Report Designer Office Edition Configuration File Reference

This article describes the Report Designer Office Edition (Report Designer) configuration file: its name, its location and its contents.

By default, Report Designer doesn't have a configuration file. One must be created to provide configuration file settings, such as for logging. The name of the configuration file depends on the contents of your Report Designer installation directory (by default C:\Program Files\Windward Studios\AutoTag), and your version of Office.

Where is the Configuration File?

In the default installation directory, you will see several files with names similar to: AutoTag2010.dll; AutoTag2013.dll; etc. To create a configuration file, in that directory create a new text file whose name is "AutoTagYYYY.dll.config", where "YYYY" is the same as the "AutoTagYYYY.dll" that matches your version of Office, e.g. "AutoTag2013.dll.config" for Office 2013. You can download an attached sample configuration file below.

So by default your new Designer configuration file would be C:\Program Files\Windward Studios\AutoTag\AutoTag2013.dll.config.

For Office 2016 and Office 2019 use "AutoTag2013.dll.config", as nothing changed between those versions.

Microsoft Office Configuration File Locations

Microsoft Office configuration file names and usage are inconsistent across Office versions. If it appears a Report Designer configuration setting isn't working after being set in AutoTagYYYY.dll.config, try adding the configuration setting to winword.exe.config (for Word), excel.exe.config (for Excel) or powerpnt.exe.config (for PowerPoint). These files are the same format as AutoTagYYYY.dll.config.

For 32-bit Office, these files should be created (if they don't already exist), in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15.

For 64-bit Office, these files should be created in C:\Program Files\MicrosoftOffice## (where the ## is the internal number for that version of Office), or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16 for Office 2016. 

Sample Configuration File

Here is a sample configuration file, followed by descriptions of the relevant sections.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
            <configSections>
                <section name="log4net" type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler,log4net, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=669e0ddf0bb1aa2a"/>
                <section name="AutoTag" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"/>
                <section name="WindwardReports" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"/>
            </configSections>
            <log4net>
                <appender name="RollingFileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">
                    <param name="File" value="C:/temp/AutoTag.log"/>
                    <param name="AppendToFile" value="true"/>
                    <param name="MaxSizeRollBackups" value="2"/>
                    <param name="MaximumFileSize" value="100KB"/>
                    <param name="RollingStyle" value="Size"/>
                    <param name="StaticLogFileName" value="true"/>
                    <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
                        <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%d [%t] ac.server %-5p %c - %m%n%exception"/>
                    </layout>
                </appender>
                <root>
                    <level value="DEBUG"/>
                    <appender-ref ref="RollingFileAppender"/>
                </root>
            </log4net>
            <AutoTag>
                <add key="sql.parameters" value="parameters"/>
            </AutoTag>
            <WindwardReports>
                        <add key="check.for.ole.images" value="false"/>
                    </WindwardReports>
            <appSettings>
                <add key="sql.timeout" value="240"/>
            </appSettings>
</configuration> 

When asked to provide a log file by Support, use these log4net settings, which produces a single log file:

<log4net>
               <appender name="FileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.FileAppender">
               <param name="File" value="C:\temp\AutoTag.log"/>
               <param name="AppendToFile" value="false"/>
               <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
                   <param name=="ConversionPattern" value="%date [%thread] %level %logger - %message%newline%exception"/>
               </layout>
                </appender>
                <root>
                    <level value="DEBUG"/>
                    <appender-ref ref="FileAppender"/>
                </root>
</log4net>

Configuration File Sections

Log4net

Log4net is a standard library Report Designer uses for logging. If Windward Support asks you to create a log file, you need the log4net section included in the configuration file. The critical part of this is the location of the log file – it must be a folder to which you have access. The best location is C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents, as you generally have write access to that folder. If you use a location that Word cannot write to, you won't receive a log file. 

WindwardReports

If you are setting a property that is for the .NET Engine component of Report Designer (Report Designer has the .NET Report engine embedded in it to generate output), then you set that property in the WindwardReports section. These properties are documented in .NET Report Engine App.exe.config Settings.

AutoTag

This is a Report Designer-only configuration setting that goes in the AutoTag section:

Name Values Description
sql.parameters parameters (default); substitution; parameters.always
 The method used to substitute for parameters in a select statement.

appSettings

Name
 Values
 Description
meta-use-getschema true; false Used only for an unknown ADO.NET database vendor; if set to true, DbConnection.GetSchema() is used to fetch the DB metadata; if set to false, standard SQL queries are used to fetch the DB metadata. 
sql.timeout 0 < seconds < 1200 (default: 30) The timeout (in seconds) for every SQL query.
strip-conditions-on-schema-select true; false (default) If set to true, conditions are stripped from a select statement before using it to get the metadata of that select (columns, etc.).

Settings in the kailua.dll library go in appSettings. This is because Kailua is a distinct library and not a Report Designer-only component.

The DB2 database is actually several very different programs depending on the O/S it is running on. Therefore, we provide a means to override the selects used to query the metadata. If you need to do this, contact Windward Studios Support; but for reference, here are the keys for the settings:

  • db2-select-schema
  • db2-select-tables-system
  • db2-select-tables-user
  • db2-select-tables-user-owned
  • db2-select-tables-all
  • db2-select-views-system
  • db2-select-views-user
  • db2-select-views-user-owned
  • db2-select-views-all
  • db2-select-columns
  • db2-select-procedures-system
  • db2-select-procedures-user
  • db2-select-procedures-user-owned
  • db2-select-procedures-all
  • db2-select-parameters
  • db2-select-pk-fk

Download Sample Configuration File

You can also download the attached sample configuration file.

AutoTag2013.dll.config

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