Skip to main content

Report Output

You can generate your report in CDM in several formats such as Excel, Word, PDF, and HTML. Before you generate output from an Excel object, you can also preview the output to ensure all content is correct.

Report Output Formats

You can generate your report in the following formats:

  • Microsoft Excel
    You can generate the report as a Microsoft™ Excel document.
  • Microsoft Word
    Microsoft Word is the default output format. When you generate the report as a Microsoft Word document, all report presentation details are applied. PowerPoint objects, Web Page objects, and PDF objects are not included in Microsoft Word output.
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
    Unlike Microsoft Word or PDF output, when you select Microsoft PowerPoint as the output format, only PowerPoint objects are included in the output. This behavior applies to both the Generate Entire Report and Generate Selected Objects options. Word objects and Excel objects are not included in the Microsoft PowerPoint output. If a PowerPoint object includes references to external data, such as a graph in an Excel object, the referenced object is included in the Microsoft PowerPoint output.
  • Adobe PDF
    Like output to a Microsoft Word document, output to a PDF document includes all report presentation details. The PDF format provides a high-resolution output for printing. PowerPoint objects, Web Page objects, and PDF objects are not included in PDF output.
  • Email with PDF Attached
    You can generate a PDF document and send it to one or more recipients. The PDF document is the same as a document created by using the Adobe PDF output option.
  • High Definition HTML
    You can generate a high definition .htm version of your Word reports.
  • EDGAR HTML
    If you use the EDGAR feature in CDM, you can generate a document in HTML format suitable for use with the EDGAR feature.
  • Desktop Publishing
    If you use the desktop publishing feature in CDM, you can generate a document in XML format suitable for use with a desktop publishing application such as Adobe™ InDesign.
  • XBRL Instance
    You can generate an XBRL instance document for your filing reports. An XBRL instance document is a business report prepared using the XBRL standard. It refers to a specific taxonomy entry point and it is the combination of the XBRL instance document and the taxonomy that enables the contents of an XBRL instance document to be fully understood.
  • XBRL CSV
    You can generate an xBRL-CSV report for your filing reports. An xBRL-CSV report is a type of XBRL report that uses the simple and efficient CSV file format. Due to its compact size, xBRL-CSV is particularly well suited to tabular reports with a large number of facts.

Preview an Excel Object

Before you generate output from an Excel object, you can preview the output. You might find this useful to ensure that all content appears correctly, especially if the Excel object contains ## variables.

To preview an Excel object:

  1. Open the report that you want to work with.
  2. Open the Excel object.
  3. In the Report Object tab on the ribbon, click Generate & Preview > Preview.
  4. In the Preview window, confirm that the content appears correctly.
  5. If necessary, check out the Excel object and make changes.
  6. When the content appears correctly in the preview, you can generate the Excel object.

Specify Regional Settings for Report Output

Users granted the Modify Report permission can set the preferred Language and Region Options in the report properties that will be used to generate Excel print areas and variables to Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe PDF and Edgar HTML.

When generate a report, users are still able to select a different language and region option than the preferred option.

Select Language and Region Option

When no Language and Region Options is set in the report properties, or selected on generation, the default language and region that is set on the CDM application server is used, making the default behavior identical with the one from previous versions.

Validate Report Output

As you are working with a report in CDM, you can validate the report periodically to find errors that can cause report generation to fail.

While you are compiling the report, a full validation can cost time and is rarely needed. Therefore two types of validation are available: Quick Report Validation and Full Report Validation. The quick validation is made against the cache without doing a cache refresh. The latest changes in the report are validated. A full validation refreshes the cache before validation. In either case, before generation of a report, the report is automatically validated.

To validate a report:

  1. Open the report that you want to work with.
  2. Click the parent report and click Home > Validate and select one of the following actions: Quick Report Validation and Full Report Validation.
  3. Click OK to start the validation.

    Tip: You can view the progress in the All processes completed window in the status bar. While processes are running, the title bar shows the number of running processes. When the processes are finished, the title is All processes completed.

  4. To open the validation file, open the All processes completed window in the status bar, and click the Open icon. A check mark indicates that a process generated properly. An exclamation point indicates an error that stopped the process.

Generate Report Output

You can generate output from CDM to test the report building progress or to create a document for internal or external reporting. You can also generate output containing macros and for the EDGAR feature or desktop publishing applications such as Adobe™ InDesign, if you use those features.

Note: When you generate an inline document or submission package, you can choose to save temporary files on the server (associated to the long running process). These files are saved in a Support Files folder (the XPS file will not be included). To do this, enable Include Certent CDM support files during generation in the Options window (to access the Options window, click Options on the File tab).

Before you generate report output, you should verify that the print setting is correct for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint objects. Only report objects that are set to Printable are included in the report output. As additions to the main report, you can generate separate documents for report objects that are set to Supporting Document or Exhibit. The administrator must configure and enable email notifications to support the Email with PDF Attached report output option.

When you generate a report, all report presentation details are applied, such as page setup properties, note variables, and table of contents settings. You can customize report generation to provide the following results:

  • Generate the report by selecting one or more custom groups.
  • Include supporting documents and exhibits. Supporting documents can be generated as separate documents or included in the main report. Exhibits are grouped in an Exhibit section and are combined into a single document at generation. You cannot include supporting documents and exhibits with Microsoft™ PowerPoint output.
  • Create a report snapshot. Report snapshots are useful for tracking changes to reports.
  • Refresh data to include the most recent information from data sources, variables, and reference report objects in the generated report. The use of cached data is useful to reduce generation time because the server does not have to contact data sources and update all their values.
  • Generate the report for all Excel objects or selected Excel objects.

    If you select all Excel objects, you generate all content from the printable range (##RS-##RE) in all Excel objects in the report to an external Excel file at the highest version of the Microsoft Office version available in the report. If you make a selection of Excel objects, you generate the selected content from the printable range in the Excel objects in the report to an external Excel file at the highest version of the Microsoft Office version available in the report.

    You can also specify to have multiple workbooks for the output. If you select Use Separate Workbooks, then you must specify the number of worksheets in each book. For example, if you make a selection of 100 printable ranges and 25 worksheets per workbook, you generate four workbooks, each with 25 worksheets. The naming convention of each worksheet for the workbook follows the convention objectName_rangeNumber and is limited to 31 characters.

  • If you generate a report or report object in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint format in Microsoft Office Version 2007 or later, and if you choose Microsoft Word or PowerPoint as your output format, you can choose to generate charts as either images or objects.
  • You can specify the culture to be considered for date formats, number formats, and currency formats. The culture is in the form of language and regional settings that are applied to Excel report objects in the generated report. The setting is available for the report output types: Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe PDF, and EDGAR HTML.
  • When you generate a section of a report, the header from a previous section is sometimes generated even if the header is not associated with the generated section.
  • The list of macros that can be selected for a particular generation are filtered based on the macros' target (Excel or PowerPoint) when the macro was created. The generated report contains the selected macros in separate modules for each macro. The modules have the macros' names from CDM. When generating a report, the all processes window differentiates a macro generation from a regular generation. If at generation time, an empty macro (in effect, the user added a name and target and optionally a description but no VBA code) is selected for insertion, a warning is displayed when opening the generation in CDM.

To generate report output:

  1. Open the report that you want to work with.
  2. Click the Home tab, then in the Navigation Pane, click Administration.
  3. Double-click Reports. The Reports tab opens in the work area.
  4. To generate the entire report, complete one of the following actions:
    • Right-click the report name and click Report Generation > Entire Report.
    • Click Home > Generate > Generate Entire Report.
  5. To generate one or more Word objects or PowerPoint objects without generating the entire report, complete one of the following actions:
    • Right-click the Word or PowerPoint object or objects and click Report Generation > Selected Report Objects.
    • Open the Word or PowerPoint object. Then, in the Report Object tab on the ribbon, click Generate.
  6. To generate one or more Excel objects without generating the entire report, complete one of the following actions:
    • Right-click the Excel object or objects and click Report Generation > Selected Report Objects.
    • Open the Excel object. Then, in the Report Object tab on the ribbon, click Generate & Preview > Generate.

      Tip: If you use this method, you can choose to preview the Excel object first, to see if it appears correctly before you generate. To do so, click Generate & Preview > Preview.

  7. Select the format, custom group, additional preferences, and macros that are to be included. Alternatively, you can double-click a format icon to generate the report in the selected format with the current options.

    Tip: The generation of a report always starts with a validation. You can check Perform Full Refresh to refresh the cache before validation.

  8. Specify how you want to generate charts:
    • If you generate charts as images, you can view the information in your generated report, but you cannot change it afterward. This option might result in better rendering of advanced chart types such as 3D charts and rounded edges. To generate charts as images, make sure that the Generate charts as images checkbox is selected. This is the default selection for Microsoft Office version 2007 or later.
    • If you generate charts as objects, the appearance of the chart is clearer, and you can click the content afterwards and edit it, if necessary. However, it might take longer to process your report if you generate charts as objects. To generate charts as objects, make sure that the Generate charts as images checkbox is cleared.

    Tip: In Windows™ Server 2003, generated charts appear wider than the original ones. If you use Windows Server 2003, you might prefer to generate charts as images.

  9. To save a snapshot of the report, select Save as Snapshot.
  10. Use the Select Language and Region Option drop-down list to select the culture option for your generated report.
  11. If you want to see the appearance of variables before you proceed, click Preview.

    Note: No matter which versions of Office are used in your system, when you preview a report or report object by clicking the Preview button, you can see charts only as images. However, when you actually generate the report or report object, if you use Office 2007 or later, you can generate charts as either images or objects.

  12. Click OK.

Excel objects in the report might contain more than one data worksheet. (The first data worksheet is originally named Sheet1, but it might have been renamed.) If there are multiple ##RS and ##RE range variables applied in the same worksheet, or across different worksheets, the content is read from left to right and then top to bottom when it is generated in the final document. At that point, all the printable ranges inside the Excel object are separated by one blank row.

Note: A ##RS-##RE range cannot overlap with other ##RS-##RE directives when you are defining a worksheet with multiple ranges.

CDM creates the output file on your computer. For example, on Microsoft Windows 7, the report is added to the C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp directory. The output file is not added to the CDM database.

If you selected macros to be included in the generated report, the resulting workbook or presentation is macro-enabled (for example, XLSM, PPTM) and contains those macros.

When you open a report, you can choose to save it. If you do so, and then you open it again, the report opens from the location that you specified; otherwise, it opens from a temporary location.

Was this article helpful?

We're sorry to hear that.