Quick PDF Library 8.13 beta 1 has been released and is ready for download and testing. Version 8.13 beta 1 includes new functions and bug fixes. The 8.13 beta 1 installer can be downloaded from the button below.

Release Notes

New functions

• GetLatestPrinterNames
• GetPageImageList
• GetImageListCount
• GetImageListItemIntProperty
• GetImageListItemDblProperty
• GetImageListItemDataToString
• GetImageListItemDataToVariant
• SaveImageListItemDataToFile

Bug fixes

• SecurityInfo function now returns correct values for owner and user password
• PrintDocument, GetPrinterBins and GetPrinterDevModeToString fixed in Delphi 7 and LIB edition
• Fixed rendering issues with FontMatrixScaling
• Finally fixed DrawHTMLTextBox
• Fix A/V error in IsAnnotFormField
• Fixed bug in DAOpenFile with Compressed Content Streams
• Improved text extraction speed when PDF contains bitmaps
• Rendering of images CYMK images in 64-bit version
• Fixed VB.NET Import definitions

Upgrading To Version 8

The final version of Quick PDF Library 8.12 has been released and is ready for download from our updates page. This version includes 64-bit compatibility for the Delphi, ActiveX and DLL editions of our PDF SDK, as well as Delphi XE2 support and much more. Visit the product updates page to download this new version and see a full list of the changes.

Download 8.12 from our Product Updates page

Highlights

• 64-bit compatibility for the ActiveX, DLL and Delphi editions of Quick PDF Library
• Delphi XE2 support
• Embed OpenType fonts
• Updated import files for Visual FoxPro and PowerBASIC
• 30+ bug fixes and enhancements, plus 5 new functions

Special note: you may notice that the installer size for Quick PDF Library 8.12 at 25.2 MB is larger than previous versions. The increase in the installer size is due to the addition of the files required for 64-bit support. For example, for the ActiveX edition, while previously there was just a 2.32 MB DLL called QuickPDFAX0812.dll now there is an additional DLL called QuickPDF64AX0812.dll. Luckily you don’t need to distribute the full 25.2 MB with your applications, you just take out the individual files that you need and distribute those with your applications.

Feedback! Any feedback large or small is appreciated. We’ll shortly be planning the next round of exciting new features for Quick PDF Library, so we’d really like to know what you want to see added to the SDK. Don’t be shy, email us at support@quickpdflibrary.com and have your say.

Quick PDF Library 8.12 beta 2 has been released and is ready for download and testing.

Version 8.12 includes native 64-bit support for the Delphi, ActiveX and DLL editions of Quick PDF Library. It also includes numerous enhancements, new functions, bug fixes and support for Delphi XE2.

If all goes well and no show-stopping issues are found this will be the final beta release of version 8.12 so we strongly encourage all developers who are interested in 64-bit support to test this latest beta release.

The 8.12 beta 2 installer can be downloaded from the button below.

Release Notes

Enhancements

• Adjustments for compilation on Delphi XE2 (Win32 and Win64)
• Win64 versions of the DLL, ActiveX and Lite editions
• Graceful handling of zlib streams with incorrect checksums
• Added support for OpenType fonts that use CFF outlines
• Improvements to text extraction, including better handling of Unicode characters
• Support for retrieving/setting the printer DEVMODE structure
• Text extraction data now optionally reports the original CMYK color of text
• Optimizations to memory usage during rendering
• Integration of a new AES encryption library
• Optimization of CMap parsing
• Added Ansi function aliases to the DLL edition

New functions

• SetTextExtractionArea
• GetPrinterDevModeToString
• SetPrinterDevModeFromString
• AddOpenTypeFontFromFile
• SetAnsiMode

Bug fixes

• Bug fix in DrawHTMLText function, return characters in correct MSB/LSB order
• Memory usage reduction for certain mono images
• Bug fix in handling of CCITT image data (widths less than 8 )
• Drawing of wrapped text corrected
• Restored image extraction functionality for certain image types
• Corrected character widths for TrueType fonts added with a codepage
• Bug fix in DrawHTMLText function, high order bytes of Unicode characters now correct
• Corrected handling of form field fonts
• Improvements to word wrapping, multiple spaces no longer collapsed into a single space

Upgrading To Version 8

Quick PDF Library 8.12 beta 1 has been released and is ready for download and testing.

This new beta includes 64-bit support for the Delphi, ActiveX and DLL editions of Quick PDF Library, as well as support for Delphi XE2. Though please note that for 64-bit support this is very much a beta release and so you should not use it in a production environment yet. We look forward to hearing all of your feedback on the 64-bit version.

The 8.12 beta 1 installer can be downloaded from the button below.

Release Notes

Enhancements

• 64-bit support for Delphi, DLL and ActiveX editions
• Support for Delphi XE2 (Win32 and Win64)

Bug fixes

• Bug fix in DrawHTMLText function, return characters in correct MSB/LSB order
• Memory usage reduction for certain mono images

Technical Notes On Upgrading To Version 8

There were a number of technical changes to the Quick PDF Library API in version 8, so if you are still using version 7, and have not tried version 8 yet, you should take a look at a recent blog post that we made which outlines the various changes to the API:

• Quick PDF Library 8 API Changes

Upgrading To Version 8

If you would like to upgrade to version 8 then you can do so on this page:

• Upgrade To Quick PDF Library 8

More information on upgrading to version 8 can be found online here.

Feedback! Any feedback large or small is appreciated. We’ll shortly be planning the next round of exciting new features for Quick PDF Library, so we’d really like to know what you want to see added to the SDK. Don’t be shy, email us at support@quickpdflibrary.com and have your say.

Quick PDF Library 8 is a major new version of the product which means that the upgrade process is different from the minor version upgrade process, namely, upgrades aren’t free unless you meet certain requirements.

Free upgrades

Customers who purchased version 7 of Quick PDF Library on or after the 1st of June, 2011 (within 90 days of version 8’s release) or who own an active Premium Upgrade Protection subscription are eligible for free upgrades from version 7 to version 8.

Contact our sales team if you fall into this category and we’ll help you out.

Purchase an upgrade

An upgrade from version 7 to version 8 can be purchased at a discount (40% off) through our online store. Look for the products that include “Upgrade License” and “7.x to 8.x” in the product name and then choose which version of those products describes your upgrade situation.

For example, if you own a Single Developer License + Standard Upgrade Protection for version 7 of Quick PDF Library then you will need to purchase the Single Developer Upgrade License + Standard Upgrade Protection (7.x to 8.x) product in order to upgrade to version 8 — though you can choose to buy the Premium Upgrade Protection version of that product if you prefer.

Online Store – Quick PDF Library

Contact our sales team if you have any questions about upgrading.

We’re excited to announce that Quick PDF Library 8.11 has been released and is now available for download and purchase through our website. This new major release is jam-packed with new features and major enhancements to the usability of the library.

What’s New

• PDF/A-1b compliant output
• Support for AES-256 encryption
• TrueType font subsetting
• HTML5 renderer output
• New plain text extraction with natural reading order
• Support for PDF417 stacked linear barcode symbology
• Changed API for full Unicode string support

Upgrade Offer for Existing Customers

Existing customers are eligible for a 40% discount when purchasing the new version and can do so through our online store. Look for the product that has upgrade in its name with 7.x to 8.x.

Customers who own an active Premium Upgrade Protection subscription can contact our support team for a free upgrade.

What’s Next

Embarcadero released a 64-bit compatible version of the Delphi compiler today, which is great news, and means that for version 8.12 of Quick PDF Library our goal will be to provide native support for 64-bit applications.

However, if you purchase version 8.11 now then you will receive a free upgrade to version 8.12 when it is released as per our upgrade policy.

Enjoy!

Thanks to all the customers who participated in the beta release process. We hope you enjoy this new release.

The final version of Quick PDF Library 7.26 has been released and is ready for download from our updates page. This version includes numerous bug fixes, enhancements and new functions. Click on the link below to go to the upgrade page.

Download 7.26 from our Product Updates page

Release Notes

Enhancements

• Improved handling of unexpected CCITT data streams
• Elimination of invalid character codes in text extraction
• Improvements to accuracy of text extraction
• GetFormFieldSubName changed to return UTF-8 text for all field types
• Type library files included with ActiveX (special version for VB6)
• Added options 5 and 6 (character width output) to GetPageText function
• Better handling of malformed TrueType font data
• Added support for CMYK JPEG2000 images
• NormalizePage function now adjusts annotations
• Handle missing endbfchar token from malformed CMaps
• Malformed xref tables (shifted object numbers) now handled correctly

New functions

• CreateNewObject
• GetOptionalContentGroupPrintable
• GetOptionalContentGroupVisible
• GetBaseURL

Bug fixes

• Parsing of strings containing invalid reverse solidus codes corrected
• Reduced inconsistencies of internal image conversions
• Corrected image reversal for CCITT mask images
• LIB Edition of QPL now built with FastMM4 memory manager
• ServiceUnit.dfm correctly generated as part of source code release
• Corrected the direction rectangle paths are drawn
• Corrections to the way parent form fields are created
• Internal parent/child relationship corrected with NewChildFormField
• JPEG images with DeviceN color space now rendered correctly
• NormalizePage function correctly handles rotated annotations

Feedback! Any feedback large or small is appreciated. We’ll shortly be planning the next round of exciting new features for Quick PDF Library, so we’d really like to know what you want to see added to the SDK. Don’t be shy, email us at support@quickpdflibrary.com and have your say.

For Quick PDF Library version 7.25 we changed the integer type of the device context handles returned by the GetCanvasDC function and accepted as parameters to the RenderPageToDC and DARenderPageToDC functions.

The reason for this is that the Delphi VCL declares the HDC type as an unsigned 32-bit integer.

The Windows graphics system does return values in the entire unsigned 32-bit range.

However, since making the change in 7.25 we have done further research and found some inconsistencies in various programming environments.

In particular, the Windows SDK defines a device context handle HDC as a PVOID which is a signed 32-bit integer.

The .NET Framework uses System.IntPtr which is also a signed 32-bit integer.

For 7.26 we will be making further changes to how device context handles are processed by Quick PDF Library to properly match different programming languages.

• Delphi DCUs – Unsigned – Cardinal
• Delphi DLL – Unsigned – HDC
• C# ActiveX – Signed – System.IntPtr
• C# DLL – Signed – System.IntPtr
• C++ DLL – Signed – HDC
• C++ ActiveX – Signed – HDC
• VB.NET ActiveX – Signed – System.IntPtr
• VB.NET DLL – Signed – System.IntPtr
• PowerBuilder DLL – Signed -long
• PowerBASIC DLL – Unsigned – DWORD
• ActiveX Type Library – Signed – long

The information in this article supersedes the information that we posted on this topic a couple of weeks ago (specifically two two blog posts: Unsigned Integers and Device Context Functions and Unsigned Integers And Visual Basic).

Quick PDF Library 7.26 beta 1 has been released and is ready for download and testing. This new beta includes  numerous enhancements, new functions and bug fixes. The 7.26 beta 1 installer can be downloaded from the button below.

Release Notes

Enhancements

• Improved handling of unexpected CCITT data streams
• Elimination of invalid character codes in text extraction
• Improvements to accuracy of text extraction
• GetFormFieldSubName changed to return UTF-8 text for all field types
• Type library files included with ActiveX (special version for VB6)
• Added options 5 and 6 (character width output) to GetPageText function
• Better handling of malformed TrueType font data
• Added support for CMYK JPEG2000 images
• NormalizePage function now adjusts annotations

New functions

• CreateNewObject
• GetOptionalContentGroupPrintable
• GetOptionalContentGroupVisible

Bug fixes

• Parsing of strings containing invalid reverse solidus codes corrected
• Reduced inconsistencies of internal image conversions
• Corrected image reversal for CCITT mask images
• LIB Edition of QPL now built with FastMM4 memory manager
• ServiceUnit.dfm correctly generated as part of source code release
• Corrected the direction rectangle paths are drawn
• Corrections to the way parent form fields are created
• Internal parent/child relationship corrected with NewChildFormField

Feedback! Any feedback large or small is appreciated. We’ll shortly be planning the next round of exciting new features for Quick PDF Library, so we’d really like to know what you want to see added to the SDK. Don’t be shy, email us at support@quickpdflibrary.com and have your say.

Update: the information in this post has been superseded by the information from this post: Device context handles and signed/unsigned integer.

In version 7.25 of Quick PDF Library we made a change to the API which made the use of unsigned integers necessary.

Unfortunately this change will break backwards compatibility for code that makes use of the RenderPageToDC, DARenderPageToDC, and GetCanvasDC functions — the only functions which use unsigned integers.

This means that for the RenderPageToDC and DARenderPageToDC functions the DC parameter now requires an unsigned integer to be passed to it and that the GetCanvasDC function now returns an unsigned integer. You will need to update your code to reflect this change prior to being able to successfully compile using version 7.25.

If you do not use any of these functions then you do not need to make any changes.

Most modern programming languages support unsigned integers, but there are a few older languages which do not. So for those languages we will attempt to come up with suitable workarounds — for example, as mentioned on this blog post a couple of days ago, we have created a TLB file to be used with the ActiveX edition of our library and VB6 which resolves the issue of VB6 not supporting unsigned integers. Leave a comment if your programming language does not support unsigned integers.

We do apologize in advance for any inconvenience that this break in backwards compatibility causes. We do our utmost to avoid situations like this but sometimes breaking backwards compatibility is necessary for the future health of the library.