@bcgov/carbone-render

carbone-render

Library to generate a document from an existing template and JSON data. This is a wrapper around carbone, please refer to their documentation for more detail.

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: The carbone-render library now loads 2 versions of carbone - currently 1.2.1 and 2.1.1.
Carbone 2 has some amazing features and bug fixes (see change log); however, it removed some crucial functionality (for example, conversion from html to pdf). Please be aware that conversions may not work as expected and to thoroughly check your templates and resulting reports. We will attempt to convert using Carbone 2, and on error, convert using Carbone 1.

important

This library will require LibreOffice installed. It requires LibreOffice to do pdf generation.

usage

install/initialize

npm i @bcgov/carbone-render
...
const carboneRenderer = require('@bcgov/carbone-render');

startFactory

Optional call to start up the carbone python converter. This is recommended to call on start of your application, otherwise, the first call to render will take longer as it starts the converter.

carboneRenderer.startFactory();

fileTypes

Return a dictionary of allowable file conversions. Convert to pdf is always allowed.

const allowedConversions = carboneRenderer.fileTypes;

returns object

{
    "csv": [
        "doc",
        "docx",
        "html",
        "odt",
        "pdf",
        "rtf",
        "txt",
        "csv"
    ],
    "docx": [
        "doc",
        "docx",
        "html",
        "odt",
        "pdf",
        "rtf",
        "txt"
    ],
    "html": [
        "html",
        "odt",
        "pdf",
        "rtf",
        "txt"
    ],
    "odt": [
        "doc",
        "docx",
        "html",
        "odt",
        "pdf",
        "rtf",
        "txt"
    ],
    "pptx": [
        "odt",
        "pdf"
    ],
    "rtf": [
        "docx",
        "pdf"
    ],
    "txt": [
        "doc",
        "docx",
        "html",
        "odt",
        "pdf",
        "rtf",
        "txt"
    ],
    "xlsx": [
        "odt",
        "pdf",
        "rtf",
        "txt",
        "csv",
        "xls",
        "xlsx"
    ]
}

async render

Generate a new document from a template and JSON data. Render the report.

const data = {            
    "firstName": "Jane",
    "lastName": "Smith",
    "title": "Who?"  	
};
  
const options = {
    "convertTo": "pdf",           
    "reportName": "{d.firstName}-{d.lastName}.docx",
    "overwrite": "true",
    "cacheReport": "true"
};

const formatters = {
    // this formatter can be used in a template with {d.myBoolean:yesOrNo()}
    yesOrNo : function (data) { // data = d.myBoolean
      if (this.lang === 'fr') {
        return data === true ? 'oui' : 'non';
      }
      return data === true ? 'yes' : 'no';
    }
};

const output = await carboneRenderer.render(template.path, data, options, formatters);

Parameters	Description
template	template file
data	object or array of objects used in the template
options	Options object to pass to carbone. See carbone documenation.
options.convertTo	What file type to convert to, see fileTypes or pdf
options.reportName	Name of the generated report, should include expected extension. Can contain template placeholders, see carbone documentation.
formatters	Object. Additional formatters to add to carbone. See carbone documenation.

returns object

{ 
    success: false, 
    errorType: null, 
    errorMsg: null, 
    reportName: null, 
    report: null,
    engine: null
}

Field	Description
success	boolean, true indicates report generated, false otherwise
errorType	number - error number if not successful.
errorMsg	string - error message if not successful.
reportName	string - name of the generated report
report	binary - generated file
engine	string - which carbone engine rendered the report