docx-stamper

docx-stamper is a Java template engine for docx documents. You create a template .docx document with your favorite word processor and feed it to a DocxStamper instance to create a document based on the template at runtime. Example code:

MyContext context = ...;                 // your own POJO against which expressions found in the template
                                         // will be resolved
InputStream template = ...;              // InputStream to your .docx template file
OutputStream out = ...;                  // OutputStream in which to write the resulting .docx document
DocxStamper stamper = new DocxStamperConfiguration()
  .build();
stamper.stamp(template, context, out);
out.close();

Replacing Expressions in a .docx Template

The main feature of docx-stamper is replacement of expressions within the text of the template document. Simply add expressions like ${person.name} or ${person.name.equals("Homer") ? "Duff" : "Budweiser"} in the text of your .docx template and provide a context object against which the expression can be resolved. docx-stamper will try to keep the original formatting of the text in the template intact. You can use the full feature set of Spring Expression Language (SpEL).

The value an expression resolves to may be of the following types:

Type of expression value	Effect
java.lang.Object	The expression is replaced by the String representation of the object (String.valueOf()).
java.lang.String	The expression is replaced with the String value.
java.util.Date	The expression is replaced by a formatted Date string (by default "dd.MM.yyyy"). You can change the format string by registering your own DateResolver.
org.wickedsource.docxstamper...Image	The expression is replaced with an inline image.

If an expression cannot be resolved successfully, it will be skipped (meaning the expression stays in the document as it was in the template). To support more than the above types you can implement your own TypeResolver. To register your own TypeResolver with docx-stamper, use the following code:

ITypeResolver typeResolver = ...;              // instance of your own ITypeResolver implementation
Class<?> type ...;                             // class of expression values your resolver handles
DocxStamper stamper = new DocxStamperConfiguration()
  .addTypeResolver(type, typeResolver)
  .build();

Customizing the SpEL Evaluation Context

If you want to take more control over the evaluation of expressions, you can implement a EvaluationContextConfigurer and customize Springs StandardEvaluationContext to your needs. You can register an EvaluationContextConfigurer like this:

EvaluationContextConfigurer configurer = ...;
DocxStamper stamper = new DocxStamperConfiguration()
  .setEvaluationContextConfigurer(configurer)
  .build();

Adding custom functions to the Expression Language

If you want to create custom functions (for different number formats or different date formats, for example), you can register functions which can then be used in the expression language. The following code for example adds a function toUppercase(String) which can be used within the .docx document to uppercase a String:

DocxStamper stamper = new DocxStamperConfiguration()
  .exposeInterfaceToExpressionLanguage(UppercaseFunction.class, new UppercaseFunctionImpl());
  .build();

public interface UppercaseFunction {
  String toUppercase(String string);
}

public static class UppercaseFunctionImpl implements UppercaseFunction {
  @Override
  public String toUppercase(String string) {
    return string.toUpperCase();
  }
}

Conditional Display and Repeating of Elements

Besides replacing expressions, docx-stamper can process comments on paragraphs of text in the template .docx document and do manipulations on the template based on these comments. By default, you can use the following expressions in comments:

Expression in .docx comment	Effect
displayParagraphIf(boolean)	The commented paragraph is only displayed in the resulting .docx document if the boolean condition resolves to true.
displayTableRowIf(boolean)	The table row surrounding the commented paragraph is only displayed in the resulting .docx document if the boolean condition resolves to true.
displayTableIf(boolean)	The whole table surrounding the commented paragraph is only displayed in the resulting .docx document if the boolean condition resolves to true.
repeatTableRow(List<Object>)	The table row surrounding the commented paragraph is copied once for each object in the passed-in list. Expressions found in the cells of the table row are evaluated against the object from the list.
repeatDocPart(List<Object>)	Repeats the part of the document surrounded by the comment. The document part is copied once for each object in the passed-in list. Expressions found in the elements of the document part are evaluated against the object from the list. Can be used instead repeatTableRow and repeatParagraph if you want to repeat more than table rows and paragraphs.
replaceWordWith(expression)	Replaces the commented word (must be a single word!) with the value of the given expression.

If a comment cannot be processed, by default an exception will be thrown. Successfully processed comments are removed from the document. You can add support to more expressions in comments by implementing your own ICommentProcessor. To register you comment processor to docx-stamper, use the following code:

ICommentProcessor commentProcessor = ...;      // instance of your own ICommentProcessor implementation
Class<?> interfaceClass = ...;                 // class of the interface that defines the methods that are
                                               // exposed into the expression language
DocxStamper stamper = new DocxStamperConfiguration()
  .addCommentProcessor(interfaceClass, commentProcessor)
  .build();

For an in-depth description of how to create a comment processor, see the javadoc of ICommentProcessor.

Conditional Display and Repeating of Elements in Headers or Footers

The docx file format does not allow comments in Headers or Footers of a document. To be able to conditionally display content in a header or footer, simply surround the expression you would put in a comment with "#{}" and put it at the beginning of the paragraph you want to manipulate. The expression will be evaluated as it would be in a comment.

Error Handling

By default DocxStamper fails with an UnresolvedExpressionException if an expression within the document or within the comments cannot be resolved successfully. If you want to change this behavior, you can do the following:

DocxStamper stamper = new DocxStamperConfiguration()
  .setFailOnUnresolvedExpression(false)
  .build();

Sample Code

The source code contains a set of tests show how to use the features. If you want to run them yourself, clone the repository and run the tests in the main package with the system property -DkeepOutputFile=true so that the resulting .docx documents will not be cleaned up so you can view them. The resulting files will be stored in your local temp folder (watch the logging output for the exact location of the files).

If you want to have a look at the .docx templates used in the tests, have a look at the resources subfolder in the test folder.

Maven coordinates

To include docx-stamper in your project, you can use the following maven coordinates in your dependency management system:

<repositories>
    <repository>
      <id>jcenter</id>
      <url>https://jcenter.bintray.com/</url>
    </repository>
</repositories>

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.wickedsource.docx-stamper</groupId>
    <artifactId>docx-stamper</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.0</version>
</dependency>

Note that as of version 1.5.0 you have to provide the dependency to your version of Docx4J yourself:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.docx4j</groupId>
    <artifactId>docx4j-JAXB-ReferenceImpl</artifactId>
    <version>11.4.9</version>
</dependency>

This way, you can choose which version of Docx4J you want to use instead having it dictated by docx-stamper. Look into the .travis.yml file to see against which versions of Docx4J docx-stamper has been tested.

Changelog

• 1.4.0 (2019-09-20) - feature release
  • issues
  • pull requests
• 1.3.0 (2018-08-11) - feature release
  • issues
  • pull requests
• 1.2.2 (2017-12-31) - minor feature release
• 1.2.1 (2017-10-18) - bugfix release
• 1.2.0 (2017-09-26) - feature release
• 1.1.0 (2017-09-18) - feature release
  • API Break: All methods that configure DocxStamper have been moved into DocxStamperConfiguration.
  • API Break: Methods getCommentProcessorRegistry() and getTypeResolverRegistry() have been removed from DocxStamper. You can configure CommentProcessors and TypeResolvers via DocxStamperConfiguration now.
  • DocxStamperConfiguration can now be used as a Builder for DocxStamper objects.
• 1.0.12 (2017-09-08) - bugfix release
• 1.0.11 (2017-06-09) - bugfix release
• 1.0.10 (2017-04-03) - bugfix release
• 1.0.9 (2017-03-18) - bugfix release
• 1.0.8 (2017-02-24) - minor feature release
• 1.0.7 (2017-01-30) - bugfix release
• 1.0.6 (2017-01-20) - minor feature release
• 1.0.5 (2017-01-09) - bugfix release
• 1.0.4 (2016-11-20) - bugfix release
• 1.0.3 (2016-11-05) - bugfix release
• 1.0.2 (2016-10-02) - bugfix release

Contribute

If you have an issue or created a comment processor or type resolver that you think deserves to be part of the default distribution, feel free to open an issue or - even better - a pull request with your contribution.

Frequently Asked Questions

See the Frequently Asked Questions wiki page for some answers to recurring questions.