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WordExport templates
- Introduction
- Note Format
- A Basic Template. Custom Document Properties
- Import the dradis Framework Schema
- Identify Sections
- Insert the Document Fields
- Upload to the Server
Warning: Please note that this tutorial applies to the latest version of the WordExport plugin which at the time of this writing is only in the subversion repository. For instructions on how to download the latest stable version of the framework from the repository see the Information for developers section.
Introduction
The WordExport plugin lets you export the contents of your repository into a Word XML formatted document.
In order for a note to appear in the exported report it will have to be
assigned to the 'WordExport ready' category although the
name of the category can be adjusted through the
WordExport::REPORTING_CATEGORY_NAME
constant.
In addition to this, the note's Text
needs to be formatted
in a particular way as discussed in the next section of this tutorial.
Finally, you would need a template (although a default one is provided). A template is a specially formated Word XML document that will be filled with the contents from the notes in your repository.
Note Format
The Framework lets you define your own fields, you can define as many
fields as you want in your note's Text
as long as you follow
the right format.
For this tutorial we are going to use: Title
, Risk
,
Description
and Recommendation
:

A Basic Template. Custom Document Properties
In order for the WordExport plugin to properly fill in your template, you will need to create a set of Custom Document Propeties in your Word template.
Lets start with a new empty document. Go to the Advance Properties window. File -> Prepare -> Properties -> Document Properties -> Advanced Properties:
As you can see in the screenshot above, the set of Custom Properties
must match the fields we defined in the Text
of our note.
The next thing you need to do is create the document layout that you want. Hopefully any combination will do the trick. For example we will have a Details section and Summary of Findings table:

Import the dradis Framework Schema
Before we can continue we need to import the dradis Framework XML Schema (dradisframework.xsd) to our current document.
The easiest way to do that is through the Developer
tab
in Word (File -> Word Options -> Popular -> tick the 'Show
Developer tab in the Ribbon' check box).
Go to the Schema
option, then Add Schema
,
choose the downloaded copy of dradisframework.xsd
(Note that
this file is also provided with dradis in /server/vendor/plugins/word_export/dradisframework.xsd
).
And fill in the rest of the details:
That would create a new schema in the list and you just need to click on it to associate it with your current document.
Please note that you will only need to do this step once. When you are creating your second template, the schema would already be there and you would only need to associate it with the document.
Identify Sections
If everything goes according to plan, that should have activated the
XML Structure
panel on the right-hand side of the window as
shown in the screenshot (click to enlarge).

In the upper section of the panel you will see the XML structure of your
document (more later). In the lower section you will see all the elements
defined in the dradisframework.xsd
schema which are:
- dradis-section: Used to delimit each section of the document.
- dradis-template: The plugin will repeat the section of the document that is enclosed between these tags for every Note in your reporting category.
- dradis-placeholder: Used internally by the plugin. You should not need to use this element.
What we need to do now is go through our document layout and apply these tags to the relevant sections.
To do this, just select the text you want to apply the tag to and then click on the chosen element in the XML panel.
Keep in mind that the plugin will only repeat the sections enclosed
between dradis-template
tags, so you can have introduction
paragraphs, or other sub-sections inside the section that will not be
repeated.
In our simple example, the result should be similar to the one shown in the screenshot:
Insert the Document Fields
The last thing we need to do with our template is indicate where the plugin needs to place the contents of the different fields of your notes.
As already discussed we are going to use Document Custom Properties to do it, so we need to insert the relevant fields in the right locations of our template.
To insert a field, select the text you want to replace (for instance we
are going to use the Title
field instead of the current
Issue Title) and go to Insert -> Quick Parts -> Field...
In the Field names
list, choose DocProperty
and in the Property
list choose Title
. Be
careful because there will be two Title
properties: the first
one is Word's default property, the second one is the one we defined.
Repeat the process with every field in you note, replace the dummy text we used to create the look and feel of the template with you Custom Property fields.
Once you have inserted the field, Word will swap your text with the default text you chose when you created the Custom Property. It will also highlight the field with a grey background when you click on it.The final result should look like the screenshot below.
Upload to the Server
The final stage in this proces. Save the document as a Word 2003 XML
document
. Use the filename template.xml
.
Go to your dradis installation folder, backup the
current template (./server/vendor/plugins/word_export/template.xml
)
and replace it with your new one.
You don't need to restart the server in order for the plugin to pick up the new template!
To get you started you can download the
sample template we have created during
this tutorial. There is also a new entry in the WordExport menu: View
template
that lets you inspect the current template used by the
plugin.
using dradis:
developing dradis:
support from:
If you're part of the community, have used the tool, like the project or want to tell everybody you support the project and it's goals, do not hesitate in contacting us so we can add your link.