How to: Generate Master-Detail Mail Merge Documents
- 2 minutes to read
Important
You require a license to the DevExpress Office File API or DevExpress Universal Subscription to use these examples in production code. Refer to the DevExpress Subscription page for pricing information.
The following code uses the Snap Report API to generate a mail-merge report in the context of the DevExpress Office File API.
It is a console application that creates a document and then exports it to an RTF file.
To use the SnapDocumentServer, the project requires references to the following assemblies:
- DevExpress.Data.v19.1.dll
- DevExpress.Docs.v19.1.dll
- DevExpress.Office.v19.1.Core.dll
- DevExpress.RichEdit.v19.1.Core.dll
- DevExpress.Snap.v19.1.Core.dll
To perform mail merge, the application requires a template - a file in the native .SNX format which contains the document layout, specific fields and data source information. The template file must be created beforehand using the Snap Design Surface. For an example of template creation, review the Lesson 3 - Create a Mail Merge Report.
The code handles the SnapDocumentServer.SnapMailMergeRecordStarted and SnapDocumentServer.SnapMailMergeRecordFinished events to make adjustments to the merged document created for the particular data record.
The server loads a mail merge template using the RichEditDocumentServer.LoadDocument method. Subsequently, the code creates the SnapMailMergeExportOptions object and assigns the data source by specifying the IDataSourceContainerOptions.DataSource property. The mail merge operation is performed by calling the SnapDocumentServer.SnapMailMerge method.
SnapDocumentServer server = new SnapDocumentServer();
server.SnapMailMergeRecordStarted += server_SnapMailMergeRecordStarted;
server.SnapMailMergeRecordFinished += server_SnapMailMergeRecordFinished;
server.LoadDocument(templateFileName);
object dataSource = CreateDataSource();
SnapMailMergeExportOptions options = server.Document.CreateSnapMailMergeExportOptions();
options.DataSource = dataSource;
Console.Write("Performing mail merge... ");
server.SnapMailMerge(options, outputFileName, DocumentFormat.Rtf);