteria which must be true (or false). Further information about expressions can be found in the Form Expressions part of Use Criteria.

Instance(s) qualifiers

Extends pattern expressions so that the following instances:

1. All,

2. First,

3. Middle which is/are all non-first and non-last,

4. Last,

5. Single which is the only one existing line of the pattern

match those ones which belong to:

1. Scope of all instance,

2. Sequence of the pattern instances (no other patterns match lines between two or more sequences),

3. Region containing instances of the pattern,

4. Group containing instances of the pattern,

5. All instances of the pattern in conditional area on a page.

Both the All Position(s) checkbox and Scope All radio button are selected by default. As such, the remaining controls (First, Middle, Last and Single check boxes, and Sequence, Region, Group and Page radio buttons) are disabled. To enable these controls, clear the All Position(s) checkbox. Various combinations of the controls are possible. Selecting the Page button disables the Single checkbox.

Pattern Height

The Pattern height field defines the number of lines that the pattern will span. This can be used to match order lines where the data spans across multiple lines.

Allow further pattern matching

After matching the pattern and producing output, the algorithm will then continue to try matching the current line against the rest of the patterns in the list.

Active

Toggles a pattern active/inactive. If the check box is selected, the pattern is active and is normally processed. If the checkbox is cleared, the pattern becomes inactive and is not processed or shown in the output or the input.

Note

Even if a pattern is hidden and not shown in the output, it is still listed in the Pattern and Rearranges dialog which you can access via Sheet > Patterns and Rearranges.

Progress

The progress is the height that is reserved for the output of any rearranges belonging to the pattern. It effectively controls where the rearranges for the next pattern are placed so that they flow downwards on the output page. The Y position of rearranges belonging to a pattern are always relative to the current page progress. A progress of 5.0 means that the output of the next pattern match is placed 5 millimetres lower than the current pattern match.

Progress is relative to the highest rearrange

Defines the Progress value as the size of the vertical margin between the output rearranges of each pattern match, instead of using an absolute progress for the pattern. This setting implies that rearranges within a pattern can have differing heights and positions, and calculates the total progress accordingly.

Note

For script output to be used for relative progress calculations, the scripts must be run as the first pass. See Add Dynamic Elements to a Sheet.

Group until

Creates a group starting at every instance of the current pattern and ending by any pattern available in the list (like the OR expression). This setting is related to the Keep rearranges together setting (see below); if the Keep rearranges together checkbox is selected for the group starting instance, Lasernet does not add implicit page breaks until the ending group instance.

Once the check box is selected, a grid containing patterns and command buttons to manipulate those patterns appear. By default, the current pattern is listed here.

Clicking the Add command button adds one more current pattern to the grid. To change it to a new one, select the pattern and click the Edit command button, or double click the pattern. Afterwards, select the required pattern among those available in the drop-down list. To remove the pattern from the grid, select it and click the Remove command button.

Each matching pattern except the current one can be included or excluded by acquiring the Yes or No value respectively. Patterns with the No value do not end the group. The last pattern before the No value pattern ends the group instead.

GroupName

Type a descriptive name for the group.

Additional progress

Defines the space size between group blocks.

Keep rearranges together

If the checkbox is selected, Lasernet keeps all the lines of the rearranges for a pattern together on the same page. If the checkbox is cleared, Lasernet does not keep all rearranges in a pattern together on the same page.

Remove empty lines from beginning of each page

If the checkbox is selected, empty pattern lines are removed from the top of each page in the output.

Remove empty lines from end of each page

If the checkbox is selected, empty pattern lines are removed from the bottom of each page in the output.

Widow/orphan control

If the checkbox is selected, Lasernet avoids putting one or more paragraph-ending lines at the top of a page (widows) or leaving one or more paragraph-starting lines at the bottom of a page (orphans). You can set a number of lines to be considered widow/orphan.

Page break before

If the checkbox is selected, a page break is inserted before each pattern output (instance).

If a group is specified (see Group until), selecting the checkbox will insert a page break before each group block.

Page break after

If the checkbox is selected, a page break is inserted after each pattern output (instance).

If a group is specified (see Group until), selecting the checkbox will insert a page break after each group block.

Output Area

From the drop-down list, select an output area to display the pattern. The list contains the default conditional area and custom conditional area(s), if added. Select the <Same As Previous Pattern> option to connect the pattern to the same conditional area as the previous pattern. If the first line of the conditional area is recognized as a pattern with the <Same As Previous Pattern> value, it will be processed in the same way as the default conditional area.

Output Region

Select the region where the pattern should be displayed in the output. The list contains the default region and custom regions(s), if added to a defined conditional area.

Detect pattern

Use the drop-down list to select one of the options you need:

Odd/Even: Select the option to alternate all available instances belonging to a pattern as odd and even.

Odd/Even but not in the Same Pattern: Select the option to alternate the current instance as odd and even but only if the previous one belongs to another pattern.

Same As Previous Pattern: Select the option to keep instances without alternating.