ARIS Reporting Problem: MS WORD File Size is too huge or Does ARIS really generate WORD File at all??

adnan shahab on January 25, 2011

Hi everyone, I want to share/confirm the following issue with ARIS Reporting Mechanism. Business Server: version 7.1.0.42xxx Server Operating System: Windows 2003 64 bit Client Operating System: Windows XP + MS Office 2007 Suite Installed Recently I was trying to integrate ARIS with a Document Management System (DMS) so that reports generated from ARIS will be uploaded to DMS. I wrote scripts and code on both sides (ARIS and DMS) to allow this kind of integration. I then ran a simple report to show model and it's graphics on a WORD file. Our client environment is purely MS Office Productivity suite so it does not make sense to upload documents in PDF format. With WORD file you have other benefits like EDIT ONLINE feature supported by most DMS throught webdav or other virtual file management protocol. I choose to run report Standard Report --> Model Information and evaluate the report.

I then opened the report and it was showing all information including model graphics.

Now this is the problematic part, I then noticed one thing that, the file size of WORD file is too huge which is generated from ARIS Business Server and I did not modified any part of it as shown below:

Look 8MB is too much capacity for a document to just include one graphics. I did little experiment, and open and save the same file from MS Word Software.

There is no comparison in terms of the above file size. compare 8mb with 190 KB. Then I ran the same report and generated PDF Report File with acceptable file size.

I was wondering whats wrong with the file size as far as word document is concerned. Then suddenly I realized ARIS Business Server is not generating pure MS WORD Files. I then open the WORD report generated from ARIS in text editor and jackpot. I was so right when I saw the following result:

To ordinary human beings, this looks like a scene from MATRIX movie but I know what the above data is all about as I have done quite a bit research in Image Processing during my Masters in Computer Science mainly utilizing Matlab toolbox and I was used to looking and staring at these sort of data. The above data is a matrix data of model graphics that I used to display. ARIS Server does not generate pure WORD File. It's sort of a text file with image data inserted on it without any compression. As I demonstrated PDF file format works perfectly well. ...continued.....

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adnan shahab Author on January 25, 2011

My apology for multiple edit of the article. It was due to the wrong format appearing but now I fixed the format problem.

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Sebastian Stein on January 25, 2011

Hi Adnan,

I think the way it is done now allows editing the ARIS image directly in the Word document. So it is probably a vector format.

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adnan shahab Author on January 25, 2011

@Stein,

What kind of Image Editing are you talking about in word file? Can I move around the symbols on model graphics in word File? MS Word will not perform any image processing to convert model graphics into squares and boxes to be edited on word file. Imagine if I ran the same report on 10 models with 100% zoom size (to make picture visible). The size of file become huge.

Imagine 47 MB just for 10 model graphics vs. 2MB file which I get when I use MS WORD to convert ARIS Report DOC file to regular MS DOC file (used SAVE AS in MS WORD Software).

Instead of inserting image in jpg or other format, the code behind ARIS Reporting Component dump the raw image vector data which is of no use other than making document size huge. Imagine this is only one model graphic file inserted on word document.

Binary vs Raw Image Data

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Sebastian Stein on January 25, 2011

Well, I don't know how it works exactly, but it is definetely not a good idea to insert an image as JPG, but instead a vector format must be used. This ensures good printing quality on all zoom levels. But let's wait if some of the devs clarify this.

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adnan shahab Author on January 25, 2011
I wrote this article to stress on two points:

Just because you change a file extension for example you create a text document (myreport.txt) and insert the text inside it and then you rename it to (myreport.doc) will not mean that you have created a valid MS WORD DOC file. But if you have open the text file in word and use Save As option then you will have a valid MS WORD DOC File.

Secondly ARIS Business Server does not need to have MS OFFICE Installed on same machine for WORD Document Reporting. ARIS Business Server is not making any use of it. It just create RTF type document and rename this to <.DOC>. In my opinion, ARIS Business Server should call MS Office Suite to convert the DOC file and then send to the client. It's not very difficult to code.
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Sebastian Stein on January 25, 2011

Hi Adnan,

I talked to the devs and now I remember again what causes this. At the moment, it can't be solved, but creating real Word (doc) files is on the roadmap for ARIS 7.2 (don't ask me for a release date). You can try to get around this problem by disabling the gradient in the objects. In that case, the generated file should be far smaller.

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adnan shahab Author on January 25, 2011

Thanks for your help. I did that and ran the MODEL graphics report on 10 models and file size is reduced to 10 MB from 45MB file size (it still huge size if you compare it with regular WORD doc file). But the output is not very attractive in word file (black and white model graphics).

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HB

Han Boogaardt on July 14, 2011

"creating real Word (doc) files is on the roadmap for ARIS 7.2"

Unfortunately this is not the case. ARIS 7.2 still produces only RTF-Word files. So we still have to install and use OpenOffice and a Java converter libray to produce real binary DOC-Word files with ARIS reports.

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Han Boogaardt on July 27, 2011 as Reply to Frank Weyand

I just learned that it's now possible (using ARIS build 7.2.0.546073) to generate real Word binary documents.

To use it in a script do the following:

Add the line

Context.setProperty("use-new-output", true)

This line should be inserted before the output object is created (with 'Context.createOutputObject').

If you use Word as output, I recommend to use this new feature. It reduces the output files considerably.

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HS

Hans Sidharta on November 21, 2011

Hi,

I tried to use the syntax:

Context.setProperty("use-new-output", true)

but somehow now my Table of Contents is missing.
Is it only me who is facing this problem? Or is it a known bug with that new syntax?
Cause I tried with the standard report 'Output Model Information' also produce the same result; Table of Contents is missing.

Thanks.

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Thierry Caro on February 3, 2012

Hello

I also face troubles with 'Context.createOutputObject' with 7.1.0 SR 2010_09.

Despite using the format Constants.OUTWORD and the .doc extension, the reports produced are not real .doc, but .rtf, as proven when MSWord (2010) tries to "save as" always in rtf format by default.

I tried using Context.setProperty("use-new-output", true), but it had no effect at all.

Thanks for any suggestion

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Bharat Bajaj on February 24, 2012

Hello,

I am facing the same issue of missing TOC with the usage of Context.setProperty("use-new-output", true) in ARIS 7.2.

Is there is solution to this problem ?

Regards.

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ARIS Reporting Problem: MS WORD File Size is too huge or Does ARIS really generate WORD File at all??

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