What's New in TX Text Control ActiveX 15.0
The following features are new or have been improved in TX Text Control ActiveX 15.0:
New and Updated Features
- Page Columns
Divide a page into an unlimited number of columns.
Page Columns
Columns are a useful word processing feature, most commonly used to present information effectively, making it easier and faster to comprehend.
In addition to document sections, which were introduced in TX Text Control ActiveX 14.0, the latest version of TX Text Control ActiveX allows text to be arranged into columns.
Any number of columns can be inserted into one document. The number of columns can be specified at the document or page level, thus allowing a different number of columns on each page, if required.
The width of a column, formatting of column borders and distance between columns can be set with the updated Page Setup dialog box and ruler bar.
New Shortcut Keyboard Combination
A new shortcut keyboard combination (SHIFT + CTRL + RETURN) has been implemented, with which the end-user can use to force text into the next column. This is achieved by the insertion of a break character.
Updated Page Setup Dialog Box
All column formatting and layout options are available in the updated Page Setup dialog box:
Updated Ruler Bar
Column parameters can be set and adjusted using the updated ruler bar:
PDF/A Format
PDF/A is a self-contained, device independent file format for the long-term archiving of page-oriented documents.
The ISO ratified standard (ISO 19005-1:2005) was developed by a working group of representatives from government, industry and academia.
All supported TX Text Control formats can be exported to PDF/A-1b.
In addition to standard PDF export, the following data is also exported as PDF/A-1b:
- Only embeddable fonts are saved.
- Document data, such as title or author are saved in XMP format.
- Additional font data is stored, specifying which characters of a font have been used.
- A color profile is saved.
- Links to start other applications are not permitted.
- Access restrictions are not permitted.
Updated Save As dialog box in TX Words
The Save As dialog box in the sample application TX Words has been updated.
Legal Numbering
Legal numbering is a special type of structured list, which displays a number next to each list entry. In such a list, each time a new entry is added, which is deeper than the current entry, an additional list number is appended to the next list entry. This is illustrated in the screenshot to the right.
In addition to the numbered and bullet list options, which TX Text Control ActiveX already offers, in the latest version, lists can be structured with legal numbering.
Formatting Options
TX Text Control ActiveX 15.0 ships with an updated Bullets and Numbering dialog box, with which all formatting options related to legal numbering can be set. These include the following:
- Position of list number and list entry
- Character between list number and list entry
- Depth of current list entry
- Style of list number
- Text before and after list number
Additionally, in the case that a tab is used to separate list number and list entry, the distance between the two can be set, using the tab marker in the updated ruler bar.
Updated Bullets and Numbering Dialog Box
Bullets and Numbering dialog box has been updated to allow all legal numbering parameters to be set:
Ruler Bar
The ruler bar allows the distance between list number and list entry to be set (when separator is a tab)
Programming Paragraphs
To provide better support to programmatically iterate through and process paragraphs, a Paragraphs collection has been implemented. This collection is available for:
- Document's main body
- Headers and Footers
- Text Frames
All formatting attributes can be programmed for each Paragraph, using the ParagraphFormat and ListFormat objects. Additionally, properties are available for:
- First character
- First line of a paragraph
- Number of characters and lines
- Formatting style
A Text property and several Save methods can be used to access the paragraph's contents.
The ListNumber and the ListNumberText properties provide further support for numbered lists.
Button and Ruler Bars
In line with all past versions of TX Text Control ActiveX, the button and ruler bars have been updated to reflect the new and improved features of the current version.
Button Bar
The button bar has been updated to accommodate a new icon to start legal numbering:
Ruler Bar
The ruler bar has been updated so that the space between columns and column width can be set easily:
Valid XHTML Export
The Extensible Hypertext Markup Language or XHTML conforms to the XML syntax. Consequently, documents that are stored in XHTML are well-formed according to XML standards.
Valid XHTML documents allow for automated processing to be performed, using standardized and wide-spread XML tools.
As of TX Text Control ActiveX 15.0 documents can be exported to valid XHTML.
The screenshot to the right illustrates the validation report of an XHTML document exported by TX Text Control ActiveX 15.0.
