Below are a list of added features and bug fixes that are incorporated for each minor and major build of OfficeWriter.

Versions

OfficeWriter 8.1.2

ExcelWriter, WordWriter, Reporting Services, Installer, License Key Manager

Issues Resolved

• OfficeWriter 8 was not FIPS compliant, which prevented installing or running OfficeWriter 8 on FIPS-enabled machines. This fix has been applied to all OfficeWriter 8 components.

OfficeWriter 8.1.1

ExcelWriter, WordWriter

No changes were made to ExcelWriter or WordWriter for 8.1.1.

Reporting Services Integration

Issues Resolved

• The OfficeWriter Designer 8.1.0 installer required VB6 (for Office 2007) to be installed. The OfficeWriter Designer 8.1.1 installer requires etiher VB6 (Office 2007) or VB7 (Office 2010) to be installed.

OfficeWriter 8.1

ExcelWriter

Features Added

• Axis.LinkedtoSource and SeriesDataLabel.LinkedToSource for ExcelApplication
• Improved support for tables in OOXML files for ExcelApplication

Issues Resolved

Template Object

• No exception thrown when rows of imported data exceeds file format limit
• Cultures with different thousand separators cause corrupt output in OOXML files
• Rows pushed down when using pivot tables in OOXML files

Application Object

• Getting a data label for a data point puts x-axis values in chart legend
• Deleting a row with conditional formatting causes a file error in Excel 2007/2010
• Hyperlink.Href returns null value instead of a valid link
• Exception thrown if chart legend has a background fill

The following fixes apply only to OOXML files:

• SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter.XMLModel at index does not exist exception thrown
• Unable to create hyperlinks in a merged area adjacent to another merged area
• Workbook.UseRCFormulaNotation always returned false

WordWriter

Features Added

• Ability to unlink IF fields in OOXML files after they are evaluated by WordTemplate with WordTemplate.UnlinkIFFields

Issues Resolved

• Table.InsertRows takes the formatting from the first row of the table
• WordTemplate image modifier does not scale images correctly in OOXML files

Reporting Services Integration

Features Added

• New ribbon design for Office 2007/2010 in Excel and Word
• OfficeWriter Designer support for Office 2010
• Redesigned and improved installer for the OfficeWriter Designer

Issues Resolved

• Designer in Excel hangs when previewing reports after changing multiple parameter values

OfficeWriter 8.0

Installer

Features Added

• Redesigned and improved kit for installing .NET, Reporting Services, and SharePoint solutions on 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

ExcelWriter

Features Added

• Complete support for Excel 2007/2010 (XLSX) file formats with ExcelApplication

Issues Resolved

• Deleting the last remaining worksheet in a Workbook throws an exception on call to Save instead of on Delete
• Passing a non-seekable Stream object to a method when creating a picture will throw an exception
• Merged cells next to data markers on adjacent rows causes corrupt output
• License Manager tool displays popup twice when upgrading OfficeWriter key
• ExcelWriter allowed setting of invalid font sizes, which resulted in warnings in Excel 2010
• Incorrect default character width ysed for default font

WordWriter

Features Added

• Ability to include arbitrary RTF or HTML documents in merge fields with WordTemplate

Reporting Services Integration

There were no changes to the core Reporting Services Integration for OfficeWriter 8.0.

OfficeWriter 4.6.1

ExcelWriter 7.6.1

Features Added

• ExcelApplication is now 20% faster and requires 20% less memory

Issues Resolved

• Specific formula caused "Unreadable Content" error in XLSX file processed by ExcelTemplate in SSRS
• ExcelWriter would return the wrong default character width for Calibri - size 11
• ExcelApplication threw an exception when parsing some SSRS 2008 generated Excel files
• Chart text was not properly set to "Automatic" by default
• Data Series in charts were sometimes not sequenced correctly
• GetHeader and GetFooter threw NullReferenceException when called on newly created worksheets

WordWriter 4.6.1

There were no changes made to WordWriter in 4.6.1.

Reporting Services Integration 4.6.1

Issues Resolved

• Specific formula caused "Unreadable Content" error in XLSX file processed by ExcelTemplate in SSRS
  * Opening an RDL in the OfficeWriter Designer threw a "Type Mismatch" error with certain regional settings

OfficeWriter 4.6

Installer

• ExcelWriter COM and the WordTemplate COM-callable wrapper are no longer automatically installed during the OfficeWriter installation process. Bits are available upon request.

ExcelWriter 7.6

Features Added

• Data markers in Pivot Table cells are no longer processed explicitly (with data being brought in) or implicitly (with blank rows added to the sheet), as described in the new Templates and Pivot Tables (deprecated) page
  • Pivot Table templates no longer require dummy data
  • Pivot Table templates no longer require edit copies set not to refresh on open
  • Shapes and Charts can be placed beside Pivot Tables
• Sparklines now preserved in Excel 2010 created file when processed by ExcelTemplate

Issues Resolved

• ExcelTemplate threw an error on Excel 2010-created files with Excel 2003-format pivot tables
• Shapes such as charts stretched when placed next to pivot tables that were filled using ExcelTemplate
• ExcelWriter generated files no longer open in protected mode in Excel 2010

WordWriter 4.6

Features Added

• Since the WordTemplate COM-callable wrapper is no longer installed, WordWriter is no longer installed in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC).

Issues resolved

• Some files processed by WordTemplate, then WordApplication, caused errors when opened in Word 2010
• WordWriter threw an error when repeat blocks were in tables in templates created using Word 2010

Reporting Services Integration 4.6

Issues Resolved

• Reporting Services 2008 R2 formulas did not work in OfficeWriter Reporting Services integration for Word
  * OfficeWriter Designer did not read Reporting Services 2008 formulas from the RDL files

OfficeWriter 4.5.1

License Key Manager

Issues Resolved

• License Key Manager threw error when being run on a machine with no SoftArtisans license keys in the registry.

ExcelWriter 7.5.1

Features Added

• ExcelWriter can now insert images into headers and footers using the new HeaderFooterPicture object.
• The new HeaderFooterSection object allows greater control over headers and footers
• The new ChartFillPattern (no attachments) class provides values for all Excel 2003 patterns
• The new SeriesDataLabel.DataLabelPlacement property allows you to explicitly set the location of the data label on each data point in a Series using the DataLabelPlacementType enum

Issues Resolved

• Issues with PivotCharts in ExcelTemplate
  • PivotCharts missing data in ExcelTemplate reports when streamed to client
  • PivotCharts lose series formatting in OOXML (Excel 2007) file format
• ExcelTemplate did not work with template files created in Excel 2010
• ExcelTemplate did not throw an error if file format limits on the number of characters in a cell were exceeded.
• Processing certain files with comments using ExcelTemplate created a corrupt file
• Calling ExcelTemplate.Process() on files were certain formulas threw an "Unrecognizable symbol" exception.
• ExcelApplication did not throw an error if file format limits on the number of characters in a cell were exceeded.
• Horizontal page breaks could not be inserted on worksheets created using Worksheets.CopySheet
• PageSetup attributes were not applied to worksheets created using Worksheets.CopySheet
• Merging some spreadsheets created using Crystal Reports resulted in a corrupt workbook.
• A number of Charting API issues in ExcelApplication
  • Setting Series.Label.ContainsValue broke formatting
  • Setting DataPoint.Interior.Pattern corrupted some files
  • Data Labels set in code not visible in Excel 2003
  • Picture chart fills cause an exception to be thrown when patterns are read
  • ExcelApplication fails to parse Legend visibility correctly
  • Some files were corrupted when a Series was removed from a SeriesCollection
  • Setting a CategoryData formula to a multi-column range threw an invalid formula exception
• ColumnProperties.AutoFitWidth() entered an infinite loop on columns with certain NumberFormat settings
• Cell.Formula threw an exception when attempting to read a formula referencing an external workbook using VLookup
• Some files generated with ExcelTemplate created corrupt files when opened and saved in ExcelApplication

WordWriter 4.5.1

Issues Resolved

• WordTemplate created a corrupted file when processing two IF fields
• WordTempalte threw an exception or produced a corrupt file when processing a template with IF fields containing other fields
• Merging a document with a programmatically-created table into another document threw an index out of bounds exception
• After replacing an object in a header or footer using Element.SearchAndReplace, the next call to SearchAndReplace() threw a WordWriterException
• Watermark object can now access watermarks in input files
• Watermark was not able to insert new watermarks
• Setting some table styles using WordApplication caused formatting issues and corrupted tables
• Merging two documents using Document.Append caused corrupted output in some cases
• Opening and saving a file created using a non-English version of Word caused formatting issues

Reporting Services Integration 4.5.1

Features Added

• OfficeWriter Designer now supports reports built using Report Builder 3.0

Issues Resolved

• Reporting Services reports created with the OfficeWriter Designer broke reports when an Oracle data source was used.

OfficeWriter 4.5

ExcelWriter 7.5

Features Added

• ExcelWriter SharePoint Integration
  • ExcelWriter can now use SharePoint Lists and Views as data sources
  • ExcelWriter can now output spreadsheets to Document Libraries or as List Item attachments
• Cell.SetAddInFormula method

Issues Resolved

• ExcelTemplate can now process files created using Microsoft's OOXML SDK
  • Process method no longer throws exception when processing a worksheet copied using Microsoft's OOXML SDK
  • Process method no longer throws exception when processing a workbook with a large number of worksheets copied using Microsoft's OOXML SDK
• Issues with deleting worksheets in workbooks
  • Deleting a Worksheet in a Workbook with Worksheet-level named ranges no longer corrupts the output spreadsheet
  • Deleting a Worksheet in a Workbook with Workbook-level named ranges no longer throws an "Unable to parse formula" exception when Save is called
  • Calling PageSetup.SetPrintTitleRows or PageSetup.SetPrintTitleColumns on the last sheet of a workbook, then deleting the worksheet no longer throws exception on Save
• Improved Grouping and Nesting Support
  • Headers and Footers are no longer printed when the data source is empty
  • Data marker modifiers now also work on %%value() markers
  • Merged cells are now preserved in spreadsheets with Grouping and Nesting
  • Conditional formatting copied from a header or footer to a data marker row using paste special -> formats is now preserved
  • Shared formulas in headers or footers are changed to equivalent regular formulas, rather than causing a corrupt output spreadsheet
• ExcelTemplate.Process() issues with some templates
  • Process no longer fails on a small number of template files that had previously caused it to fail
  • Process no longer throws a "Cannot find last DBCELL record" after being first opened in ExcelApplication
  • Process no longer throws a "Sheet was not in expected location" error after being first opened in ExcelApplication
• Shape.FillTransparency no longer inverts its value
• Cell values on sheets created using Worksheets.CopySheet no longer reference incorrect values
• Calling ColumnProperties.AutoFitWidth() on a column with a custom NumberFormat no longer causes an Out of Memory exception
• R1C1-style formulas no longer cause an "Unable to parse formula" exception
• Improved ability to handle spreadsheets generated by Crystal Reports
  • ExcelWriter can now open some files generated by Crystal Reports that had previously been impossible to open
  • Small bmp files can now be copied from Excel spreadsheets generated through Crystal Reports

WordWriter 4.5

Features Added

• WordWriter SharePoint Integration
  • WordWriter can now use SharePoint Lists and Views as data sources
  • WordWriter can now save documents as Document Library items or List Item attachments
• New WordTemplate.SaveExtension property returns the extension of the template file that has been opened
• New Document.Append method appends one Document to another, preserving all Sections, including header and footers plus other section formatting
• WordWriter now supports Grouping and Nesting with the WordTemplate object

Issues resolved

• Improved WordTemplate support for Open Office XML format
  • Newline characters now handled correctly by WordTemplate in the Open Office XML file format
  • Support for all Open Office XML file extensions (.docm, .dotx, and .dotm all are now supported)
• Deleting table rows containing merge fields within a bookmark no longer damages the bookmark, allowing the template to populate without corrupting the output document
• Binding an empty DataTable to a template using WordTemplate.SetRepeatBlock no longer throws an exception, but instead removes bookmark
• Inserting content into a header with field no longer causes a corrupt document
• Custom styles preserved when two Document objects are merged using the Document.InsertAfter method
• Word documents with images with text wrapping settings other than "Inline with Text" no longer corrupted when opened and saved using WordApplication
• Setting TableFormatting.AutoWidth to true no longer fails to have any effect; columns set to Auto using Table.SetPreferredColumnWidthUnits will now have their widths automatically calculated

Reporting Services Integration 4.5

No changes were made to the Reporting Services Integration for 4.5.0

OfficeWriter 4.1

ExcelWriter 7.1

Features Added

• ExcelTemplate can process files created with Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) SDK
• Nesting and grouping formatting enabled for OOXML files. For more information, see Creating Data Markers

Issues Resolved

• Compiler error thrown while using ChartType enumeration in Visual Studio 2008
• Several issues addressed regarding support for files created by the native Excel renderer from SQL Server Reporting Services 2008
  • Accessing worksheets threw object reference exceptions
  • Creating a chart and adding a series corrupted the output file
  • Adding or removing rows or columns, copying worksheets, or creating a named range threw an internal casting exception
  • Creating a range from one or more areas threw a parser exception
  • Accessing or changing colors in the Palette threw Invalid Color Index exception
• Several issues addressed regarding support for files created by the native Excel renderer from SQL Server Reporting Services 2005
  • Missing shared string table from some spreadsheets threw Object Reference exception
  • ColumnProperty.ApplyStyle() failed to get Style interface unless Worksheet.PopulatedCells was first accessed
• ExcelWriter did not process three-letter columns correctly when referencing cells, for example "AAA4"
• AutoFitWidth threw IndexOutOfBounds exception for column with formula formatted as number
• Calling ApplyStyle() or SetStyle() on a ColumnProperties object referencing a column with a formula in it threw an Object Reference exception
• Setting CharacterRun.Font properties for more than 586 cells corrupted the file
• Setting CORREL function with Application object displayed "#VALUE" until user clicked on the cell
• ExcelTemplate.ExcludeMacros property now available when working with OOXML files
• Strings that looked like data markers after a formula is evaluated were treated like data markers
• The wrong content-type header was being sent when streaming OOXML files to the user, causing some browsers to treat them as BIFF8 (.xls) files
• ExcelTemplate no longer inserts a 0 for Null values brought into an OOXML template using a DataReader

WordWriter 4.1

Features Added

• WordTemplate can evaluate formulas for Word 2007 OOXML file format files (.docx/.docm). For more information, see Creating Merge Fields

Issues Resolved

• Deleting an element in a table made in Word 2007 corrupted the output document in some cases
• Deleting a row in a table also deleted the value in the first cell of the next row
• In some cases documents with embedded images threw Out of Memory exceptions
• Calling Document.Search() on a document with an empty field threw a stack overflow exception
• Inserting many images with WordTemplate caused some images not to display

Reporting Services Integration 4.1

Issues resolved

• OfficeWriter Designer threw an error when attempting to publish a 2008 RDL with a Report Global embedded using the Insert Formula button
• OfficeWriter Designer threw data source exception when a query was associated with a row in a table in a Word Document
• OfficeWriter Designer did not allow exporting Excel 2007 files with macros as RDLs
• OfficeWriter Designer's RDL parser thew an Unknown Exception for report model data sources with field names containing fewer than 5 characters

OfficeWriter 4.0

ExcelWriter 7.0

Features Added

• ExcelWriter is written in pure C# .NET and no longer has a dependency on the J# runtime
• ExcelTemplate supports Excel 2007 OpenOXML (OOXML) files with .xlsx, .xlsm, .xltx, and .xltm extensions
• Support for creating and viewing ExcelWriter files in Excel 2007
• Ability to iterate over all named ranges in a worksheet or workbook
• New Shape.FillTransparency property added
• Ability to bind data to an individual worksheet with the DataBindingProperties object
• Support for unicode in data markers
• New Cell.GetTextHeight and GetTextWidth methods for autofitting merged cells
• New InsertRows() and InsertColumns() methods
• Performance improvements:
  • ExcelTemplate + ExcelApplication
    1. Processes binary (XLS) files up to 50% faster
    2. Blank cell optimizations results in 400% improvement in speed and memory usage when using ExcelTemplate and ExcelApplication together
  • ExcelTemplate
    1. Formulas are processed up to twice as fast
    2. Reduced memory usage
    3. Ability to bind data only to a specific worksheet
  • ExcelApplication
    1. Faster algorithm for style optimization
    2. Improved performance when opening existing files and setting column widths
    3. Formulas can be inserted up to 8 times faster and improved performance for the formula parser
    4. Improved autofit algorithm

WordWriter 4.0

Featured Added

• Support for Office Open XML (OOXML) files in WordTemplate with .docx, docm, dotx, dotm file extensions
• Support for creating and viewing files in Word 2007 including:
  • Support for new themes, styles, table formatting options, hapes, charts, and diagrams
• Written in pure #C .NET and no longer depends on J# runtime
• Ability to evaluate IF fields
• New EnableNextFields property
• New SetMailMerge functionality to mimic Microsoft Word mail merge
• Improvements to performance
  • WordTemplate uses 40x less memory with OOXML files when processing large files or importing large amounts of data
  • WordTemplate is 35% when processing large binary (DOC) files
  • WordApplication is up to 6x faster when processing binary files
• HMTLtoWord open source project for importing HTML into WordWriter documents

Reporting Services 4.0

Features Added

• Full SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 support
  The OfficeWriter Designer now supports the embedding of Excel and Word within reports for SQL Server Reporting Services 2008.
  * Add real Excel and Word to reports designed in Visual Studio 2008 \The OfficeWriter Designer also now supports reports designed in Visual Studio 2008 and Report Builder 2.0, allowing the addition of Excel and Word versions to an existing report.
  * Office Open XML Format support \In SoftArtisans OfficeWriter version 4, the Office Open XML format (.docx and .xlsx; .docm and .xlsm) is now supported.
  * Significant performance improvements \Improvements with memory efficiency in underlying ExcelWriter and WordWriter DLLs can lead to significant performance gains
  * Unicode Field Names in Data Markers
  Data markers can now include any Unicode character except brackets [] and braces {}
  * Unicode Data Source Names with Excel Reports
  Excel reports now accept any Unicode character in data source names