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excerpts : Print using database excerpts

The lino_xl.lib.excerpts plugin adds the notions of database excerpt.

What is a database excerpt?

As an end user you can see a history of the documents you asked Lino to print by selecting Office ‣ My excerpts.

As a site manager you can see all the documents that any user asked Lino to print by selecting Explorer ‣ All excerpts.

These “documents somebody asked Lino to print” have a name. We call them database excerpts.

database excerpt

A database object that represents the fact that a given user has requested a given printable document at a given moment.

End users can see a history of their printouts in Office ‣ My excerpts.

When the end user clicks on a print button, Lino actually creates a database excerpt, then builds the printable file and finally instructs the user’s browser to show this file.

Excerpt types

Lino also has a table of excerpt types where the system administrator can configure which types of database excerpts are available on a site. You can see this list via Configuration ‣ Excerpt types.

excerpt type

A configuration database object that specifies that a print button should appear for a given model.

The detailed structure of this table is documented on the ExcerptType model.

When a Lino process starts up, it automatically reads this table and installs a “Print” action on every model of a site for which there is an excerpt type.

Technical documentaton

See excerpts: Database excerpts, Printing