MS Word

By Annu
6 min

Background

ARNR has been a reliable partner in supporting various template types, such as Email, MS Word, Confluence, Webhook, and more, as outlined in Templates. We’ve heard many requests for MS Word template support, and we’re thrilled to mention that ARNR now allows you to create MS Word templates for your Automated Release Notes and Reports. This new feature makes it a breeze to attach the MS Word document to emails or download it for easy sharing with your audience.

MS Word template is available only for the ARNR Cloud apps.

Create a Word template

Navigate to the templates page on the ARNR screen & click on the Create button.

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MSW.png

Select the MS Word template type and then you will be brought to the template builder page

Default template design is given for your reference to understand how all the customization options can be used in the template. You can preview the same template or design it in your way & save it to preview.

You can also use ready-to-use templates available in the template gallery

MS Word template fields

  • Template type

    • Here, MS Word option is selected since we are creating an MS Word-type template

  • Template name

    • This is for internal reference & doesn’t show up in the actual release MS Word file.

  • Level

    • Local or Global - Determines whether the MS Word template is available to be used in other projects across Jira.

    • Cross-project - For cross-project templates (which can be managed only from the cross-project ARNR screen), this field is disabled from editing & is set to cross-project by default.

  • ARNR branding - To define whether you wish to show ARNR branding in release notes.

    • For Free ARNR app, it is default and cannot be unchecked

  • Advanced settings and Header, Footer - Read the below section on this page- MS Word | Further customization with advanced settings.

  • File name -

    • This determines the name of the MS Word file that will be generated. You can use variables in this field similar to Email subject. Max length is ~100 characters, extra characters will be trimmed at the time of file generation.

  • MS Word content -

    • The actual release MS Word content is generated within the MS Word body.

Further customization with advanced settings

Advanced settings in the MS Word template are for further customization. Clicking on the advanced settings link brings you options to customize the title page, header & footer along with a few other options for your MS Word.

Advanced settings

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  • Page settings -

    • Layout - Whether you want the MS Word in portrait or landscape orientation

    • Paper Size - You get to select the A0-A5 or legal, letter, and tabloid size of the paper here

    • Margin - Set up a correct margin to display the content(text/images) properly. If you are adding a header/footer, you will have to use custom margins of appropriate dimensions.

    • Apply margins to the title page

    • Apply margins to the last page

    • Print background

  • Title page

    • Enabale title page - With this, you can customize the title page.

      • This setting allows users to add the contents of the title page within this WYSIWYG editor using all the inline editing options.

      • You can also insert other elements like a Link, Image, Table, ARNR variables, and MS Word variables.

      • Background image - In addition to the above-mentioned controls, you can also insert a background image to the title page. Click on the Background image button on the editor, in the pop-up upload image.

Impact on the MS Word output when the title page is added

  • When the output of an MS Word template with title page configuration is generated, the contents of the title page are always placed on the title page of the MS Word.

  • Like other pages of the template, all the variables within the title page are also replaced with their relevant values.

  • In case the background image is inserted in the title page configuration, it appears as the background image only for the title page and not other pages of the MS Word.

  • The contents of the main template by default start from the second page onwards with a mandatory page break after the title page.

  • If Header & footers are configured, they will be shown from the second page onward and not on the title page.

  • In case the title page setting is disabled, then header footers appear from the first page of the MS Word.

If you do not wish to insert a dedicated title page, you can skip this setting

Last page - You can enable the last page which has the same option available as the title page

  • Header & Footer

    • You can format text, add images, tables, and links, and align the content in the desired manner separately for the header & footer.

    • Both, header & footer sections allow using variables. There are the traditional variables that you use within the MS Word body & then there are some specifically available for MS Word header/footer.

Using the ‘+Header/Foother variables’ you can insert Date, Current page, or Total page numbers along with dates in the header or footer (or in both places).

Only thing to keep in mind - use custom margins when you have the header & footer configured. Depending on the size of your header/footer you have to manually adjust the margins otherwise header/footer won’t show up as expected.

What are template levels (Local, Global & Cross-project)?

Customise the MS Word template

Spotlight issues

 

(Output) Variables

Custom variables

JQL section

Section

Fields

Custom CSS

Layout

Configuring Group-By Behavior in JQL Sections

Stats & Charts

Users

AI Generator

Preview a MS Word template

We are storing the locale of user in cache which is valid for 30 minutes. If any user changes their Jira language, it might take 30 mins to reflect in the app.

When creating or editing an MS Word template, it can be previewed & downloaded immediately. Just click on the Preview button once the desired changes have been done.

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preview w.png

Based on the JQLs used in the MS Word template, you will need to input values. e.g. in the above screenshot, user is asked to choose 1 version since the template’s JQLs have 1 version variable in them.

Read on to know more about Generating release notes from multiple versions in a project

This will generate the MS Word template preview file in your browser. Depending on your browser setting, it will be automatically downloaded or a confirmation will be asked from you.

If what you see is the desired result, save the template. Below is a sample output file of the PDF generated using ARNR.

 

 

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