LabVIEW Report Generation Toolkit

The National Instruments LabVIEW Report Generation Toolkit for Microsoft Office provides tools for creating and editing professional, consistent reports in Microsoft Word and Excel from within NI LabVIEW. It does this in two ways. First, it extends standard report generation VI functionality to support Word and Excel formats in addition to HTML and standard LabVIEW report formats. Secondly, the toolkit contains more than 70 additional Word-specific and Excel-specific VIs for customizing these types of reports.

You can use LabVIEW Report Generation Toolkit VIs to:

• Create and edit Word documents and Excel worksheets.
• Use Word and Excel templates to create reports with a consistent, uniform style.
• Insert, format, and edit text, tables, images, and graphs within Word documents and Excel worksheets. LabVIEW Report Generation Toolkit VIs can handle several Word documents at the same time or several Excel worksheets in the same workbook.
• Run Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros from Word documents and Excel workbooks.

Create Custom Templates

You can create custom report templates in Word and Excel to ensure a consistent appearance in multiple reports. Use templates to define page size, text formatting, and other aspects of report appearance. You also can specify placeholders for text, tables, graphs, and images. Both Word and Excel provide ways to insert placeholders into documents and worksheets. Use bookmarks in Word and named ranges in Excel to define placeholders.

Use the MS Office Report Express VI

The LabVIEW Report Generation Toolkit also includes the MS Office Report Express VI. Use this Express VI in Word and Excel templates to quickly generate custom reports. Word and Excel templates contain placeholders for common data and components. The MS Office Report Express VI inserts data into the placeholders so you can display, print, or save the resulting report without having to do any of the programming yourself.

Run Visual Basic Macros in Word and Excel

You can use the Word Run Macro VI and the Excel Run Macro VI to run VBA macros in Word and Excel. The VIs can run existing VBA macros and macros that you program to implement functionality not included in the LabVIEW Report Generation Toolkit.

Take Advantage of New Features

With the new features in the LabVIEW Report Generation Toolkit Version 1.1.1, which runs only with LabVIEW 7 or later, you can:

• Work with Office 2003 as well as Office 2000 and XP
• Generate reports using the MS Office Report Express VI with Word and Excel templates
• Use the Excel Set Page Numbering VI to add and format page numbers in an Excel worksheet
• Still access the Word VI Template and Excel VI Template VIs from LLBs even though they no longer appear on the palettes

The Report Generation Toolkit adds functionality to the existing report generation VIs in LabVIEW. Using these new VIs, you can:

• Use the Report Express VI to generate preformatted reports
• Use the Easy Print VI Panel or Documentation VI to print or save front panels and VI documentation
• Use the VIs on the VI Documentation palette to customize VI documentation that you print or save to a report
• Use the Query Available Printers VI to list the printers available on the computer, including the default printer in LabVIEW
• Use the Print Report VI to print a Word, Excel, or standard report to the default printer
• Wire a path or VI reference or string to the VI to specify which front panel to append to a report with the polymorphic Append Front Panel Image to Report VI
• Take advantage of the polymorphic Append Table to Report VI instances that replace the Append Text Table to Report VI and the Append Numeric Table Report VI

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