Engine update: borders that sit inside the frame, and Word files that open

Another batch of engine work went live on 4 October. Here is the list. As always, we put our output next to Publisher's own PDF and fix what differs. Each item says which formats it covers.

Word files that would not open

  • A small set of Word files now open. One decorative arrow shape got a name that Word does not accept, so Word refused to open those files at all. It was rare, a few dozen files in our tests, but a file that will not open is the worst result there is. Those files open now, and the shape comes out as a plain box.

Borders and lines

  • Borders sit inside the frame. In Publisher, a frame's border can sit on the inside of the frame. We drew it centred on the edge, so half of it hung outside and overlapped what was next to it. Picture and shape borders now sit inside, in the PDF, Word, InDesign and ODG exports.
  • Square dots stay square. Publisher's square-dot borders and the dots in dash-dot lines came out round. They are square now, in every format. Round-dot borders stay round.
  • Dotted, dashed and double lines in InDesign files. InDesign drew every dotted, dashed and double border as a plain solid line, because our files did not declare those line styles. They do now.
  • Shadows on outline frames. Page borders and photo frames with an outline and no fill had no shadow. They now get Publisher's two soft rings, in the PDF export.

Tables

  • Merged cells keep their colour right. The table's background colour went into every merged cell, so some turned black or grey. Now only the top-left cell takes it, as in Publisher.
  • Header colours stay in the header. A rule that copied the header colour into empty cells reached body rows, such as weekend cells in calendars. It now stops at the header.
  • White grid lines stay white, and heavy vertical borders keep their width instead of shrinking to hairlines.

These table fixes are in the PDF export.

Clip art and pictures

  • Trees, not green squares. Some clip art stored as a list of points came out as plain squares. One park map had more than a hundred palm trees drawn as green boxes. They are trees again, in every format.
  • Turned clip art. Large clip-art pictures turned a quarter turn, such as border strips and ribbons, came out the wrong way round. They are fixed in the PDF, Word and ODG exports.
  • Text inside clip art. Text inside some clip art, such as a return address, came out as a giant black block. It now has the right size, in the PDF and InDesign exports.
  • No more white boxes in InDesign files. Some pictures in Publisher files draw nothing at all. InDesign painted them as solid white boxes that hid what was behind them. Those boxes are gone.
  • Stacked WordArt in InDesign files. WordArt with letters stacked in a column now opens in InDesign as upright stacked letters, not a rotated line or a smear.
  • "From corner" and "from center" gradients now spread from the corner or the center, in the PDF export. They used to come out as a flat colour.
  • See-through pictures stay see-through. A pale crest behind certificate text was drawn solid. It now has the transparency Publisher shows, in every format.
  • Lighter pictures. Pictures set lighter with lower contrast came out too dark. They now match Publisher, in the PDF export.
  • Background photos in ODG files. Large photos set as the page background were missing from ODG files, so those pages came out mostly white. They are back.

InDesign and ODG files

  • The last line of small text stays. In InDesign files, small text could run out of room by one line, and the last line disappeared, for example in forms and tables. Line spacing now follows Publisher, so the last line stays.
  • Master page items stack in Publisher's order in InDesign and ODG files. The PDF got this fix earlier.
  • White fills no longer cover things. A recent change made shapes with no fill setting white, as in Publisher. In a few InDesign and ODG files, those white shapes covered lines, outlines or text. They no longer do.
  • ODG files keep all their pages. Some ODG files lost a last page that Publisher keeps. Now the page count matches.

If one of your files came out wrong in any of these ways, run it again. You don't need to buy again. The preview is free, and conversions are a one-time $49, up to 2 GB and 20 files per job.