The Tag List contains the list of fields (known as Tags) available from the DSD attached to your template. You can access it at any time while working on your template by clicking the Tag List button in the Designer ribbon in Word.

The tag list changes automatically, showing the fields appropriate for where you are in your document.

Select the location where you want the data to be displayed and double click the tag required from the list in the Designer’s panel. A tag will be shown in the document where data will be inserted.

The Tag List shows the tags that can be inserted at the currently selected location in the document.

Once the Tag is in the document it looks like this:

You may highlight a piece of content in your document before double-clicking on the tag from the tag list. The tag will then surround your highlighted content and this will be replaced with the field value when the output document is generated.

In order to make it easy for you to find the tag you need, a meaningful description is displayed for each. This is either the actual field name or a description which has been translated by the system administrator. By hovering over each tag, you will be able to see the data group to which the tag relates.

Above the tag list is a text box which will filter the tag list to find only those tags which match your search criteria. If appropriate, you may also see a drop down box showing tag groups. You can select an option from here and the tag list is filtered to display just the tags associated with this group header. The list of tag groups is set by the designer of your DSD.

The tag list in the tag panel shows all of the tags that can be inserted at the currently selected location in the document. If you click into a data group tag, the list will change to show just the tags inside this data group. However, if you have the Ignore Context option checked all tags on all levels, will be visible, even if they are not part of the data group you are in. It is rare that you would need to check this, but it could be helpful if you want to see second level tags, contained inside data groups.

Data Groups are groups of data fields which have been collated together because they derive from the same category of data, eg data which relates to the client’s demographics. The only time you would notice the data group to which a data tag belongs, if you hover of the tag name.

However, some tags are displayed in the tag list, within their data group under a single heading, denoted in the tag list with a + sign. This is because the template will return more than one record for these fields and therefore the tags need to be laid out in the template in a particular manner – known as “repeating sections”. An example of this is the “Warnings” data group as there could be more than one warning and therefore the data needs to be displayed appropriately – the most usual format is in a table to create a list. These data groups are shown in the tag list with a number next to them, indicating the number of fields available in this data group.

This example sets up a table which will list all the addresses on file for a client.

Insert a table, with just 2 rows. The top row is for your column headings and the second row for the data tags. Select the entire row by clicking just to the left of the first cell in a table:

Double click on the appropriate data group tag in the Designer’s tag list. This will put a tag around the entire selected row or area.

You will notice that the tag list now shows a list of the fields available for “Address History” (or whichever data group you selected). Now select the location, by clicking inside the cell, where you want one of these fields to be inserted and double click it in the tag list.

When the document is generated the table will expand to list each record.