Engine update: Word and InDesign exports catch up to PDF
The biggest batch of engine improvements since launch went live today. Same method as always: we compare our output against what Publisher itself produces for real documents, and we fix the differences. Here's what changed.
Word and InDesign exports catch up. For a while, our PDF export was the best of the three. Tables, text wrapping around pictures, and print-sheet layouts like booklets and half-fold cards all worked best in PDF. That gap is closed. The Word and IDML exports now use the same table grids, the same wrap shapes, and the same sheet layouts as the PDF engine. If your booklet converted right to PDF but fell apart in Word, run it again.
Gradient fills match now. Publisher stores a gradient as an angle, a center point, and a transition curve. We decoded all three. A two-color fill now blends in the same direction, from the same spot, at the same rate as it does in Publisher. Before this, we drew a close guess.
More shapes draw true. Ribbons, braces, wedge callouts, cloud callouts, and bordered callout boxes used to come out as plain rectangles or rough stand-ins. They now render with their real geometry. This closes dozens of AutoShape presets. Wide WordArt banners got a fix too: no more stretched text where a trailing line break padded the shape.
Tables hold their heights. Publisher 2000-era files store the actual height of each table row. We read those now, so a tight table stays tight and a tall row stays tall. And text rotated inside a table cell lands upright in InDesign instead of upside down.
Pictures keep their identity. An IDML package with many pictures could end up with one picture repeated where different ones belonged. Each picture now keeps its own file inside the package. If you convert newsletters with lots of photos, this one matters.
Very old files behave. Publisher 97 files with embedded objects, like a pasted Excel chart, could pull text out of the wrong place and print it inside the object's frame. The engine now keeps embedded content where it belongs.
Every one of these fixes was tested the same way: against thousands of real Publisher files, scored pixel by pixel against Publisher's own output, and shipped only when it won. If a file of yours came out wrong in one of these ways, run it again. The fixes are already live, in all three exports.