Using Word Easy Table Under Report Generation takes long time to add data points to table and generate report

[Dskp]

Hi All,

We used report generation tool kit to generate the report on word and with other API 's under it,we get good reports .

But when the data points are more (> 100 on all channels) it take a long time  to write all data and create a table in the word and generate report.

Any sugegstions how to  make this happen in some seconds .

Please assist.

[aputman]

You say > 100 data points on all channels.  How many channels?  Can you post an example of your data?

[aputman]

I simulated some text data with 8 columns and 63 rows and it took 15 seconds to write it to a table in Word.  Another reason why Word sucks.

[Dskp]

Hi,

total channels will be 24,but often 16 channels will be used .

idea is to read available channels data from XY graph (data type =Single ch.will be a cluster of X-time stamp and Y-will be data points) and generate report 

100 is an examples  here ,more than that we will use to generate report

[aputman]

Can you generate the report in a separate loop as the data is being generated rather than pulling it out of a graph point by point at the end of the process? 

[Bob_Schor]

I've used the Report Generation Toolkit quite a bit to read/write Excel Workbooks and to create HTML reports.  I never tried to create a Table (a "natural" thing for Excel to handle) in Word with LabVIEW.  I agree with aputman that it is quite unsatisfactory.

This may be a silly question, but why not use Excel for the table?  You should be able to create a 24-channel, 100-row "report" in Excel in a second or so (maybe less).  And it will "look pretty".  And, if you really do need to generate a Word report, write the table into Excel, then use Word Insert Object, whose help says "If the object is a Microsoft Office object such as an Excel worksheet or a PowerPoint presentation, the Word Insert Object VI embeds the object into the document."  [I'm assuming that Insert Object is faster than inserting all of those Table elements one at a time ...].

Bob Schor

[Dskp]

Hi Bob,
Generating report in word looks pretty for me..so I choose that always.

As you said ,will try embeding object options and let you know the output..

Thanks

Dskp..

[Bob_Schor]

Well, I just tried my suggestion.  I simulated a 24-channel data producer (I actually generated 25 numbers -- the first number was the row number, followed by 24 random numbers) and generated 100 of these for a total of 2500 double-precision values.  I then saved this table to Excel and closed the file.  I then opened Word (all using RGT), wrote a single text line "Text with Excel", inserted the previously-created "Excel Object", and saved and closed Word.

First, it worked (sort of).  The Table in Word started on a new page, and was in a very tiny font (possibly trying to fit 25 columns on a page?  I didn't inspect it very carefully).  This is probably "too much data" to really try to write the whole table, unless you format it for, say, 3 significant figures.

Now, timing.  I ran this four times, two duplicate sets, one with Excel and Word in "normal" mode, one in "minimized".  To my surprise, this didn't make a lot of difference (minimized was less than 10% faster).  Here are the approximate times:

     Generate the data -- about 1 millisecond.

     Write the Excel Report -- about 1.5 seconds

     Write the Word Report -- about 10.5 seconds

Seems to me this is way faster than trying to do this directly in Word.

Bob Schor

[Bob_Schor]

P.S. -- I realized I could add a "Pure Word" test to my existing code -- simply open Word again, save the 2500 numbers using Word Easy Table, and save with a different name.  Not sure of the timing -- Word crashed after about 30-40 seconds.  Running minimized didn't help.  Here is the error message:

Exception occured in Microsoft Word: Value out of rangeHelp Path is wdmain11.chm and context 37376 in NI_ReportGenerationToolkit.lvlib:Word_Insert_Table.vi->NI_Word.lvclass:Append Numeric Table to Report.vi->NI_report.lvclass:Append Numeric Table to Report (wrap).vi->NI_ReportGenerationToolkit.lvlib:Word Easy Table (num).vi->Excel and Word Test.vi

BS

[aputman]

Word probably crashed because the table was too wide.  I experience the same thing when I tried generating data and populating a table directly to Word.  When i delete columns, so that they all fit on one page, it didn't crash.