Export Documents to DOCX

Documentation / Export

You can export ReqView projects to DOCX files and open them in MS Word for reading, printing or conversion to PDF.

Summary of DOCX features:

  • Preserve rich text formatting
  • Preview image attachments
  • Open file attachments by clicking
  • Browse links by clicking (within one file)
  • Set page layout for print
  • Import changes

Note: Export HTML files if you need to browse links between documents or open file attachments by clicking.

Note: Exported DOCX files use specific OpenXML format features supported by MS Word but not by other text processors, such as LibreOffice.

Export DOCX Files

To export a DOCX file, click File, mouseover Export and click DOCX File. In the Export DOCX dialog, choose a Word template, layout and other options. After confirmation of the dialog, select a destination for storing the exported DOCX file.

Note: In the WebApp, the exported DOCX file is saved in the browser download folder.

Export Options

Word Template:

Choose a MS Word template to define title page, table of contents, page properties (size, orientation, headers, footers), paragraph styles, and selection of exported ReqView documents:

  • Default MS Word template — use the default template to export the current ReqView document, see Download Templates.
  • Custom MS Word template — select a custom DOCX/DOTX template file, see MS Word Template.

Table View:

Select a table view defining which attributes or template columns will be exported:

  • Current or default view — export open documents using the current table view and closed documents using the default view.
  • <table view> — export documents using the selected table view. Documents without the selected table view are exported using the last used or the default table view.

For more information see Table Views.

Layout:

Select layout and styling of exported data:

  • Book — export a single column (the displayed columns are stacked as paragraphs) using default styles.
  • Table — export a table with the displayed columns using default styles.
  • Custom — export content with custom layout and styles using a custom HTML template, see Export Using Custom Templates.

For more information how to customize layout see Export Using Custom Templates > Example Export Templates > HTML for Export to Word.

You can download the default HTML templates for Book and Table layout from Export Using Custom Templates > Download Export Templates.

Options:

  • Merge displayed custom attributes — if set then columns displaying custom attributes will be merged into a single column (for Table and Custom layouts).
  • Ignore filter — if the exported table view is filtered then this options controls if the filter is preserved or ignored.
  • Ignore sorting — if the exported table view is sorted by a selected column then this option controls if the sort order is preserved or ignored.
  • Ignore links to invisible objects — if set then do not include links from / to document objects which are not visible in the exported file (for Book and Table layouts).
  • Preserve section folding — if set then the content of collapsed sections will be ignored.
  • Explore and load linked projects — if set then indirectly linked projects will be explored and loaded to display additional traceability links, see Manage Linked Project.
  • Add custom export parameters – pass custom export parameters to your custom template from a selected JSON file, see exportParam helper (for Custom layout).

Example: Export the Software Requirements Specification (SRS) document from the Example project into a Word file using the Book layout. For each SW requirement output its ID, text description, verification method, and upstream traceability links to user needs.

Export a *Software Requirements Specification (SRS)* into a Word file using the Book layout from ReqView

Example: Export the Risks document from the Example project into a Word file using custom template with vertical text in table header.

Exported RISKS table with vertical text in table header

For more information how to customize HTML export templates for MS Word see Export Using Custom Templates > HTML for Export to Word.

Export Configuration

You can export documents to DOCX files easily using a shared export configuration storing all export options, see Export Configurations.

Export CLI

You can export documents to DOCX files using reqview export docx command, see Command Line > Export Documents.

MS Word Template

You can create custom MS Word templates to export DOCX documents with a title page, table of contents, page headers, footers and paragraph styles according to your company standards.

Default MS Word template for export from ReqView

Content Controls

To export data from the current ReqView project, insert the following Word content controls in your custom MS Word template:

  • ReqView.id — export the project identifier.
  • ReqView.user.name — export the name of the current ReqView user.
  • ReqView.user.email — export the email of the current ReqView user.
  • ReqView.user.company — export the company of the current ReqView user.
  • ReqView.date — export the current date, e.g. "2020-02-19".
  • ReqView.dateTime — export the current date, e.g. "2020-02-19 16:00".
  • ReqView.document — export data from the current document using the selected layout.
  • ReqView.document.id — export the current document identifier.
  • ReqView.document.name — export the name of the current document.
  • ReqView.document.exportSection[<sectionId>] — export the section sectionId of the current document, see Export Sections.
  • ReqView.document[<docId>] — export data from the document docId using the selected layout.
  • ReqView.document[<docId>].name — export the name of the document docId.
  • ReqView.document[<docId>].exportSection[<sectionId>] — export the sectionId of the document docId, see Export Sections.
  • ReqView.exportParam[<parameter>] — export the value of the given custom export parameter read from the JSON file selected in the Export dialog (see Export Options) or provided by argument --params to command reqview export (see CLI).

You can insert Word content controls into a custom MS Word template as follows:

  1. Show the Developer tab, see how.
  2. Enable Design Mode on the Developer Tab.
  3. Move cursor to the place in the document where you want to insert the content control.
  4. Click on Plain Text Content Control on the Developer tab and type in a content control text, for example ReqView.document[SRS] to export content of document SRS.
  5. Optionally, set the content control title to "ReqView" by clicking on Properties on the Developer Tab.

Page Headers and Footers

You can insert a ReqView content control into a page header or footer. For example, to output the name of the exported ReqView document on page headers, open the DOCX template, double click on the page header, and insert ReqView.document.name content control as described in the previous section.

Note: You can experience a missing images in MS Word exported document when you place an image in the Word Template header. To avoid this buggy behavior of MS Word, place a picture in the Watermark. See how to insert a picture watermark.

Document Properties

You can insert a Word content control also in Word document properties. For example, to set the current user company name in Company property, open the DOCX template, click File, click Info, click Properties, then choose Advanced Properties, and insert ReqView.user.company text in the Company text field:

Editing template fields: Title, Author, and Company

Section Headings

You can customize the standard paragraph styles for section headings Heading 1, Heading 2, ..., Heading 9. For example, enable automatic numbering of section headings, adjust spaces before section headings, and insert a page break before each Heading 1 paragraph.

Note: MS Word supports automatically numbered multilevel lists up to 9 levels. Therefore will export sections below level 9 as level 9 and Word will number such section headings differently than ReqView.

Word Styles

You can customize the following Word styles if you select predefined Book or Table layout:

  • rv-attachment — attachment including images (paragraph)
  • rv-attribute — custom attribute name (paragraph)
  • rv-attribute-value — custom attribute value (paragraph)
  • rv-column — template column name (paragraph)
  • rv-column-value — template column value (paragraph)
  • rv-comment — comment text (paragraph)
  • rv-id — document object identifier (character)
  • rv-label — custom attribute or template column label (character)
  • rv-link — traceability link (character)
  • rv-link-group — group of traceability links (paragraph)
  • rv-text — text description of a document object (paragraph)
  • rv-text-deleted — text description of a deleted document object (paragraph)

For custom layouts, you can define your own class names in HTML templates and customize the corresponding Word styles in Word templates, see Customize or create new styles in MS Word.

Example: Let’s see how to use bold formatting for document object IDs. The default Book and Table layouts outputs documents object IDs using export template <span class="rv-id">[{{docObjId}}]</span>. Because HTML tag <span> uses CSS class rv-id we need to customize Word character style rv-id in our MS Word template as follows:

  1. In Word, open the DOCX file with our MS Word template.

  2. Press CtrlAltShiftS to open the Styles pane.

  3. In the pane, right-click rv-id in the pane, select Modify.

  4. In the Modify Style dialog, click the icon enabling bold formatting:

    Customize Word styles in the default DOCX template for export from ReqView

Note: If you experience issue with larger numbers than heading text in the first heading after section break, please explicitly specify numbering format of corresponding heading style in custom DOCX template.

Note: Vertical text in your custom DOCX template can cause missing images. In that case use for vertical text banded sidebar text area.

Document Sections

You can insert in the DOCX template content controls ReqView.document.exportSection[<sectionId>] or ReqView.document[<docId>].exportSection[<sectionId>] to output ReqView document sections selected in a custom HTML template using exportOption helper with "exportSection" parameter.

Example: Let’s see how to export document Software Requirements Specification (SRS) into a DOCX file, which contains document section Introduction using the book layout and portrait page orientation and document section Requirements using the table layout and landscape orientation.

  1. In Word, open a DOCX template and insert content control ReqView.document.exportSection[Intro] at a new page after the title page and table of contents having the portrait page orientation.

  2. In Word, click on Breaks on the Layout tab and select Next Page to insert a section break and start a new section on the next page. You can check section breaks in the Draft View. Then insert rich text content control ReqView.document.exportSection[Reqs] at the new page and set its orientation to landscape.

    Custom DOCX template for exporting introduction and requirements as separate sections from ReqView
  3. In ReqView, open the exported document SRS. Then define custom enumeration attribute exportSection:

    {
    "exportSection": {
    "type": "enum",
    "name": "Export Section",
    "values": [
    { "key": "Intro", "label": "Introduction" },
    { "key": "Reqs", "label": "Requirements" }
    ]
    }
    }
  4. In ReqView, set values of attribute exportSection for each top level document section:

    Set custom attribute storing export sections in ReqView document exported to DOCX
  5. Create a custom template exporting different content for both sections "Intro" and "Reqs":

    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html lang="en-US">
    <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>{{docName}}</title>
    </head>
    <body>
    {{!-- Export section Introduction --}}
    {{#if (eval (exportOption "exportSection") "==" "Intro")}}
    {{#eachDocumentObject}}
    {{#if (eval (attributeValue "exportSection" format="string" inherit=true) "==" "Introduction")}}
    {{#if heading}}{{#section numbering=false}}{{{heading}}}{{/section}}{{/if}}
    {{text}}
    {{/if}}
    {{/eachDocumentObject}}
    {{/if}}
    {{!-- Export section Requirements --}}
    {{#if (eval (exportOption "exportSection") "==" "Reqs")}}
    <table>
    <thead>
    <tr>
    <th>ID</th>
    <th>Description</th>
    <th>Rationale</th>
    <th>Source</th>
    </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
    {{#eachDocumentObject}}
    {{#if (eval (attributeValue "exportSection" format="string" inherit=true) "==" "Requirements")}}
    <tr>
    <td>{{docObjId}}</td>
    <td>
    {{#if heading}}{{#section numbering=false}}{{{heading}}}{{/section}}{{/if}}
    {{{text}}}
    </td>
    <td>{{{rationale}}}</td>
    <td>{{{source}}}</td>
    </tr>
    {{/if}}
    {{/eachDocumentObject}}
    </tbody>
    </table>
    {{/if}}
    </body>
    </html>
  6. In ReqView, export the document SRS to DOCX. In the Export DOCX dialog choose Custom MS Word Template and select the DOCX template created in steps 1-2, and then choose Custom layout and select the HTML template created in step 5.

Download Templates

Word Templates

You can download and reuse the following DOCX template:

  • Default MS Word Template — export a title page, table of contents, followed by content of the current document using the paragraph styles described in the previous section.

HTML Templates for Layout:

For an example HTML template, see Export Using Custom Templates > Export HTML Format > HTML for Export to Word.

You can download the default HTML templates for Book and Table layout from Export Using Custom Templates > Download Export Templates.

Updated for version 2.18.2