The following features are new or have been improved in TX Text Control .NET 15.0:
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 .NET 14.0, the latest version of TX Text Control .NET 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.
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.
All column formatting and layout options are available in the updated Page Setup dialog box:
Column parameters can be set and adjusted using the updated ruler bar:
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:
The Save As dialog box in the sample application TX Words has been updated.
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 .NET already offers, in the latest version, lists can be structured with legal numbering.
TX Text Control .NET 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:
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.
Bullets and Numbering dialog box has been updated to allow all legal numbering parameters to be set:
The ruler bar allows the distance between list number and list entry to be set (when separator is a tab)
In the past decade, Portable Document Format (PDF) has established itself as the standard for exchanging page-oriented, print-ready documents. The format was created by Adobe Systems in 1993 and has since been implemented in most desktop and server applications, which process text and graphics.
As of version 10.0, TX Text Control .NET has supported PDF export. In the latest version, existing PDF documents, for which the original source files no longer exist, can be imported. Once in TX Text Control .NET, the imported document can be edited and saved to any supported file format.
Calculating the layout of a page from an imported PDF, however, is a tricky process: PDF files contain detailed information about the appearance of a page, but not necessarily about the meaning of the characters and images contained within a page.
Furthermore, PDF files do not usually contain any information about the order of text, text flow, nor whether a piece of text is part of a header or table cell. Although recent additions to the PDF specification allow for some of this information to be stored (tagged PDF), this is rarely used.
TX Text Control .NET 15.0 extracts and converts all of the text it can find, adds missing spaces and paragraph breaks, and re-sorts the various text blocks and images, so that they appear in their logical order.
There are three parameters, which specify the exact behavior of the import filter.
The PDF Settings dialog box in the sample application TX Words has been updated.
To provide better support to programmatically iterate through and process paragraphs, a Paragraphs collection has been implemented. This collection is available for:
All formatting attributes can be programmed for each Paragraph, using the ParagraphFormat and ListFormat objects. Additionally, properties are available for:
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.
Using the new method TextControl.GetClipboardFormats and updated version of TextControl.Paste, TX Text Control .NET provides programmers an easy way to change the default behavior for pasting data from the clipboard. The new method returns an array of formats, currently stored in the clipboard and which can be pasted into TX Text Control .NET. In the case that there is no data format available, the method returns null.
The following formats are possible:
| HTMLFormat | Specifies HTML format (Hypertext Markup Language). |
| Image | Specifies an image. An image can be pasted, if it is a device dependent or a device independent bitmap, a TIFF image or a Windows metafile. |
| PlainText | Specifies unformatted text. |
| RichTextFormat | Specifies RTF format (Rich Text Format). |
| TXTextControlFormat | Specifies formatted text in the internal TX Text Control .NET format. |
| TXTextControlImage | Specifies an image including information about how the image is positioned in the document (inline or geometrically positioned). |
| TXTextControlTextframe | Specifies a TX Text Control .NET text frame including its contents. The clipboard contains also information about how the textframe is positioned in the document (inline or geometrically positioned). |
The new page rendering engine allows a graphical representation of a page to be saved as either a Bitmap (BMP) in screen resolution or as an enhanced and fully scalable Windows Metafile (WMF).
Pages exported as Windows Metafiles can be converted into a number of other formats, such as JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, WMF, EMF, TIFF or ICO.
The layout of the exported page image is exactly the same as that of the printed document or PDF.
A typical application for this new functionality would be to generate thumbnails of all the pages in a document or to display a page-orientated view of a document in a web browser or mobile device.
In line with all past versions of TX Text Control .NET, the button and ruler bars have been updated to reflect the new and improved features of the current version.
The button bar has been updated to accommodate a new icon to start legal numbering:
The ruler bar has been updated so that the space between columns and column width can be set easily:
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 .NET 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 .NET 15.0.
Microsoft Word offers a number of merge fields to programmatically manipulate the contents of a document and to automate the updating of specific information.
For example, it is very useful to enter the current date into a legal document. Or, to use the IF merge field to make a decision, based on a logical or mathematical expression, about which part of a document to display.
Microsoft Word offers a large number of these merge fields. As of TX Text Control .NET 15.0, the following are now supported:
| MERGEFIELD | The MERGEFIELD is the standard merge field with which to merge any text. |
| DATE | The DATE merge field displays the current date and/or time on the computer's system clock. |
| IF | The IF merge field takes one action, if a statement is true, and another, if it is false. |
| INCLUDETEXT | The INCLUDETEXT merge field inserts another document, or part of another document. |
TXTextControl.DocumentServer has been updated with the TXTextControl.DocumentServer.Fields namespace. This implements all supported merge and form fields, thus making their manipulation especially easy. Furthermore, each field ships with a dialog box that can be added to Windows Forms applications.
The new trial version contain all the features discussed on this page.
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