I like this idea as a first iteration of the feature. Will it be difficult 
to merge the current "reference docx" system into the full-fledged template 
system?

I expect most people do not want to manually unzip and edit XML and would 
rather edit a template document within Word. It should be possible to trim 
the opening and closing empty paragraphs (i.e. detect when a paragraph only 
contains a control statement like $for$), or actually manipulate the XML 
tree.

On Sunday, November 5, 2017 at 12:40:27 PM UTC-5, John MacFarlane wrote:
>
> The simplest idea would be to run the template resolver 
> on word/document.xml from the reference.docx, to produce 
> the new word/document.xml from the document body and 
> metadata values. 
>
> This could work, I think.  However, except in simple cases 
> you'd have to edit word/document.xml with a text editor, 
> rather than using Word, in order to get the template control 
> commands in the right place.  If you edit with Word, you'll 
> get things like 
>
> <w:p> 
>   <w:r> 
>     <w:t>$for(author)$</w:t> 
>   </w:r> 
> </w:p> 
> <w:p> 
>   <w:r> 
>     <w:t>$author.name$ ($author.institute$)</w:t> 
>   </w:r> 
> </w:p> 
> <w:p> 
>   <w:r> 
>     <w:t>$endfor$</w:t> 
>   </w:r> 
> </w:p> 
>
> which (for two authors) would resolve to: 
>
> <w:p> 
>   <w:r> 
>     <w:t> 
>
> </w:t> 
>   </w:r> 
> </w:p> 
> <w:p> 
>   <w:r> 
>     <w:t>Author 1 (Institute 1)</w:t> 
>   </w:r> 
> </w:p> 
> <w:p> 
>   <w:r> 
>     <w:t> 
> </w:t> 
>   </w:r> 
> </w:p> 
> <w:p> 
>   <w:r> 
>     <w:t>Author 2 (Institute 2)</w:t> 
>   </w:r> 
> </w:p> 
> <w:p> 
>   <w:r> 
>     <w:t> 
> </w:t> 
>   </w:r> 
> </w:p> 
>
> This is valid (though I don't know if we can guarantee that 
> in all cases), but contains a number of empty paragraphs. 
>
>
> +++ Ophir Lifshitz [Nov 01 17 22:17 ]: 
> >   It might be useful to replace the limited "reference-doc" system with 
> a 
> >   full-fledged template system. Users could then naturally create a 
> >   template as a .docx file¹ that could include $for$ loops, $variable$ 
> >   substitution, and so on as usual. 
> >   ___ 
> >   ¹ or .dotx too, I suppose? My knowledge of Word templates is at least 
> >   15 years old. 
>

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