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NEWS

This file gets updated before a stable release. There is a detailed changelog in the manual.

Version 5.5

  • XPath Support for arrays and maps, fn:serialize()
  • New documentation
  • PDF/UA (accessibility) enhancements
  • HTML/CSS enhancements (colspan/rowspan in tables,..)
  • New match attribute in Record (similar to XSLT template matching)
  • Tables: alternating row colors restart on each page.
  • Tables: colspan="*"
  • Remove Debian package generation
  • Memory usage reduction
  • Variable fonts

Version 5.4

Released 2026-03-04

  • Massive speed improvements!
  • More unit testing and refactoring
  • More HTML/CSS support
  • More XPath functions
  • Section element to structure layout
  • New VScode extension (separate repository)
  • Fix margin protrusion
  • Letterspacing

The planned rust library is not part of this release.

Version 5.2

Released 2025-10-14

Major changes from version 5.1:

  • New XML parser The XML parser has been completely reimplemented. It is now more robust, includes automated tests, and records source file information (.__file) for better XInclude handling and error diagnostics.
  • Improved XPath functions Added several new XPath functions, including translate() and distinct-values(). The doc() function now returns the document node instead of the root element for more standard-compliant behavior. Numeric and boolean functions (format-number(), round-half-to-even()) and general boolean logic have been improved for more consistent results.
  • Better international and typographic support Added initial Japanese typesetting support and improved multi-character fallback handling.
  • Enhanced HTML/CSS rendering
    • Many refinements to the internal HTML/CSS engine:
    • Support for pseudo-class selectors and list-style-position
    • Better handling of borders, padding, and spacing
    • font-family now accepts multiple fallbacks
    • Improved custom @font-face and font-size calculations (rem, px)
  • PDF metadata improvements Dates in PDF metadata now use ISO format, and additional metadata fields (like “Producer” and color profile defaults) are included automatically.
  • Reliability and diagnostics
  • Improved logging and clearer error messages
  • Multi-run behavior continues even after previous errors, when needed
  • Safer handling of file attachments and image conversions
  • More detailed debug output for troubleshooting
  • Stability and maintainability Numerous internal cleanups, documentation improvements, and test enhancements make this release more stable and easier to maintain.

Version 5

Released 2025-03-11

This software is now completely error free ;-)

Now it is time to make a good release, and then add some more features.

Major changes from version 4:

  • New default XML and XPath parser
  • New default Text shaper (Harfbuzz) with left-to-right, right-to-left and mixed typesetting
  • Accessibility support (PDF/UA)
  • speedata Pro package
  • And much more, see below

Version 4.20

Released 2025-01-15

The last version before 5

  • Fully accessible documents
  • Make new XPath parser robust
  • ZUGFeRD attachment enhancements
  • Ability to flip (mirror) objects
  • Strict namespace handling (optional)
  • Spot color saturation

Version 4.18

Released 2024-04-19

  • New defaults for the XPath engine and the font loader (preparation for the version 5)
  • New output / logging backend.
  • New dpi attribute with PDFOption for automatic image resizing.
  • Markdown.

Version 4.16

Released 2024-01-07

  • Complete overhaul of the MetaPost integration.
  • New XPath engine (optional).

Version 4.14

Released 2023-07-03

  • New syntax for filename, page number and PDF box in image functions (#502).
  • Outline fonts.
  • Tables: new Column spec minwidth and new keywords for width (min and max).
  • New XPath function matches() (#453).
  • Pro package.
  • Bug fixes

Version 4.12

Released 2022-09-30

  • PDFOptions displaymode
  • Delay execution on SetVariable.
  • Set border color for hyperlinks.
  • Add sha256, sha512 functions.
  • New command Clip.
  • Remove LuaJIT/FFI, add new lua glue library.

Version 4.10

  • Mostly bug fixes
  • runtime.execute() in Lua filter/preprocessing for executing external programs
  • xml.decode_xml() in Lua filter/preprocessing for reading XML files

Version 4.10 will be the last stable version that runs with LuaJIT/FFI.

Version 4.8

Released 2022-05-02

  • Bug fixes
  • Allow color="-" in <Tablerule>
  • <VSpace> with attributes height and minheight

Version 4.6

Released 2021-11-10

  • Lots of bug fixes, as always.
  • REST API: set number of runs.
  • REST API: enhanced server verbosity.
  • REST API: new route for direct publishing (send data and get PDF in one request).
  • NewPage deprecation (use ClearPage instead).
  • macOS 12.0 compatibility.
  • Include color profile in distribution.
  • Easier calculation with lengths.
  • Use new Go based XML parser.

Version 4.4

Released 2021-05-11

  • Transparency (available for text and images).
  • MetaPost integration.
  • Windows 64 binaries.
  • Document separation (frontmatter, mainmatter).
  • Logical and visible page numbering.
  • Better hyperlinks within a document (pages, page numbers, leaders, images and boxes).
  • Lots of bug fixes (mostly related to table head/foots and HTML support).

Version 4.2

Released 2021-01-07

  • Better OpenType (.otf and .ttf) font support. Including font features, colored fonts and perhaps variable fonts.
  • Basic print CSS support. This includes a completely new HTML parser and renderer.
  • This branch now has a new paragraph builder, a new font shaper (harfbuzz) and an enhanced HTML mode. The HTML mode is currently limited to Textblock/Paragraph, but will be enhanced in the next versions.
  • New language settings (Other) to let the font shape guess the language and the script.
  • Support for non-western scripts such as CJK and Arabic. This includes right to left (rtl) typesetting.
  • Support for mixing left to right and right to left typesetting (bidi).

Version 4

Released 2020-09-07

Most visible changes from version 3.8

  • New XPath functions firstmark() and lastmark() to get the first and the last marker on a page. Useful for headers in dictionaries.
  • New internal variable $_lastpage which has the number of the last page from the previous run.
  • Improved server mode
  • New HTML mode
  • New English manual
  • Better support for Adobe Acrobat (remove colored links)
  • External image conversion tools (for example Inkscape)

The main reason to release this as version 4 is that this version includes some changes that might break the backward compatibility promise. The paragraph building mode is completely rewritten in version 4 and could lead to different results in line breaking.