PrintingPreferences (mostly) don't work for JSON?

[Paul Colby]

Hi,

It seems that most printing preferences don't work with the REST API using JSON.  Is this expected?

For example, if I take the Europass JSON CV example and change the LearnerInfo.Identification.PersonName format to "Surname Firstname", that will be applied.  However, if I change the LearnerInfo.Identification.ContactInfo.Address format to any of the formats listed in the JSON schema, regardless of what I choose, the format in generated PDF, Word, ODT documents will always be equivalent to "s, z m (c)", or something like it (which, incidentally doesn't even match the original example, which has no "(" or ")" characters).

Indeed, almost anything I select in PrintingPreferences has no effect (the PersonName format being an exception, it seems).

Is this a known limitation of the REST API, or is the official Europass JSON CV example wrong, or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,

Paul Colby.

[Europass Interoperability]

Dear Paul,

Thanks for your message.

Confirmed, it seems that the address format is not applied at all in the generated document, a default one is being used instead (this is the case for both JSON and XML documents). On the other hand, the name order and the date format work as expected.

It looks like a bug. We're currently investigating and will get back to you as soon as there are further news.

Sorry about that, please stay tuned!

Regards,

Dimitris Zavaliadis

Team Europass

[Europass Interoperability]

Dear Paul,

We investigated the issue with the development team. The address format printing preferences are not used anymore and probably we'll remove them completely in the future.

This is because each format should solely depend on the country of the address (it has to do with some EU style guides). So, for each country, Europass applies a specific format by default, regardless of the printing preferences. 

There are three address formats in total, one for UK, one for Ireland and a third one for the rest of the countries:

1. United Kingdom: Street & number, City, Zip (Country) [= s, m, z (c)]
   
2. Éire/Ireland: Street & number, Zip City Country [= s, z m c] (note though that this will change soon to Street & number, City Zip (Country))
   
3. All others: Street & number, Zip City (Country) [= s, z m (c)]
   

In the Europass JSON CV example where you encountered the problem, the country in the personal information section is set to UK ("Country" : { "Code" : "UK", "Label" : "United Kingdom" }), that's why you see "32 Reading rd, Birmingham, B26 3QJ (United Kingdom)" (same with 1. above) instead of "32 Reading rd, Birmingham B26 3QJ United Kingdom" (= s,m z c) in the generated document. 

For your convenience, I'm also attaching here a zip with some other examples which exercise the above, so that you can better understand how all these work in practice. As you will see, the address format preferences can be completely omitted from the JSON files since they're not taken into account anyway (the JSON remains valid against the schema, don't worry about that). We'll make sure to remove the address format printing preferences from the examples at interop.europass.cedefop.europa.eu as well.

Sorry again for this inconvenience, hopefully it will not prevent you from moving forward with your project (which btw, we'd love to hear about) :-)

Best regards,

Dimitris Zavaliadis

Team Europass

[Paul Colby]

Hi Dimitris,

Thanks for the thorough explanation - it was very helpful.

In my case, I had actually changed the Country Code to "AU" (as that matches my address), which, as you indicated falls back to the "all others" format, which is actually not the right convention for Australia.  So I've change the Code to UK for now, which is obviously counter-intuitive, but at least comes close to being the right convention for AU.

So I take it then that none of the formats use AddressLine2?

Thanks,

Paul.

PS The "project" is just my own personal resume.

[Paul Colby]

Oh, but of course, while setting the Country Code to UK does give me the desired address format, the Country Label value is completely ignored, and the country is shown as "(United Kingdom)".  Whereas setting the Country Code to AU gives "(Australia)" but with non-AU conventional address format.

Oh well.  It's not like Australia is part of Europe anyway ;)

Thanks again.

Paul.

[Europass Interoperability]

Hi Paul,

The only workaround to get the desired format right now is to save your CV in Word (or ODT) and change it manually there. However, this has the disadvantage that you will have to maintain your CV in two different formats, JSON and Word (or ODT). In the meantime, please let me know what would be the correct address format for Australia and I'll see whether we can do something about it.

Concerning AddressLine2, this is only used in the Europass Cover Letter (check the attached example in case you're interested), not in the Europass CV. You can add a second address line in your JSON CV (it's valid according to the schema) but it will be ignored in the generated PDF/DOC/ODT.

As for your project/personal resume, you do know that there's also an online editor for that, right?

Best regards,

Dimitris Zavaliadis

Team Europass