What's New in TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms 34.0
Every PDF document that TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms 34.0 saves is tagged for accessibility, and new properties and ribbon items give its elements the descriptive texts that screen readers need. What follows lists the features, classes, properties and events the version added since 33.0, each linked to the reference member or the page that describes it.
Version 34.0 was released in November 2025 and is the current major version. Text Control released TX Text Control .NET Server, TX Text Control .NET for WPF and TX Text Control ActiveX 34.0 at the same time. Service Pack 5, released on September 14, 2026, is its latest update; Service Packs lists all of them.
Version 34.0 at a Glance
| Area | What is new |
|---|---|
| Tagged PDF documents for PDF/UA and PDF/A-3a, descriptive texts for links, form fields, tables and frames | |
| Ribbon | Items to enter the descriptive text of form fields, frames and tables, and a new table properties group |
| Mail merge | The FrameMergedEventArgs base class and the descriptive text of merged images |
| .NET | .NET 8, .NET 9 and .NET 10, Visual Studio 2022 and Visual Studio 2026 |
PDF Accessibility and Archiving
Version 34.0 changes the structure of the PDF documents that TX Text Control writes. Your existing code produces the new structure without changes. What TX Text Control can't produce on its own are the descriptive texts of your content, and version 34.0 adds the properties to set them.
- Tagged PDF. A PDF document now contains a logical structure in addition to its visible content, and the two refer to each other. The structure describes how the document is organized into chapters, headings, paragraphs and sections, and it marks elements such as text frames, tables, tables of contents and footnotes. Because the structure is stored apart from the visible content, the order of its elements doesn't depend on where the objects are placed on the page.
- PDF/UA by default. PDF/UA is the standard for PDF documents that people who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers, can read. PDF documents exported with version 34.0 contain the tags and metadata that PDF/UA requires. Whether a document fully complies depends on its content: an image without a descriptive text, for example, can't be read aloud.
- PDF/A-3a. When you save a document with
StreamType.AdobePDFA, TX Text Control writes PDF/A-3a, the level of the archiving standard PDF/A that includes the tagged structure and allows embedded files. See PDF/A. - Descriptive texts. A descriptive text describes an element that a screen reader can't read from the text itself, for example an image or a table. Five new
DescriptiveTextproperties set it, on HypertextLink, DocumentLink, FormField, Table and FrameBase, the base class of images, text frames, signature fields, charts, barcodes and drawings. An empty string means that the element has no descriptive text.
Create an Accessible PDF (PDF/UA) shows how to set the descriptive texts and check a document before it's saved, and Insert a Table From Code gives a table its descriptive text. The blog article PDF/UA vs. PDF/A-3a: Which Format Should You Use for Your Business Application? compares the two standards.
Descriptive Texts in the Ribbon
Users set descriptive texts in the ribbon as well. Version 34.0 adds these values to the RibbonItem enumerations of three ribbon tabs, which identify the new items:
| Ribbon tab | New items |
|---|---|
| RibbonFormFieldsTab | TXITEM_FormFieldDescriptiveText in the form field properties group, see RibbonFormFieldsTab.RibbonItem |
| RibbonFrameLayoutTab | TXITEM_ObjectDescriptiveText in the object properties group, for images, text frames, drawings, barcodes and charts, see RibbonFrameLayoutTab.RibbonItem |
| RibbonTableLayoutTab | The new group TXITEM_TablePropertiesGroup with TXITEM_TableID and TXITEM_TableDescriptiveText, see RibbonTableLayoutTab.RibbonItem |
The identifiers also name the resources of each item, such as its icon and text. If your application changes the ribbon tabs in code, check it against the new items. Built-in Ribbon Tabs describes the tabs.
Mail Merge
MailMerge creates documents from a template and data. It raises events when it has merged a barcode, a chart or an image, and version 34.0 extends the arguments of these events.
- A base class for merged frames. The new abstract class FrameMergedEventArgs is the base class of the event arguments that describe a frame merged during a mail merge. BarcodeMergedEventArgs, the argument of the BarcodeMerged event, and ChartMergedEventArgs, the argument of the ChartMerged event, derive from it.
- The descriptive text of merged images. In a handler of the ImageMerged event, which occurs when an image has been merged, ImageMergedEventArgs.DescriptiveText reads the descriptive text of the image. Set the property to replace it.
FrameMergedEventArgs provides these properties:
| Property | Returns |
|---|---|
| Frame | The frame that has been merged |
| DataRow | The data row that supplied the frame with merge content |
| MergeBlockName | The name of the merge block, a section of the template that is repeated for each record, if the frame is part of one |
| NestingDepth | The one-based nesting depth of that merge block |
| SubTextPartID | The ID of the SubTextPart, a user-defined part of the document, that contains the frame, or 0 |
| SubTextPartNumber | The one-based number of that subtext part, or 0 |
Merge Events covers the events of a mail merge.
.NET and Visual Studio
- .NET 10. The package
TXTextControl.TextControl.WinForms.SDKtargets .NET 8 and supports .NET 8, .NET 9 and .NET 10. Text Control tested version 34.0 with Windows Forms applications on .NET 10, and existing code runs on it without changes. See .NET and .NET Framework. - Visual Studio 2026. Version 34.0 supports Visual Studio 2022 and Visual Studio 2026. Text Control tested the NuGet package and the Visual Studio tooling, including the toolbox and the designers, in Visual Studio 2026. See Visual Studio.
The blog article Day-1 Support for .NET 10 in TX Text Control 34.0 describes the tests.
New Classes and Members
The What's New documentation of version 34.0 lists these classes, properties, methods and events as new in TX Text Control .NET for Windows Forms, grouped by class. Each name leads to its reference page. The list also names the HypertextLink class and its Target property, the target a hypertext link points to. Both existed before version 34.0 and are left out here; of HypertextLink, only DescriptiveText is new.
- DocumentLink: DescriptiveText
- DocumentServer.MailMerge.FrameMergedEventArgs (new class): DataRow, Frame, MergeBlockName, NestingDepth, SubTextPartID, SubTextPartNumber
- DocumentServer.MailMerge.ImageMergedEventArgs: DescriptiveText
- FormField: DescriptiveText
- FrameBase: DescriptiveText
- HypertextLink: DescriptiveText
- Table: DescriptiveText
Upgrade to Version 34.0
- No update notes. The Update Notes of version 34.0 list no change to existing classes, properties, methods or events.
- Changes to plan for. The package targets .NET 8, like the 33.0 package, and the toolbox tab is named TX Text Control 34.0. Test the PDF output of your application, which is now tagged. Breaking Changes in the Upgrade Guide describes both.
- Upgrade steps. Upgrading from Previous Versions moves a .NET Framework or .NET project from an earlier version to 34.0.
Next Steps
- Version 33.0: the features of the previous version.
- Breaking Changes: the changes that can require work when you upgrade.
- Service Packs: the service packs of version 34.0.
- Introducing TX Text Control 34.0: Your Next Leap in Document Processing: the release announcement on the Text Control Blog.