The main purpose of the HL7 Document Template is to create HTML documents. Even if you are only publishing PDF documents, it is still rendered first as HTML and then that rendered HTML is converted into an Adobe PDF
file. But at it's core it produces rendered HTML and that rendered HTML is displayed at some point to a human in an HTML viewer (like a web browser). It is always our assumption that our customers are using their Templates to create "Documents" for viewing. If you are using them for another purpose, like creating interactive web-pages and forms (which is certainly possible), then this discussion likely does not apply to you.
It was the designer's intent that whenever possible users would create their HL7 templates and design their HTML so that it is completely "stand-alone". This means that you embed all styles in your Template HTML rather than linking to an external stylesheet. It means that when you use images in your Templates that you first import them into the Image Library and use that method of linking images rather than linking to external images.
The Benefits of the All-Internal Philosophy
•Following this design philosophy will insure that your HL7 templates are completely portable and can be deployed at a moments notice to any computer/server for use without any other external files.
•You can be assured that your templates will always look the same when rendered into documents (minor discrepancies and display differences between the different web-browsers notwithstanding).
•A single "point of failure". If documents are not being created correctly there is only one "source" to troubleshoot.
•A single "point of change". To update your templates you have only ONE source file to modify and redeploy. Note: for best practice advice see Stand Alone Templates.
The Challenges of not going "All-Internal"
•If your templates require any internet-based resources to display/render properly (like external stylesheets, images, scripts) then you have added several "moving parts" to your infrastructure that you will need to consider, such as:
▪(For internet resources) Is your internet connection "up" and does the Template Publishing Engine you are using have access to it?
▪Even if your internet connection is up, is the source site up and running?
•Designing and debugging concerns. External resources must be "visible" to the Template Designer to display properly:
▪When designing and testing your templates are all external resources "visible" from the Preview Folder and Publish Folder?
▪When publishing your templates the same concern. Are all external resources "visible" from the Publish To folder?