Encodian - Line Spacing when variables empty

[AdamHewitt]

I am creating a word document using encodian and need a way to add line breaks to the json that goes to encodian.

I have the following in a word doc

SECTION ABOVE END

<<[SUBPROCESSORSTITLE]>>
<<[SUBPROCESSORPREAMBLE]>>

<<[SUBPROCESSOR1]>><<[DATASENT1]>>
<<[PROCESSING1]>>

<<[SUBPROCESSOR2]>><<[DATASENT2]>>
<<[PROCESSING2]>>

NEXT SECTION START

If none of these variables have any content, they are not merged in but the spacing that i have placed between them is.

That means that if this section is blank between the end of the last section and the start of the next i have 4 blank line breaks which makes the document look weird.

I have condensed the word doc so that i looks like this

SECTION ABOVE END
<<[SUBPROCESSORSTITLE]>>
<<[SUBPROCESSORPREAMBLE]>>
<<[SUBPROCESSOR1]>><<[DATASENT1]>>
<<[PROCESSING1]>>
<<[SUBPROCESSOR2]>><<[DATASENT2]>>
<<[PROCESSING2]>>
START OF NEW SECTION

and updated the encodian JSON in power automate to look like this with <br> tags to handle the line breaks - some of the passed in variables also have <br> in them.

 The issue that i now have is that i am getting the following encodian error.

{"HttpStatusCode":400,"HttpStatusMessage":"Bad request","OperationId":"a8c5ae4f-8738-4512-9bb5-e35361c2442c\\1","Errors":["A error occurred parsing the JSON document provided: Error reading JObject from JsonReader. Current JsonReader item is not an object: String. Path '', line 2, position 12."],"OperationStatus":"Error"}

The Raw Input into encodian is as follows:

{
"EVENTNAME": "Event Name Test",
"NOWDATE": "18 July 2023",
"CLIENTNAME": "Tennis",
"SUBPROCESSOR1": "  SUbby 1 Company",
"PROCESSING1": "INFO",
"DATASENT1": " - Name, Address, Phone Number",
"SPECIALDATATITLE": "",
"SPECIALDATABLURB": "",
"SUBPROCESSORSTITLE": "<br>Sub Processors<br><br>",
"SUBPROCESSORPREAMBLE": "We have some more data here.<br><br>",
"SUBPROCESSOR2": "<br><br>",
"PROCESSING2": "",
"DATASENT2": " -  <br><br>"}

Does anyone know how i fix my issue?

[AdamHewitt]

I think i might need to take all of the blame here for the error - missing "{" at the start of the JSON.

However, when the word document is populated it shows the <br> as text rather than starting a new line - is there a way around this?

[AdamHewitt · Accepted solution]

It also seems like a rudimentary way of fixing this issue is to cramp the word doc up like I have and create a variable like the image below that acts as your spaces.  I have used conditions to set the variable based on whether the other variables around it exist.

This is a space then a hyphen then a space

[AlexEncodian]

@AdamHewitt 

Great to see you found a solution. FYI here's my take: you should avoid adding HTML tags as a string in the JSON and expect formatting results. Remove all formatting from the JSON (just input data) and put all your formatting into the Word template. It will be way easier to maintain and bug fix.

First of all, if your data can have Missing Values, then you need to enable this in the Advanced Options, otherwise you'll get a missing value error:

Secondly, you need to manage the formatting in Word. You can do this with a combination of Conditional Expressions (checking if something is zero) and Control Characters such as Line Breaks (<<[ControlChar.LineBreak]>>) as well as Paragraph Breaks.

For example, I did the following:

<<if [SUBPROCESSORSTITLE == “”]>><<else>><<[SUBPROCESSORSTITLE]>> <<[ControlChar.LineBreak]>><</if>><<if [SUBPROCESSORPREAMBLE == “”]>><<else>><<[SUBPROCESSORPREAMBLE]>> <<[ControlChar.ParagraphBreak]>><</if>><<if [SUBPROCESSOR1 == “”]>><<else>><<[ SUBPROCESSOR1]>> <<[ControlChar.LineBreak]>><</if>><<if [PROCESSING1 == “”]>><<else>><<[ PROCESSING1]>> <<[ControlChar.ParagraphBreak]>><</if>><<if [SUBPROCESSOR2 == “”]>><<else>><<[ SUBPROCESSOR2]>> <<[ControlChar.LineBreak]>><</if>><<if [PROCESSING2 == “”]>><<else>><<[ PROCESSING2]>> <<[ControlChar.ParagraphBreak]>><</if>>

...which gave me the following result with all values present:

and the following result with subprocessor1 and processing 1 missing:

[AdamHewitt]

Thats really useful information, i didnt know that was possible.

The only issue that you get with word is styling the text.  I am using title styles and body styles which are very difficult to add to one big chunk of text.  I have tried using style breaks but they dont seem to work.

[AdamHewitt]

I am getting an issue with this.

<<if[SUBPROCESSOR1]= Error! Character '=' is unexpected. =””]>><<else>><<[SUBPROCESSORSTITLE]>><<[ControlChar.LineBreak]>><</if

>>

My original code in word is

<<if[SUBPROCESSOR1]==””]>><<else>><<[SUBPROCESSORSTITLE]>><<[ControlChar.LineBreak]>><</if

>>

[AdamHewitt]

Got it working, some of the advanced settings needed to be chaged.  Thanks so much for your help.

[AlexEncodian]

Glad it works - re this point: you should be able to apply the formatting you want to the section you want