The MailMerge ╰ TX Text Control .NET Server for ASP.NET
╰ DocumentServer Namespace
╰ MailMerge Class
The MailMerge class is a .NET component that can be used to effortlessly merge template documents with database content in .NET projects, such as ASP.NET web applications, web services or Windows services. class can be used to merge form fields with data from JSON objects or IEnumerable objects. Form fields can be pre-populated to prepare forms for users to complete or they can be flattened.

We just published a new online demo that shows how to implement these options based on a typical form used in the healthcare industry.

TX Text Control form

Pre-Selecting Form Fields

On the first button click, the form fields are pre-selected with existing JSON data. To increase the user experience, to accelerate the process and to decrease errors, parts of a document can be pre-populated with known values.

TX Text Control form

The HttpGet controller method PDFPrepare is called with the boolean flatten parameter false.

[HttpGet]
public string PDFPrepare(bool flatten) {
byte[] bDocument;
// create temporary ServerTextControl
using (ServerTextControl tx = new ServerTextControl()) {
tx.Create();
// loading the template
tx.Load(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/Documents/patient_history.tx"), StreamType.InternalUnicodeFormat);
// fire up the MailMerge engine
using (MailMerge mailMerge = new MailMerge()) {
mailMerge.TextComponent = tx; // connect to ServerTextControl
// pre-selecting form fields
if (flatten == false)
mailMerge.FormFieldMergeType = FormFieldMergeType.Preselect;
else // flatten form fields
mailMerge.FormFieldMergeType = FormFieldMergeType.Replace;
string jsonData = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/Documents/data.json"));
// merge JSON into fields
mailMerge.MergeJsonData(jsonData);
}
// export to PDF
tx.Save(out bDocument, BinaryStreamType.InternalUnicodeFormat);
}
// return as Base64 encoded string
return Convert.ToBase64String(bDocument);
}
view raw test.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

In this case, the FormFieldMergeType ╰ TX Text Control .NET Server for ASP.NET
╰ DocumentServer Namespace
╰ MailMerge Class
╰ FormFieldMergeType Property
Specifies in which manner form fields are treated during the merge process. property is set to Preselect which basically tells the MailMerge engine to set the text of the form fields and to keep the form fields in the document.

TX Text Control form

Flattening Form Fields

On the second button, the controller method PDFPrepare is called with the boolean flatten parameter true. The FormFieldMergeType ╰ TX Text Control .NET Server for ASP.NET
╰ DocumentServer Namespace
╰ MailMerge Class
╰ FormFieldMergeType Property
Specifies in which manner form fields are treated during the merge process. property is set to Replace. In this case, the MailMerge engine is removing known form fields and replaces them with the given text.

TX Text Control form

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