User guide

© GeoWise Ltd. 2011
Page 117
visualise | communicate | ENGAGE The InstantAtlas Batch Publisher
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© GeoWise Ltd. 2013
F.1. About this Section
The Batch Publisher is a command-line interface version of the normal
Publisher. It is useful when you need to publish large number (say 10 or
more) of dynamic reports displaying data for different sets of geographic
features. It makes the publishing of multiple reports easier because you do
not have to click through the screens of the normal Publisher making
selections. The Batch Publisher can be controlled using either the Excel or
Access Data Managers but just the instructions for using the Excel Data
Manager are given here.
The process for using the Batch Publisher is the following:
a. You enter your indicator data for ALL of the geographic features
into a single Excel workbook
b. You define a “split” column that splits the geographic features into
different dynamic reports
c. You include a Publisher worksheet that provides the commands for
running the Batch Publisher
d. You click the ‘IA Export’ button in your Data Manager. This will
generate the data XML files and will also trigger the Batch
Publisher to run.
These steps are explained in further detail in the following sections.
Note: Before using this guide you should read sections ‘B. The InstantAtlas
Desktop Publisher’ and ‘E. The InstantAtlas Excel Data Manager’.
F.2. Setting up the Excel Workbook
It is important that you use the workbook called IAworkbook_Batch.xls
supplied with your InstantAtlas software. It is located in the ‘workbooks’
folder created during the installation of your InstantAtlas software. By
default the path to this file is C:\Program Files\GeoWise\InstantAtlas\
workbooks. It is important to use a copy of IAworkbook_Batch.xls because
it contains several worksheets called ‘Publisher-xxx’ that have functions in
column B. These functions can be seen by clicking on a cell in this column
and looking at the ‘name box’ in the top left corner of Excel. This will
contain a function name instead of the cell address, i.e. ‘ConfigFile’ instead
of ‘B7’. These functions are required for the Batch Publisher to work. Note
that it is not possible to use your clipboard to copy and paste the contents
of the functions of one of the Publisher worksheets to another workbook. If
you need to copy the whole Publisher worksheet inclusive the functions,
you should do this by right-clicking the name of the worksheet at the
bottom and select ‘Move or Copy...’.
The example that is used below is for post code sectors in Edinburgh.
Imagine that you have the data for these and you wish to split the post
code sectors into five separate dynamic reports representing different parts
of Edinburgh: Centre, North, South, East and West. You do not wish to
manually click through the normal Publisher wizard five times to publish the
five individual reports – instead you wish to use the Batch Publisher.