Tables of contents, files embedded in PDF documents and the DocumentSettings class arrived in TX Text Control .NET Server with version 29.0. The version also added the DocumentServer.PDF namespace, which reads AcroForm fields and searches the text of PDF documents, and it made barcodes part of TX Text Control itself.

Version 29.0 was released on December 2, 2020, as TX Text Control X19, together with TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms, TX Text Control .NET for WPF, TX Text Control ActiveX and TX Spell .NET 8.0. Its last full installer, that of Service Pack 3, is dated July 21, 2021. The features below are the ones added since version 28.0; the next version is Version 30.0.

Version 29.0 at a Glance

Area	What is new
Document structure	Tables of contents generated from structure levels, document settings such as author and title
PDF	Embedded files, AcroForm import, text search in PDF documents
Mail merge	Filters and sorting instructions of existing merge blocks changed in code
Barcodes	TX Barcode .NET integrated into TX Text Control
Document Editor	Rendering at the display scale of the device, JavaScript API for tables of contents, embedded files and document settings
Document Viewer	JavaScript API for annotations and form field values

Tables of Contents

A table of contents is generated from the structure level of the paragraphs in a document. See Tables of Contents for the .NET API and Tables of Contents for the Document Editor.

Structure levels. ParagraphFormat.StructureLevel sets the level of a paragraph, from 0 to 10. Level 0 means that the paragraph belongs to the body of the document. The level is usually part of a ParagraphStyle rather than set per paragraph.
Adding a table of contents. Create a TableOfContents object and add it with TableOfContentsCollection.Add. The collection of the main text is ServerTextControl.TablesOfContents; headers, footers and text frames have their own. The table is inserted at the current input position, with or without page numbers.
What it contains. MinimumStructureLevel and MaximumStructureLevel select the paragraphs, and Title and HasPageNumbers set its title and page numbers. A document can hold several tables of contents with different levels.
Styles. TX Text Control creates a formatting style for the title and each level, named TOC_Title, TOC_Level1, TOC_Level2 and so on, so that the appearance can be changed through the styles.
Links. With HasLinks, each entry becomes a document link with a matching document target. In the editor, a click with the CTRL key held down scrolls to the entry's page. DocumentLink.AutoGenerationType tells whether a link was created this way.
Updates and events. TableOfContents.Update regenerates the entries. TableOfContentsCreated and TableOfContentsDeleted occur on ServerTextControl, and TableOfContentsEntered and TableOfContentsLeft in the editor.
Tab leaders. ParagraphFormat.TabLeaders, also new, sets the characters that fill the space before a tab position, such as the dots before a page number.

PDF Documents

Version 29.0 extended both directions of the PDF support: files can be embedded when a PDF is saved, and a new namespace reads data out of existing PDF documents.

Embedded files. EmbeddedFile holds a file and its data, with optional properties such as the MIME type, the relationship, a description and dates. LoadSaveSettingsBase.EmbeddedFiles, available as SaveSettings.EmbeddedFiles and LoadSettings.EmbeddedFiles, embeds files when a PDF is saved and returns them when a PDF is loaded. To load them, LoadSettings.PDFImportSettings has to include LoadEmbeddedFiles. See Attachments.
AcroForm import. DocumentServer.PDF.Forms.GetAcroFormFields returns the form fields of a PDF document as AcroForms.FormField objects: text fields, check boxes, choice fields, combo boxes, list boxes, radio buttons and buttons. Its typical use is reading the values of a form that users filled out. See AcroForms.
Text search. DocumentServer.PDF.Contents.Lines.Find searches the lines of a PDF document for a string, a regular expression or a geometric position and returns ContentLine objects with the text, the page and the position of each line. See Text Extraction.

Document Settings

ServerTextControl.DocumentSettings returns a DocumentSettings object with the general settings of the current document: author, creation date, creator application, base path, keywords, subject, title, embedded files and user-defined properties. The values can be changed while the document is open. Save stores them with the document, and a property of SaveSettings with the same name overrides a value for one save. See Document Properties and Document Metadata.

Mail Merge

MailMerge creates documents from a template and data. Its repeating merge blocks, sections of the template that are repeated for each record, carry filter and sorting information since version 26.0, and version 29.0 made that information editable in code.

MergeBlockInfo from an existing block. A new MergeBlockInfo constructor creates the object from a merge block of a template, a SubTextPart. The object then contains the block's Filters, SortingInstructions, merge fields, child blocks and the name of its data table.
Write it back. After the information is changed, MergeBlockInfo.Apply stores it in the document.

Sorting and Filtering describes filters and sorting instructions.

Subtext Parts

SubTextPart.GetChildren returns the subtext parts nested in a subtext part, and SubTextPart.GetTextFields the text fields it contains. See Subtext Parts.

Barcodes

The barcode component TX Barcode .NET became part of TX Text Control, so barcodes no longer need a separate product. A barcode is a BarcodeFrame in a BarcodeCollection, positioned like an image or a text frame. The new Barcode.BarcodeTypeSettings class sets whether a barcode has a check value and whether it shows it. See Charts and Barcodes.

Document Editor

Display scale. The Document Editor renders the text area, the rulers, the status bar and all modal dialog boxes in the resolution of the device the browser runs on, for display scale factors above 96 DPI. On the server side, Resolution properties of the view generators, such as TextViewGenerator.Resolution, belong to this change.
JavaScript API. TXTextControl.documentSettings returns the DocumentSettings object with the document settings and an EmbeddedFileCollection. FormattedText.tablesOfContents returns a TableOfContentsCollection, and paragraph formats received get and set methods for the structure level and the tab leaders. refreshLayout is also new.
Editor events. The editor's server side raises ShowErrorMessage and events when formatting styles change and when the input position moves to another paragraph.

Document Viewer

The Document Viewer received the annotations object in its JavaScript API, which loads, exports and shows annotations and sets the list of stamps. Two new methods of the forms object read the values of the form fields and validate them, and TXDocumentViewer.addEventListener attaches event handlers.

Upgrade to Version 29.0

Update notes. The update notes of version 29.0 list one entry: LoadSettings.PDFImportSettings was extended with the settings LoadEmbeddedFiles, LoadMetadata and GenerateXMLAsEmbeddedFile. Of the three, only LoadEmbeddedFiles is a value of the current PDFImportSettings enumeration. Today, the metadata, the form fields and the text coordinates of a PDF document come from LoadEmbeddedData and LoadSettings.EmbeddedData. The What's New documentation of version 30.0 repeats the same entry.
Breaking changes. No change of version 29.0 is known to break existing code. Breaking Changes starts with version 30.0.

New Classes, Properties, Methods and Events

These are the classes and members that the What's New documentation of version 29.0 lists for TX Text Control .NET Server. .NET names are relative to the TXTextControl namespace. Each name links to its current reference page.

New Classes

.NET Members by Class

Class	Properties	Methods	Events
Barcode.BarcodeTypeSettings	HasCheckValue, ShowCheckValue
DocumentLink	AutoGenerationType, DocumentTarget
DocumentServer.DataSources.MergeBlockInfo	MergeFields	Apply
DocumentServer.PDF.AcroForms.FormCheckBox	IsChecked
DocumentServer.PDF.AcroForms.FormChoiceField	CanEdit, CommitOnSelChange, DoNotSpellCheck, MultiSelect, Options, Sort, Value
DocumentServer.PDF.AcroForms.FormField	AlternateFieldName, Bounds, FieldName, FieldType
DocumentServer.PDF.AcroForms.FormTextField	Value
DocumentServer.PDF.Contents.ContentLine	Height, Page, Rectangle, Text, Width, X, Y
DocumentServer.PDF.Contents.Lines	ContentLines	Find
DocumentServer.PDF.Forms		GetAcroFormFields
DocumentSettings	Author, CreationDate, CreatorApplication, DocumentBasePath, DocumentKeywords, DocumentSubject, DocumentTitle, EmbeddedFiles, UserDefinedDocumentProperties
DocumentTarget	AutoGenerationType, Deleteable, ID, Name, Start, TargetName	ScrollTo
EmbeddedFile	CreationDate, Data, Description, FileName, LastModificationDate, MIMEType, Relationship
HeaderFooter	TablesOfContents
IFormattedText	TablesOfContents
InputFormat	StructureLevel
LoadSaveSettingsBase	EmbeddedFiles
LoadSettings	EmbeddedData
ParagraphFormat	StructureLevel, TabLeaders
ServerTextControl	DocumentSettings, TablesOfContents	OnTableOfContentsCreated, OnTableOfContentsDeleted	TableOfContentsCreated, TableOfContentsDeleted
ServerVisualization.RulerBarViewGenerator	Resolution
ServerVisualization.ShowErrorMessageEventArgs	Caption
ServerVisualization.StatusBarViewGenerator	Resolution
ServerVisualization.TextViewGenerator	Resolution	OnFormattingStyleChanged, OnFormattingStyleListChanged, OnInputFormattingStyleChanged, OnInputParagraphChanged, OnTableOfContentsEntered, OnTableOfContentsLeft	FormattingStyleChanged, FormattingStyleListChanged, InputFormattingStyleChanged, InputParagraphChanged, ShowErrorMessage, TableOfContentsEntered, TableOfContentsLeft
SubTextPart		GetChildren, GetTextFields
TableOfContents	DefaultHighlightColor, HasLinks, HasPageNumbers, HasRightAlignedPageNumbers, HighlightColor, HighlightMode, ID, Length, MaximumStructureLevel, MinimumStructureLevel, Name, Number, Start, Text, Title	Save, ScrollTo, Update
TableOfContentsCollection	Count, IsSynchronized, Item, SyncRoot	Add, CopyTo, GetEnumerator, GetItem, Remove
TableOfContentsEventArgs	TableOfContents
TextFrame	TablesOfContents

Document Editor JavaScript API

Object	Properties	Methods
DocumentLink		getAutoGenerationType
DocumentSettings	embeddedFiles	getAuthor, getCreationDate, getCreatorApplication, getDocumentBasePath, getDocumentKeywords, getDocumentSubject, getDocumentTitle, getUserDefinedDocumentProperties, setAuthor, setCreationDate, setCreatorApplication, setDocumentBasePath, setDocumentKeywords, setDocumentSubject, setDocumentTitle, setUserDefinedDocumentProperties
DocumentTarget		getAutoGenerationType
EmbeddedFile		getCreationDate, getData, getDescription, getFileName, getLastModificationDate, getMIMEType, getRelationship, setCreationDate, setDescription, setLastModificationDate, setMIMEType, setRelationship
EmbeddedFileCollection		addBinaryFile, addTextFile, removeElementAt
FormattedText	tablesOfContents
InputFormat		getStructureLevel, setStructureLevel
ParagraphFormat		getStructureLevel, getTabLeaders, setStructureLevel, setTabLeaders
TableOfContents		getHasLinks, getHasPageNumbers, getHasRightAlignedPageNumbers, getHighlightColor, getHighlightMode, getID, getLength, getMaximumStructureLevel, getMinimumStructureLevel, getName, getNumber, getStart, getText, getTitle, save, scrollTo, setHasLinks, setHasPageNumbers, setHasRightAlignedPageNumbers, setHighlightColor, setHighlightMode, setID, setMaximumStructureLevel, setMinimumStructureLevel, setName, setTitle, update
TableOfContentsCollection		add, getItem, getItemByName, remove
TableOfContentsCollectionAddParams	hasLinks, hasPageNumbers, hasRightAlignedPageNumbers, maximumStructureLevel, minimumStructureLevel, title
TableOfContentsEventArgs	tableOfContents
TableOfContentsInfo	hasLinks, hasPageNumbers, hasRightAlignedPageNumbers, highlightColor, highlightMode, id, length, maximumStructureLevel, minimumStructureLevel, name, number, start
TXTextControl	documentSettings	refreshLayout

Document Viewer JavaScript API

Object	Methods
Annotations	export, getStampList, load, setStampList, showSidebar, showToolbar
Forms	getValues, validate
TXDocumentViewer	addEventListener

Next Steps

Version 30.0: the features of the next version.
Version 28.0: the features of the previous version.
Older Versions: all versions from 29.0 back to 10.1.
TX Text Control X19 and TX Spell 8.0 Have Been Released: the release announcement on the Text Control Blog.

What's New in TX Text Control .NET Server 29.0