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Custom Report Layout - Excel vs. Word templates for printed documents

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Posted on by MichaelRothmann

Obviously, MS Word is the first choice for a custom layout to generate invoices, orders and like.

But Excel could include a lot more functions as a template, not available in MS Word.

Anyone with knowledge of using Excel as a template for e.g. invoices ?

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MahGah 15,529 on at

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Hi

The Excel template is the new one in BC20. It is a chance not many people tried it or used it.

In our environment and as an experiment I tried to use it and had a couple issue with it. But that could be totally on me

I could not make it to print correctly and in addition had a hard time with formatting and make the formatting works. Also, a few times it run with an error. But it is is prefect if you want to add charts and some basic analysis into report template.

Side note: of course you can use Jet Report or ODATA to create invoice outside of BC but those are external tools.

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JAngle 133 on at

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Seen it done with Jet Reports. More conditional hiding options that way. Other advantage of word is it goes straight to pdf in email scenarios. Doubtful you would get this for excel layouts as standard

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YUN ZHU 95,729 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi, one important thing to note is that in the current version, Excel Layout cannot be printed directly, but can only be downloaded.

Here is a simple test I did.

https://yzhums.com/23873/

And the following is the Excel layout presentations from Microsoft: https://github.com/microsoft/BCTech/tree/master/samples/Excel

Hope this info helps.

Thanks.

ZHU

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Steven Renders 5,672 Moderator on at

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If I'm not wrong, Excel layouts are currently not multi-language, and for document layouts that is usually a requirement, being able to generate the text in the language of the recipient...

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