Engine update: bullets, text colours, flipped shapes and smaller files

Two batches of engine work went live, on 15 and 19 October. As always, we put our output next to Publisher's own PDF and fix what differs. Where a fix covers only some formats, the item says which.

Text that was missing

  • Text boxes and tables inside a story. Some files put a small text box or table inside the flow of the text, like a picture placed in a line. We left these out. They now show, in the place where Publisher puts them. Tables and text boxes inside a table cell now show in their cell, too.
  • Text in linked boxes with columns. When text flows from one box to the next, each box now keeps its own number of columns, so the text is no longer squeezed into one wide column.
  • Text that does not fit its box. When text is too long for its box and the box is not set to shrink text, Publisher cuts the text off at the bottom of the box. We made the text smaller to fit it in. We now do what Publisher does, in the PDF export.

Bullets and lists

  • Bullets and indents. Bullets now sit where Publisher puts them, and wrapped lines start at the same indent as the first line of text, in the PDF export.
  • Bullets that Publisher does not show. Some paragraphs carry a bullet in their style, but switch it off in the paragraph. We drew the bullet anyway. We no longer do, in every format.
  • Space between bullet lines. Lists with symbol bullets now have the same line spacing as in Publisher, in the PDF export.
  • Bullet size and colour. Bullets now take the size and colour of the text they belong to, as in Publisher.

Text colours and sizes

  • Body text keeps its own colour. In some files, body text took the colour of the heading above it. It now takes its own colour.
  • White text on dark bands. In files from Publisher 97, white text on a black or dark band came out black, so you could not see it. It is now white.
  • Coloured words in tables. When some words in a table cell have a different colour, they now keep it.
  • Default text size. Text with no size of its own now gets Publisher's default size.

Very old files

  • Publisher 97. Paragraph indents and centred or right-aligned paragraphs now come out as in Publisher.
  • Publisher 2000. Mirrored pictures now face the right way. Rectangles get their fill colour. Designs that use only part of the sheet are now printed on the correct sheet size. Decorative borders around text boxes get the right style.
  • Shadowed text. The hard shadow that old files put behind letters is now drawn as in Publisher.

Flipped and rotated shapes

  • Flipped groups and text boxes. When a group of shapes is flipped, its parts now move to their mirrored places. A text box that is flipped upside down now shows its text upside down, as in Publisher.
  • Text wrap in rotated text boxes. In a text box turned on its side, text now wraps around pictures as in Publisher.

Text inside shapes

  • Text in rounded rectangles, ovals, callouts and other shapes. Text inside a shape now sits in the same area of the shape as in Publisher, so it no longer runs too close to the edge. This covers scrolls, clouds, seals, waves and arrows too.

WordArt

  • Bold and italic WordArt. WordArt set in bold or italic now uses the bold or italic style of the font. When the font has no italic, the letters are slanted as Publisher slants them.
  • Letter spacing and shapes. WordArt now uses Publisher's letter spacing. Triangle and double-wave WordArt keep their shape and stay inside their box.
  • Gradient letters. Two-colour gradients in WordArt letters now run the same way as in Publisher.

Pictures

  • Smaller files with large photos. Publisher reduces very high-resolution photos when it saves a PDF. We now do the same, in the PDF, InDesign and ODG exports. The pictures look the same on screen and in print, and in our tests these PDFs became about a third of their old size.
  • See-through picture edges. Pictures with transparent areas now have clean edges, and pictures with a see-through background colour now show what is behind them.
  • Some JPEG photos looked like noise. A rare kind of JPEG came out as coloured noise. It now shows the photo.
  • Pictures behind panels and text. Pictures now sit in front of or behind other shapes as in Publisher.

Lines, fills and gradients

  • Patterned lines. Two-colour patterned lines now show their pattern instead of a solid line, in the PDF export.
  • Connectors. Bent and curved connector lines no longer get filled in.
  • Gradients. Corner gradients and gradients in flipped shapes now run as in Publisher.
  • Textured shapes in Word files. Shapes filled with a texture now show the texture in the right place in Word.
  • Page background textures. Background textures now line up as in Publisher.
  • Glow. Text and shapes with a glow effect now get Publisher's glow.

Hyphens and tabs

  • Optional hyphens. A hyphen that Publisher shows only at the end of a line now works the same way. In Word, InDesign and ODG files, these become real optional hyphens. In the PDF, they no longer show as empty boxes.
  • Tab stops. Files now use the document's own default tab stop, so text after a tab lines up as in Publisher.

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, tax included, for as many conversion jobs as you like, up to 20 files and 2 GB each.