ESCAPEE 9.00
Features:

  1. AFP import is now supported.

  2. A new OCR plugin called Tesseract is now available using the open source routines from http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/

  3. The field type is now checked when extracting data and a warning given if invalid data is found.

ESCAPEE 8.99
Features:

  1. Improved handling of font substitution where a fixed pitch font is being substituted for a proportional one.

  2. Certain type of invalid JPEG can now be handled in PDFs.

  3. Certain special Lists of Files i.e. files with extension .LOF are now recognised and if opened in EscapeE will be handled specially. Files beginning :\DOCUMENT will cause EscapeE to invoke the Intelligent Document wizard, as this is the heading for a list of files saved in the wizard. Files beginning with :\ESCAPEE will be displayed in a separate window and can be double-clicked to open the file with
    the specified options. A typical such file might be:



    :\ESCAPEE
    'C:\TEST\first file.pcl' /REM 'A3 example' /PAPER A3
    'C:\TEMP\second file.pcl' /REM 'A4 example' /PAPER A4


    The REM option allows a remark or comment, which is not interpreted by EscapeE.

  4. 8.99F: The Direct print menu item is now disabled if the selected format is not a printing format or is not authorised.

  5. 8.99F: The About box now include the project version number if different from the internal version number.

  6. 8.99G: Better scrolling when viewing fields that are partly on view.

  7. 8.99H: An IDF file name on the command line can be followed by a comma and a name of a data file to be used as the default file by IDF <FILE> or <INCLUDE> statements.

  8. 8.99M: Introduce an alternative syntax for composite field counters
    that behaves more logically:


    {+field1=#,,0}


    Similar to the {? syntax but if an initial value is given then it is used when the field is first evaluated, regardless of whether counting occurs.

  9. 8.99R: An extension to the composite fields counter syntax. There is an extra optional parameter to allow specification of a value to which the counter resets after exceeding its limit. If this extra parameter is omitted it defaults to the initial value (0 if no initial value).
    Example:


    {+field1=#,,0,9,1}


    In this example the counter starts at 0, is incremented when field1 is found, and resets to 1 when it exceeds 9.

  10. 8.99R: The Configuration/Images/Transparent white now supported for PNG export.

  11. 8.99R: After installing the new resident fonts it is no longer necessary to click on the OK button to make the changes permanent.

  12. 8.99S: If a field contents are incompatible with its specified type then the type labels is shown in red and the problem button becomes visible.

  13. 8.99U: When installing a Truetype font a warning is given if it purports to be fixed-pitch but the characters vary in width. In such a case the font will be given an appropriate proportional selection sequence.

  14. 8.99U: For efficiency, particularly under Windows Vista, if the /X option is given then the file is not added to the list of recently used files unless the /HISTORY n option is also used and n is non-zero.

  15. 8.99U: In the fonts listings the proportinal/fixed-pitch spacing attribute is now shown.

Bug Fixes:

  1. Transparent white images still marked the page.

  2. Inelegant action on encountering a null file with an unknown extension.

  3. The "Force monochrome" option did not work for exporting CMYK colour to PDF.

  4. Problems with rotated opaque images in PDFs.

  5. 8.99D: Substitute Truetype fonts generated by a .sub file did not always space properly when exported.

  6. 8.99D: Problem with Ricoh print driver in PCL/XL mode: character scaling after font selection did not work.

  7. 8.99E: Better calculation of output sheet count.

  8. 8.99F: When prompting for a field value the current file page was not displayed.

  9. 8.99F: Unnecessary prompt for reloading the file when viewing font substitutes.

  10. 8.99F: Duplicate entries could be made in the fonts list if a font substitute file requested a nonexistent font.

  11. 8.99G: Sheet count was inaccurate if pages were omitted by fields.

  12. 8.99G: front/back page problems if showing blank pages

  13. 8.99H: Problems when moving subfields by dragging them.

  14. 8.99J: Problems when reading a IDF document consisting of out-of-order pages of a file whose fonts were redefined.

  15. 8.99K: Problems when calling another fields file from a composite field

  16. 8.99L: Problem with alpha channel transparency and conversion to monochrome.

  17. 8.99L: In the Layout configuration the "number of digits" box was not visible.

  18. 8.99L: In the fields dialogue the "Use this field/In the file name" checkbox did not correctly represent the state of the flag.

  19. 8.99L: If a Push Palette operation were done as the first thing on a page then when re-reading the page EscapeE could use the wrong palette.

  20. 8.99L: Problem with composite fields which incremented a counter when the target field is not found.

  21. 8.99L: The character recognition database could be held open in update mode unnecessarily.

  22. 8.99M: Restore the syntax for counter incrementing in composite fields to what it was prior to 8.99L but change the dislogue to be clearer.

  23. 8.99M: Palette IDs were limited to one byte.

  24. 8.99M: User-defined HP-GL patterns drawn with pen 0 did not work.

  25. 8.99M: When viewing the field dialogue the graphic tags were not honoured fully.

  26. 8.99M: Treat Configure Image Data commands where palette bits = 0 as 8-bit.

  27. 8.99M: Spurious question asking if the file should be reloaded when displaying font substitutes.

  28. 8.99N: Problem with forward references to composite counter fields.

  29. 8.99P: "Ignore blank pages" in the Configuration/Images dialogue was not saved in the INI file.

  30. 8.99P: Mixing options on the command line with ones in an LOF file did not always work e.g. /FIELDDEF

  31. 8.99P: Optimisation of the drawing of rectangular areas did not work when combined with certain raster operations.

  32. 8.99P: Handle the the change in printable top margin on some printers when switching between simplex and duplex.

  33. 8.99P: Fix for problem in 8.99F concerning multiply defined fonts.

  34. 8.99P: When saving field definitions the flag "Start a new output file" could be set incorrectly.

  35. 8.99P: Deleting a field still left it in the list of possible composite components.

  36. 8.99Q: As of version 8.99 images were not output when exporting to IDF.

  37. 8.99R: The box width for the Lyra font supplied as a substitute for Univers has been set to a larger value, compatible with that of an HP printer.

  38. 8.99R: Shaded images did not work well if the Configuration/Images/Shading/Gray-scale option was selected.

  39. 8.99R: When exporting to TIFF format any file name typed by the user was discarded if the Muli-page TIFFs box was then unchecked.

  40. 8.99T: Possible loop analysing badly-forms composite fields.

  41. 8.99U: Problem with composite fields if cycle length unspecified or not equal to 1.

  42. 8.99U: Special fields beginning with underscore such as _tray could not be used in expressions.

  43. 8.99U: The Action checkbox in the fields dialogue was not always checked when a composite field was active on the page.

  44. 8.99U: There could be problems if a field deleted an element that was being used in another field or elsewhere.

ESCAPEE 8.98
Features:

  1. Improved Configuration dialogue appearance.

  2. Added the option to remove blank pages from Postscript output.

  3. There is now a checkbox to enable or disable the special text log string.

  4. Better error messages for some font problems.

  5. The Booklet wizard has a mechanism to add headings and footers to each page of the extracted music parts.

  6. 8.98C: If the /X option is used then all messages appear in the error log rather than on the screen.

  7. 8.98C: Improved efficiency when running from a CSV control file.

  8. 8.98E: Faster JPEG reading.

Bug Fixes:

  1. Problems with certain rare raster operations.

  2. Speed problem when reading a Postscript file using a CSV control file.

  3. Problem with running an automatic XSL transform on an XML log file.

  4. 8.98A: proliferation of fonts when exporting file which redefined fonts within a macro.

  5. 8.98A: Fixed a bug in clip paths introduced in version 8.94.

  6. 8.98C: Problems in displaying a file in an IDF document if the clip region resulted in no elements being included.

  7. 8.98D: Problem when a Truetype font was substituted and then not included in the exported file.

  8. 8.98D: Bitmapped fonts with resolutions less than 300 dpi did not work.

  9. 8.98D: Mixing CMYK and RGB colour could cause problems.

  10. 8.98E: Could not have 300 dpi in 600 dpi Postscript output.

  11. 8.98E: Could not handle Truetype fonts with cmap format 6.

ESCAPEE 8.97
Features:

  1. Improved handling of font substitution. The dialogues have been made somewhat easier to understand and more detail is shown as to the substitutions in force. If a substitution refers to a Truetype file then it is now sufficient for that file to be installed as a Windows font rather than having to be installed in EscapeE.

  2. Postscript import can handle full-colour TIFFs invoked by Postscript code.

  3. The default border style for IDF groups has been made more helpful. Specifying LINEJOIN="ROUND" gives round-cornered boxes whilst the default is LINEJOIN="SQUARE" which gives square ones.

  4. Better handling of spaces in Postscript font names.

  5. Better handling of Symbol fonts in Truetype format.

Bug Fixes:

  1. IDF groups containing text sometimes treated the borders and padding incorrectly.

  2. Some combinations of logging options were not saved properly by the configuration dialogue.

  3. Exporting a file using high-order codes from a non-downloaded Trutype font.

  4. When installing a Truetype font into EscapeE it could be wrongly recorded as being fixed pitch.

  5. Scaling up an image mask did not work properly on export to PCL.

  6. Bug fix: composite fields did not always honour the "Start a new file" and other actions.

ESCAPEE 8.96
Feature: it is now possible to invoke a new set of field definitions on finding a specific string on a page. The purpose is to allow there to be a separate fields file for each type of document. In the Fields/Advanced options there is a check box "Use another fields file" in the action group. If this is checked then when the field is actioned the value of the field is used as the name of a fields file which is loaded and applied immediately. The extension of '.ee' is assumed if no extension given, and the folder defaults to that of the current fields file. It will normally be necessary to structure the fields so that the field with this property is a sub-field of the tag field that recognises the document type. To avoid loops it is only permitted to change fields file once per page.

Bug fix: The fields mechanism for incrementing a counter did not take note of the initial value.

ESCAPEE 8.95
Feature: Better handling of scaling in IDF files, where fonts need scaling differently in the x and y directions. Bug fixes:

  1. A problem with exporting certain Eastern European accented characters introduced in version 8.94.

  2. When extracting a subset any top or left registration state was incorrectly reproduced.

  3. Using composite fields syntax it was not possible to generate output names containing spaces.

  4. Problems when creating a two-column document using the IDF wizard.

  5. Attempting to use the ADDTEXT plugin to delete text associated with a tag could cause spurious text to be added. N.B. in the case of a tag field there is in fact no text to delete - to delete text there has to be a normal sub-field.

  6. 9.95B: better handling of messages from DLLs via the console.

  7. 9.95C: Poor font substitution for non-matching fonts requested in PCL XL.

  8. 9.95C: The Forward/Back buttons were not correctly enabled when a page was added by a plugin.

  9. 9.95D: When a scaleable font was defined with the same ID a an earlier one there could be problems in returning to an earlier page in the file.

ESCAPEE 8.94
Features:

  1. Added a number of special fields which refer to information about the current input file (PDFs only):

    _DocTitle
    title of the document
    _DocSubject
    subject of the document
    _DocKeywords
    keywords of the document
    _DocAuthor
    author of the document (name of person who created it)
    _DocCreator
    creator of the document (program that created the original document)
    _DocProducer
    producer of the document (program that output the document)
    _DocCreationDate
    creation date of document
    _DocUpdateDate
    last update date of document

  2. Better caching of graphics when an IDF or RS2 file calls pages from another file.

  3. Improved handling of fields which are terminated on finding another tag.

  4. If the mouse is over the currently selected field then it is remains selected if it is clicked on.

  5. 8.94A: When extracting single-byte text strings the ligatures fl and fi are converted as two characters. Accented characters which do not have a single-byte representation in codepage 1252 (symbolset 19U) are converted to their unaccented versions.

  6. 8.94E: Forms overlays re exported as in-line commands if exported to PCL and other formats which do not support them.

Bug fixes:

  1. It was possible to move the cursor to the left of the logical page using HP-GL and the to place a raster graphic there. This is now only allowed if the /DRAW X option is used.

  2. Using the ADDTEXT plugin to delete characters from the original text did not work properly for Unicode text.

  3. It was sometimes necessary to press the Page Down key twice to move on to the next page even when at the bottom of the page.

  4. 8.94E: Adding text to a back page using a plugin did not always work if a new back page was being created.

  5. 8.94E: Adding text using a plugin could affect the horizontal spacing of other text.

ESCAPEE 8.93
Features:

  1. Added the ability to create a clickable index when reading IDF etc. In the IDF language there is an INDEX option for a group to add a tag to the
    index and multiple nesting levels are possible e.g.:



    <GROUP INDEX="RedTitan EscapeE PCL Viewer" PAGE="1">
    <GROUP INDEX="Contents" PAGE="3"/>
    <GROUP INDEX="About RedTitan EscapeE" PAGE="12"/>
    <GROUP INDEX="Registering your software" PAGE="13"/>
    </GROUP>


    If no PAGE parameter is specified the the current input page number is used.

  2. Added a binding margin specification to the Booklet wizard.

  3. Better handling of Postscript tray specifications when the paper size is omitted.

ESCAPEE 8.92
Features:

  1. There is now a /HEADER option which allows the specification of a PCL file which is to be processed before the main file. This may contain printable pages but is more often used for defining some fonts or macros to be used by the main file. It overrides the Header file specification in the ".EE" fields
    file (set up in the 'File' page of the Fields definition dialogue). The syntax is:


    /header <filename> or /header <filename>+


    If the filename is followed by the plus sign then the PCL state is preserved after reading the file. Any fonts defined in a such file are retained when reading subsequent files.

  2. When exporting to PCL there is now an option to use library font always. This allows a file to be split into multiple file, none of which contains any fonts. These can then be combined (perhaps in a different order) with a header file containing the download fonts.

  3. There is now a mechanism for a PCL file to select a font by name. It uses the Alphanumeric ID command which is EscapeE &n#Wstring where # is the byte count of the string that follows. To select the font the string with 'Font' followed by the font name - EscapeE can recognise it but it is ignored by actual printers. The PCL export DLL uses the new feature to help select the font if only library fonts are being used. This works well for files generated by the RedTitan Datastream Converter as the fonts have unique names, so can be matched precisely to the set of library fonts.

  4. Improved font handling for PCL, Postscript and PDF export.

Bug fixes:

  1. Drawing with an image mask using white did not work in version 8.91.

  2. Some characters in the Symbol font did not work properly when importing Postscript.

  3. There could be some spacing problems in PDF import if strings were longer than 127 characters.

  4. Better evaluation of certain special composite fields which use page-specific information.

  5. In the status line some back pages were shown as being front pages, though treated correctly if exported.

  6. If reading from a CSV control file the on change status of a field could be wrong for page 1.

  7. The PDF substitute for Arial Bold gave the normal weight font in Acrobat (though not in EscapeE).

ESCAPEE 8.91
Features:

  1. Stapling and/or offsetting between jobs can now be specified for Postscript by clicking on the Subsets button in the Configuration/Postscript options. To do subset stapling or offsetting, assuming the printer supports it, there is now a 'Start a new set' action in the Fields/Advanced dialogue.

  2. Another new action in the Fields/Advanced dialogue is 'New back page' which create a new back page if the field is found. This page will be blank unless this field or another on the front page adds something with a plugin using the 'On the back' option.

  3. Images rotated through arbitrary angles can be exported to PDF or Postscript without having to image the whole page.

  4. When reading Postscript the current paper colour and type are shown in the status line.

Bug fixes:

  1. Slight memory leak when skipping pages in Postscript.

  2. Postscrip tray characteristics were reset on reading another file segement.

  3. When fields requested action on the next page it was possible for pages to be omitted.

ESCAPEE 8.90
Features:

  1. EscapeE can read images from PDFs that have been rotated through arbitrary angles. Currently these must be exported as whole-page images but this is a temporary situation.

  2. EscapeE can now handle coloured image masks from Postscript and PDFs.

  3. When reading Postscript files which start with %XRX commands thse are stored in a field called RT_XRX. These commands are used to define job characteristics such as accounting, stapling, trays, duplexing etc.

  4. In the PCL and Postscript advanced options there is a PREAMBLE button which allows the setting up of a few lines of preamble that will be sent to the output at the start of the file. The total number of characters in these lines must not exceed 255 but the composite field syntax can be used to build up longer strings or to copy information from the input. In the case of PCL if the preamble string does not begin with an escape character it is assumed to be PJL, so an enter PJL sequence is output and each line is preceded by @PJL, ending the preamble with @PJL ENTER LANGUAGE=PCL. The two corresponding command-line options are /PSPREAMBLE and /PCLPREAMBLE so that for example if re-exporting a postscript file the original XRX
    commands can be propagated to the output using


    ESCAPEE filename /PS /PSPREMBLE {RT_XRX}


  5. When reading Postscript files any paper tray definitions that are encountered are read and added to EscapeE's tray list in the format: name,paper width,paper height,paper weight,paper colour,paper type where width and height are in inches and weight is in grams. This tray information can be used when exporting to Postscript and will be retained until another file is read. Saving the configuration will preserve it for use by subsequent jobs.

  6. The /NQ option now works with export formats such as text, CSV and XML.

  7. The /USING option allows the name of a script file to be given
    separately fromthe data file e.g.


    ESCAPEE DFA0001 /USING MAILSHOT.RS2 /NQ /X


Bug fixes:

  1. The special composite field {{} (a literal opening curly bracket) did not work under version 8.89. For completeness there is also now {}} for a closing curly bracket.

ESCAPEE 8.89
Features:

  1. PJL comments and JOB commands can be be passed through into an exported PDF. They appear as pseudo XML and are assigned letter a..Z so there can be
    up to 26 per page. A typical line in the PDF might be:


    % <RT A='JOB NAME=&34;Magic&34;' B='COMMENT &34;This is a comment&34;'/>


    Because it is XML the double quote symbol has been output as its UNICODE hex code (34). In order for comments to be output they must be enabled. This can be done wither by specifying /COMMENTS P on the command line or by checking "Keep PJL comments" in the PCL options.

  2. A plugin is now available to read Datamatrix barcodes.

  3. Composite field parsing now copes with field names containing minus.

  4. The /RUN command can be invoked even in timed mode

Bug fixes:

  1. When exporting to PCL fixed pich fonts did not support HMI changes.

  2. CSV export did not support repeated fields on a single page.

  3. Problems when exporting to PDF certain bitmapped fonts created from embedded TrueType fonts using low character codes less than hex 20.

  4. 8.89B: XPS output did not work properly if the "Combine text strings together" option was used.

  5. 8.89B: CSV output of certain composite fields did not work properly in version 8.89.

  6. 8.89B: Counter incrementing in composite fields did not work properly in version 8.89.

ESCAPEE 8.88
Features:

  1. Improvements to Rich Text formatting.

  2. The red triangle warning is shown only for serious errors

  3. Macros use a zero margin if "edge to edge" is specified.

  4. Improvements to Rich Text formatting.

  5. The field tree view scrolls when dragging a field and is dockable below the field information window.

  6. Accepts underlining values either than 0 and 3 (treated as 0 i.e. fixed). Ignores underline commands if already underlining.

  7. Does not require PJL commands to start with @PJL.

Bug fixes:

  1. repeating fields did not always work when exporting to CSV.

  2. A5 paper size code was 13 is now 25.

  3. Problem if reload IDF file after a change.

  4. Spurious error: too many concurrent users.

  5. Embedded Truetype fonts in PDFs sometimes had the wrong coding.

  6. Two of the text options were not displayed in the Configuration dialogue.

ESCAPEE 8.87
Features:

  1. Added the {_filepages} special field to give the number of pages in the current input file. This works only for formats such as PDF where determining the number of pages is low cost, but not for PCL or Postscript.

  2. Recognise RS2 files with non-standard extensions e.g. .PRN

  3. Improved field markup for IDF export.

  4. The Printer/Plotter configuration has a Monochrome option.

  5. Images can be rotated through any angle.

Bug fixes:

  1. better handling of the situation where the log file is being appended to.

  2. When doing text character recognition there were poor results if only some characters were recognised.

  3. Problems with lists of files e.g. exporting a list of files with no /JOIN only exported one file.

  4. Minor problems with composite field syntax.

  5. Minor problems with Log file conditional entries.

  6. Coloured graphics using raster OP 240.

  7. Pen widths and colours were saved in the [RedTitan] section of RT.INi not [PCLVIEW].

  8. Tiff compressions shown wrongly in the Configuration/Images dialogue.

  9. When creating PCL overlays if graphic format there was no allowance for the left margin.

  10. LIDIL graphics only worked at 300 dpi resolution.

  11. Spurious error messages from the ADDTEXT plugin if certain fonts were selected.

  12. Problem with updating colour palettes.

ESCAPEE 8.86
Features:

  1. More generalised text log file features - for example page numbers can be included in a CSV or plain text log file. There is a new V flag for /LOG and /SAVE to make an entry in the log file every page. This applies to plain text log files, since the default for CSV and XML log file is to make an entry every page anyway.

    The configuration dialogue for plain text log files has a "Text log file message" (which can also be set by the /LOGTEXT command-line option). This can contain fields using the usual {field} syntax. For example:
    escapee demo.pcl /pdf /log 1T /logtext '{_Day}/{_Month}/{_Year} {_Hour}:{_Minute} input file {_ifilename}{_crlf}Exported as: {_ofilename}: {_sheets} pages'
    The resulting log file demo.log contains:
    24/09/2009 15:15 input file C:\temp\demo.pcl
    Exported as: C:\temp\demo.PDF: 5 pages
    24/09/2009 15:15 input file C:\temp\demo.txt
    Exported as: C:\temp\demo1.PDF: 2 pages

  2. In the Configuration/Text options dialogue there is a box to allow specification of the inter-line spacing for text extraction. If left blank then (as previously) the vertical spacing of the font on the line is used to determine the line spacing. The equivalent command-line option is /TEXTHEIGHT v where v is the line spacing in the currently configured units.

Bug fixes:

  1. The plotter option "Merge colours when drawing" had effects on non-plotter output.

  2. Unicode characters were not supported when exporting to Postscript.

  3. Including TrueType fonts in Postscript output files did not work well.

  4. FDL outout failed to recognise duplicate RFF fonts.

  5. LOF controls files specifying a page range did not work properly.

  6. The download font ID was not preserved when a downloaded font was saved in the library.

  7. It was not possible to have spaces in output names generated by fields.

  8. The parsing of conditional fields was not correct.

  9. Nested clip regions did not always work properly.

  10. 8.86H: The plugin folder was not initialised unless the pluging dialog was invoked.

  11. 8.86H: Text logging of fields did not work as it used to prior to 8.86.

  12. 8.86H: Problem with syntax of composed fields containing multiple fields with substrings.

ESCAPEE 8.85
Features:

  1. There are some new sub-options on the /SAVE and /LOG options and the way they are documented needs to change. Changes are marked with * Options for /LOG:

    A
    all defined fields
    B
    the log file is to contain Bates page numbers
    C
    the log file is to be in comma-separated format
    E
    write a log record at end of file*
    F
    the log file is to contain the filenames
    H
    header-line containing field-names to be omitted from CSV log files
    L
    a new log file is to be generated for each output file
    N
    no log file to be generated
    P
    suppress page numbers in log file (the default if not XML format)*
    #
    include page numbers in log file (the default if XML format)*
    R
    the log file is renamed on completion
    S
    the selected fields
    T
    all text (only applies to log files in text format)
    X
    the log file is to be in XML format
    1
    makes one log file entry for each output file (not each page)

    Options for /SAVE:

    I
    for TIFF output: an individual file is created for each page.
    D
    discard list of files previously created. A new output file will overwrite one of the same name creaed in this run.*
    O
    a suffix of #1, #2 etc. is added to the filename to make it unique if it would overwrite an existing file.*

    If the output format is CSV, XML or TEXT then this file is effectively a log file, so any of the /LOG options can be used as well as the above ones.

  2. The /PCL option the now equivalent to /HP and produces PCL output. Previously it was equivalent to /SUBSET

  3. If reading a CSV control file using the /FROM option the number of pages in the current file segment can be obtained in a composite field by using the pseudo field {_numpages}.

  4. CSV log files now include page numbers if the appropriate option is checked.

  5. If filenames are requested when exporting in CSV format (as opposed to just creating a CSV log file when exporting in another format) then the input file name is stored, rather than the output name (which would just be the name of the CSV file).

  6. When using the /FROM CSV file feature if a starting page field is given but no ending field then if the file name is the same as the previous one the end page of the previous file is set to one less than the start of the
    next. For example if the control file contains



    "FILENAME","PAGE"
    "REPORT.PRN","2"
    "REPORT.PRN","5" "REPORT.PRN","6"


    then the first segment consistes of page 2,3 and 4, the second segment of just page 5 etc.

    In conjunction with the previous features this means that by using a command
    such as


    escapee REPORT.PRN /csv /save fecr#? /fields COUNT.EE


    a log file is created containing the file name and page number. A log record is written every time a field is encountered that has the "Write log record" option selected in the Fields/Advanced dialogue, and also at the end of file. his file can then be read back and have the number of pages added using the
    {_numpages} special field. For example


    escapee /from REPORT.CSV /pcl /fields MARKUP.EE


  7. The parsing of composite field strings has been generalised.

  8. When reading Postscript certain faulty Truetype fonts can now be handled better.

Bug fixes:

  1. user-defined symbol sets were not always honoured.

  2. Drawing using a white image mask over a black background did not work properly.

ESCAPEE 8.84
Features:

  1. There are now some advanced options for DICOM export:

    1. 'Build a DICOM directory' requests that a directory file is built containing details of each of the pages of the original file. The output name becomes the name of a folder in which the DICOMDIR directory file will be built and in the RTIMAGES folder in which will be placed the images of the individual pages.

    2. 'Compressed' requests run-length data compression of images. Not all viewing software supports this, and it is deprecated if a directory is being created.

    3. 'Convert 1-bit images to 8-bit' not all viewing software supports 1-bit monochrome images so this option requests that they be converted to 8-bit.

  2. EscapeE can now read DICOM directory files as well as DICOM images.

  3. When defining fields for DICOM export a list is shown of any required tags that have not yet been defined.

  4. When exporting multi-page documents to DICOM format certain items are propagated to successive pages.

  5. In the Fields dialogue when defining composite fields there is a 'More' button that brings up a dialogue to simplify the use of some of the more complex features such as sub-strings, counters and conditionals.

  6. A composite field can be defined as a sub-field of another field delimited by one of a set of terminating characters. These are specified as a quoted string of separators where the finishing column would be: {Name:1:',.'} extracts from column 1 up to the first comma or full stop. If the starting column is omitted then the field is split by the insertion of a carriage retur, line feed wherever a separator is encountered. These can be indexed uding the {field[#n]} syntax. For example if field1 contains 'cat,dog,rabbit' then {field1[,]} results in a value of
    cat
    dog
    rabbit
    And if this value is assigned to field2 we can extract the second line using {field2[#2]} which in this case is 'dog'. A little-known feature of composite fields that {fieldx.length} gives the length in bytes of the value of fieldx. You can also use expressions in many places in composite field definitions e.g. {_year+1} {fieldx*(fieldy-fieldz)} {fieldx:fieldy.length+2:3} The last of these extracts 3 characters from fieldx starting at the column position given by the length of fieldy + 2. This is a way of splitting a field e.g. if Name is Fletcher, David then Surname (Fletcher) is {Name:1:','} and Firstname (David) is {Name:{Surname.length+2}}

  7. Improvement to the composite fields counter mechanism: omitting a value leaves the value unchanged. For example
    {?=AccountNumber=,#}
    if the AccountNumber field does not change then the counter is incremented otherwise it is unchanged. If the value were
    {?=AccountNumber='1',#}
    then the number would be reset to 1 when the AccountNumber field changed.

  8. There are two more two right-click options to the tree view: "Move up" and "Move down" which move the field up or down in the l;ist of fields at that level,

  9. Improved calculation of font characteristics in respect of whether or not the font is bold or italic.

  10. Better calculation of the extent of clipped objects on display.

  11. Page numbers are now displayed after recalculating the values of any fields used in them.

  12. There is now a "Log file" button in the export dialogue to allow setting of such options as conditional output of log records.

  13. If the target of a hyperlink defined by a field starts with 'EscapeE://' the clicking on it will call EscapeE regardless of the file extension.

  14. Improved help for composite fields, DICOM and other topics.

Bug fixes:

  1. EscapeE has an optimisation to combine text strings into a single string if they are contiguous but did not allow for the possibility that the left offfset registration command had been used between the two strings.

  2. When reading images scaled to the logical page size any white border was removed before scaling, thus changing the size.

  3. Creating macros from non-PCL files did not work properly. The File menu option 'Save page as macro' is now disabled for all but PCL files since it simply encapsulates the original PCL commands with start and end macro commands.

  4. The number of pens for HPGL was not updated when a PCL palette was defined.

  5. Under Vista pressing the Alt key could cause some buttons to vanish from certain dialogues.

  6. Problems if multiple PDFs were added as overlays by the ADDFILE plugin.

  7. The PDF import now calculates the actual bounding box of CFF fonts rather than relying on the values in the PDF which are sometimes wrong.

  8. In the Configuration/Printer dialogue it was not possible to change the units used to specify custom paper sizes.

  9. Problem with nested clip regions in PDF overlays.

To create a macro for non-PCL files or for PCL files which use macros or other complexity just choose export to PCL document (not 'as a macro' which is equivalent to 'Save page as a macro'). In the PCL options dialogue there is a group headed 'Save as a macro' which contains the macro number and and two check boxes. Set up the macro number an choose 'Permanent' or 'Temporary' as required. Setting one of these options causes the LIDIL (graphic-only printer) box to be checked, thus ensuring that the macro is exported as a graphic.

ESCAPEE 8.83
Features:

  1. When exporting to a monochrome image format there is the option to use either halftoning or a simple threshold for converting multi-level images.

  2. Optimisation of n-bit graphics in monochrome if they are actually just black and white.

Postscript import enhancements:

  1. Added support for DOS EPS headers.

  2. Added support for CMYK ink colours.

  3. Better resource support.

  4. RESOURCEFORALL now working.

  5. undefinefont implemented.

  6. Fix to clip logic to avoid loosing the path.

Bug fix: PCLXL problems with multiple use of non-downloaded fonts.

ESCAPEE 8.82
Features:

  1. There is a configuration option in the logging section to omit the field names that are output by default as the first line of a CSV log file. The corresponding letter in the /LOG option is 'H' (for Header).

  2. If PJL COMMENTS are being preserved then so are any SET JOBATTR commands.

  3. 8.82C: Better appearance on screens set to 120 dpi resolution.

Bug fixes:

  1. If a field specified the "trim" option then leading spaces were removed but for CSV output trailing spaces were only removed from composite fields.

  2. Problems could occur when attempting to load a nonexistent field file whilst processing a Postscript file.

  3. If a file had a non-standard file extension then, after recognising the type of a file from its content, if it was Postscript or PDF format the file was left open.

  4. If a field had action on the following page then reading that page caused the field "found" status to be evaluated for that page. This could cause fields to be omited from CSV export if the field was not present on the second page.

  5. There were problems if a field was exported to CSV format if it was a composite field whose value changed in length when exported e.g. it contained the output file name.

  6. Barcodes at an angle of 90 degrees came out with too small a height.

  7. When moving images, text or barcodes added by a plugin there could be problems if a different field was selected at the time.

  8. For backwards compatibility, the default position in the display list for opaque elements added by plugins has been changed to be the end of the list.

  9. Changing the parent of a field could cause any associated added text or graphic to move.

  10. 8.82B: Asking for a sample of a font not present in the resident font list caused problems.

  11. 8.82C: In the ADDIMAGE and ADDTEXT plugins the option to delete the original field did not work for graphic tags.

8.82B: Fixes to Postscript import

  1. Corrects the standard level-2 default dictionary environment so that "globaldict" is in its proper place.

  2. Correction to encrypted execution to have dictionary environment exactly right.

  3. Further corrections to encrypted execution for undocumented behaviours after environment has been messed up.

  4. Adjustment to obtain the exact semantic in all situations for immediate execution symbols.

ESCAPEE 8.81
Features:

  1. Preliminary IDF export capability for any defined fields. Areas of the page are exported as PNG graphics if the field type is "graphic", otherwise any text is exported as Rich Text elements.

  2. The IDF pseudo fields 'PAGE' and 'PRINTABLE' can now be expressed as '_PAGE' and '_PRINTABLE' to avoid conflict with actual fields.

  3. If a password is specified for PDF export it is also used when attempting to open PDFs on input. If this fails then an attempt is made with a null password.

  4. There is an option to specify the password for PDF input independent of the one for output: /PDFREADPASS xxxx

  5. PDF import improvements:

    1. clipping where the clip region rounded to having zero width.

    2. Warning for use of unimplemented transparency groups.

    3. No longer treats default alternate colour spaces for ICC profiles as an error.

Bug fixes:

  1. Opaque text added by plugins did not view properly if there was no text in the field.

  2. Invalid values for the /LINEHEIGHT option could spurious line breaks in extracted text.

  3. TCP/IP input did not work properly for large files.

  4. Fields with multiple occurences did not always work correctly

  5. 8.81Y: problem in version 8.80 causing invalid pointer when exporting certain type of scaled graphics.

  6. Exporting TCP/IP input to PDF in the same folder caused file naming conflicts.

  7. The /LOGFILE option. did not work properly in conjunction with TCP/IP input.

  8. Reading a PDF with a non-standard file extension left the input file open until EscapeE exited.

ESCAPEE 8.80
Features:

  1. Updates to the Portuguese translations.

  2. There is now the possibility of a series of greeting files which are shown in turn to a new user whilst he is in demonstration mode. These have names such as EscapeE.prn EscapeEA.prn EscapeEB.prn etc. or there can be files with names such as EscapeEnn.prn EscapeEnnA.prn etc. where nn is the language code: 33 for France, 34 for Spain, 49 for Germany and 55 for Portuguese. A different file is shown each time that EscapeE is called with no file name on the command line.

  3. When the mouse is over a hyperlink the URL is shown in a hint just above the mouse pointer. If text has been added by a plugin then the "hand" pointer is shown to allow the hyperlink to be activated, unless it is the current field in which case the double-arrow pointer is shown and the text can be moved.

  4. 8.80B: EscapeE can now read raster images of size limited only by the available memory.

  5. 8.80F: The ADDFILE plugin is now available for overlaying pages from other print files when invoked from a field. These can be in any of the formats supported by EscapeE such as PCL, PDF, Postscript or multi-page TIFFs.

  6. 8.80F: Better error messages for errors such as "Invalid page range".

  7. 8.80G: Improved gray-scale shading patterns.

Bug fixes:

  1. The "Convert to monochrome" only worked fully for image export.

  2. When loading a new INI file from the Configuration dialogue certain parameters such as DRAW were not read.

  3. 8.80A: Downloaded Truetype fixed pitch fonts were not always scaled to the correct height.

  4. 8.80A: When selecting an HP-GL pen greater than the defined number of pens an incorrect substitute pen was sometimes chosen.

  5. 8.80A: An IDF group inherited the width and height of its parent group regardless of any left or top offset it had. Thus right-justified items could exceed the bounds of the enclosing group.

  6. When including text files in an IDF text group the last character of the file could be ignored.

  7. 8.80C: Problems could occur if a list of files included the same PDF file in succession.

  8. 8.80C: White image borders still counted as "printed" when exporting to image format, so the option to export only the printed region did not remove such borders.

  9. 8.80C: There was a limit of 64 characters on the font path in the RESIDENT.FIF file.

  10. 8.80C: Errors which occurred when installing fonts did not produce a very obvious error message.

  11. 8.80C: Missing fixed pitch library fonts were sometimes subsituted by proportional fonts.

ESCAPEE 8.79
Features:

  1. A new Plotter options dialogue reached via Options/Configuration/Printer provides support for predefined pen colours and other plotter-specific items.

  2. Images are trimmed of surrounding white space before being exported.

  3. If EscapeE is called with a command line that specified an INI file that does not exist then EscapeE gives return code 110.

  4. There is an ADDFILE plugin, similar to the ADDIMAGE plugin, which can add PDFs, PCL or Postscript files rather than images.

  5. The ADDIMAGE and ADDTEXT plugins have been enhanced to be able to add the new element at the beginning or end of the list of other elements on the page. The added item can be opaque or transparent and cn be rotated.

  6. The IDF language has been enhanced to allow text files to be read into areas of a page. By default the FILE group processes the specified file using EscapeE, so that a text file would be shown in EscapeE's default font and paginated accordingly. If however the file extension is .TXT or the attribute FILETYPE="TEXT" is specified then the file is treated as if it were in the body of the IDF file i.e. it is in the font and colour of the group (possibly inherited from a higher level) and of width, height and alignment given given by the group. If a file has the extension .TXT and it is required to process it using EscapeE then FILETYPE="PCL" must be specified. A TEXT group can have a filename in which case it is treated as a FILE group with FILETYPE="TEXT".

Bug fixes:

  1. Badly encoded Truetype fonts in imported PDFs could result in missing space characters.

  2. Further improvements to fix obscure memory leaks relating to modifying fonts in Postscript import.

ESCAPEE 8.78
Features:

  1. In order to be able to emulate real plotters with a particular set of pen colours the default HP-GL pen colours and thicknesses can now be defined on the command line or in an INI file. The command line syntax is:

    /NP
    number_of_pens
    /CR
    red_low,red_high,green_low,green_high,blue_low,blue_high
    Colour range for each of red, green and blue (used in the PC options below). The default range is 0 to 255.
    /PC1
    red_value,green_value,blue_value for pen 1
    /PC2
    red_value,green_value,blue_value for pen 2
    etc.
    /PW
    pen_width sets the the width of all pens to the specified value in standard HP-GL units of 1/40 mm.
    /PW1
    pen_width for pen 1
    /PW2
    pen_width for pen 2
    etc.

    N.B. the /CR, /PCn and PW commands will only be honoured if /NP is specified. The values are real numbers as in the corresponding HP GL commands.
    The corresponding ini file entries are, as usual, of the form



    NP=8
    PC1=255,0,255
    PC2=0,128,255
    PW1=40.0


  2. Overriding the paper size will apply to images so that, for example, a series of TIFFs read via a control file can be forced to fit a particular paper size.

  3. The effect of the HP-GL SV command is improved slightly in cases where EscapeE does not implement it fully.

  4. It is possible to redefine the standard paper size using the /CUSTOM
    command-line option e.g.


    /CUSTOM DL,8.4,3.5


    defines the DL paper size to be 8.4 inches by 3.5 inches.

Bug fixes:

  1. The Postscript import DLL could consume memory for certain obscure operations.

  2. Continuing an underline from one page to the next could cause a crash.

  3. Zero length lines stil showed on the screen as the length was rounded up to 1 pixel.

  4. The Fields and Configuration dialogues were not very readable when big screen fonts were in use.

ESCAPEE 8.77
Features:

  1. In the Fields/Advanced dialogue in the Action group there is now a check box "Write log record" which can (if the Log file options request it) cause a log record to be written for any page on which the field is found. In the Options/Configuration/Log file dialogue there is group headed "When to output". The options are "Every page" (the default),"When a field specifies it" and "At end of file". The first two are mutually exclusive but combining the last two allows EscapeE to make a pass through a file to count the pages in each of a number of sets such as invoices or statements. A log record can be output at the start of each set other than the first, and at the end of the file. The log file can then be used in conjunction with the /FROM option to add page counts of the form "Page 1 of 6" to each page. See www.pclviewer.com/escapee/pagecount.zip for an example.

  2. The /FROM csvfile feature has been enhanced to allow a start and end page to be specified as well as a file name. This allows a CSV file created in a preliminary pass to be used to re-read the file to process each logical set of pages.The field names which contain
    start and end page numbers can be specified in the /PAGES parameter: e.g.


    ESCAPEE /FROM CONTROL.CSV /PAGES FIRSTPAGE,LASTPAGE /PDF /X


    or they and the name of the field containing the file name can be appended
    to the file name so the /FROM syntax is:


    /FROM filename,filenamefield,startpagefield,endpagefield


    where the last two parameters are optional. In the absence of a filenamefield specification the FILENAME field is used if it exists, otherwise the first field in the CSV file is assumed to contain the filename.

  3. If the /INI option is specified and the REDTITAN symbol is not found, EscapeE sets up the REDTITAN symbol in WIN.INI if it can write to it, otherwise in the Registry HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\REDTITAN\REDTITAN

  4. When reading Postscripts and other non-PCL streams EscapeE now tracks whether a page is a front or a back page.

ESCAPEE 8.76
Features:

  1. There is a composite field syntax to allow a counter to be initialised and incremented. If the composite value includes a field name followed by an equals sign then what come next is the number of digits, optionally followed by an initial numeric value and a limit. The full syntax is:
    {fieldname=digits[,initial_value[,limit]]}
    where items in square brackets are optional. The digits parameter determines the field width of the counter and if the parameter starts with a zero then leading zeros are inserted to make up the width, otherwise spaces are used. If the counter exceeds the specified width then it is not truncated and all digits are shown. To truncate the counter another composite field may be used e.g. {countfield:-4} to take the last 4 digits of countfield. When the specified field is encountered for the first time the counter is set to initial_value, or 0 if that is not specified. Subsequently if the field exists the counter is incremented until it reaches the limit (if any) when it is reset to the initial value. For example the specification
    Invoice {page1=1,1}
    would have the value "Invoice 1" the first time field page1 was found and the number would increment each time field page1 was found. The specification
    Set{page1=02,0,99}
    would start at "Set00" and go up to "Set99" before resetting to "Set00".

  2. When reading PDFs the style (normal, bold and/or italic)is still honoured even if the font requested is unknown.

  3. If there is no program registered to handle the .PS file type then EscapeE will call itself when asked to run the associated program after Postscript export.

  4. If an unknown underlining style is requested then fixed underlining is assumed.

  5. 8.76A: Right-clicking on a download font in the fonts list allows it to be added to the character recognition database.

  6. 8.76A: After adding fonts to the character recognition database the character recognition feature is enabled automatically, and an explanatory message is given.

  7. 8.76A: Postscript duplex/simplex settings are now honoured.

Bug fixes:

  1. The (obsolescent) set page length command (Escape &l#P) did not always work correctly in landscape orientation.

  2. Default image resolution now 75 dpi not 300.

  3. Problems with clipping of images in IDF.

  4. Duplicate output could occur when having to represent text as a graphic in PCL,PDF or Postscript export.

  5. After printing pages using the windows driver a final EndPage is given to cope with drivers that do no flush the last page.

  6. 8.76A: Simplex/duplex settings are honoured when reading Postscript files

ESCAPEE 8.75
The /MONO option, for defaulting HP/GL to monochrome, now only sets up a two-pen monochrome palette. This allows it to be used to replicate the action of certain colour printers that default to this type of palette rather than the 8-pen palette as specified in the HP manual.

8.75B: After printing to a file the message says "x pages to file y" rather than just specifying the number of pages printed.

Bug fixes:

  1. Quoted file names following a /FIELDS parameter did not work properly.

  2. Items added using a plugin were clipped if there was an active clip region at the end of the page.

  3. When computing the page dimensions the End Global Clipping item, used in IDF, was not honoured properly.

  4. When combining two pcl files using IDF there was the possibility of font conflicts.

  5. 8.75B: Choosing duplex in the printer properties when printing caused the document to be output in duplex if subsequently exported.

  6. 8.75B: PCL commands with numbers beginning with a decimal point rather than a digit were not allowed.

ESCAPEE 8.74
Features:

  1. When importing Postscript files type 1 fonts can now be read, by conversion to Opentype format.

  2. The Postscript ReusableStream feature is now implemented

  3. It is possible to turn on and off any font substitution by clicking on a check box in the Optioons/Configuration or Fonts/Font Substitutes dialogues.

  4. More IPCL features supported: orientation and paper type added.

  5. The EEFONTS programs allows merging of downloaded bitmap fonts. When rearranging code the character in the destination is exchanged with the one being dropped on it, rather than being overwritten.

  6. When uninstalling EscapeE the uninstall program is automatically elevated to allow deletion from the Program files folder.

Bug fixes:

  1. After changing a plugin configuration the old settings were still shown if an immediate reconfiguration was done without closing the fields dialogue.

  2. Changing the type of plugin associated with a field could cause an inappropriate default configuration of the new plugin to be used.

  3. In the case of a composite field referring to a field which occured more than once on the page the same value was always used, rather than the current one.

  4. Problems with speeded-up JPEG handling.

  5. The error window is not shown unless more errors have occurred.

  6. In some case when exporting coloured PCL images a 24-bit image was created when 8 or 4 bits would have been sufficient.

ESCAPEE 8.73
Features:

  1. When displaying fonts in use, the right-click menu now has an option to show a sample of the selected font. Any bitmap samples are shown by EscapeE but scaleable fonts are sampled by the RedTitan Fontedit program if found in the EscapeE software folder, or by the Windows Fontview program.

  2. When a field has been selected its position can be altered a pixel at a time from the main window by using Control plus an arrow key.

  3. Certain minor problems with the PCL or HPGL source are now shown using the yellow triangle rather than the red one.

  4. When an error is reported using a message box there is now a Cancel button as well an an OK button.

  5. When listing fonts in use, the Name field will be set to the Truetype font file name for downloaded Truetype font.

  6. Inlined JPEG-encoded TIFFs can be read.

  7. Copes with embedded TIFFs in Motorola byte order and non-standard end-of-line/end-of-file conditions.

Bug fixes:

  1. When showing a scaled page in IDF the font spacing could be wrong in cases where fonts had been redefined in the PCL file being scaled.

  2. The "Copy as IDF" option resulted in a slightly faulty format.

  3. Start/end byte addresses had no space between them in the fonts display.

ESCAPEE 8.72
Features:

  1. When exporting a monochrome image any coloured images are dithered first.

  2. Improved booklet handling in the IDF Wizard.

  3. 8.72A: Better page caching for IDF booklets.

Bug fixes:

  1. Spurious error message saying "Unable to find starting page" when /PAGE *n subsets are used.

  2. Problems in the case when a tag is terminated by finding another tag

  3. Non-standard page sizes did not work properly in IDF scripts

  4. The ENCODING attribute was not fully supported and had the wrong default value

  5. The shading options could not be set from the export dialogue

  6. 8.72A: If there was a PJL DUPLEX command the the duplex setting could not be overridden.

  7. 8.72A: Character recognition failed for bitmap fonts at resolutions other than 300 or 600dpi.

  8. 8.72A: After downloading a trial version the user was immediately told of updates.

  9. 8.72A: Spurious "No fields defined" message when attempting to configure with no file loaded and default export format was XML or CSV.

ESCAPEE 8.71
Features

  1. Embedded TIFFs as used in HP's Imaging Printer Control Language (IPCL) are now supported. TIFFs can also simply be embedded in the print stream and are recognised by their first four bytes.

  2. Esc *#X and *#Y commands to do positioning in 1/1200" are now supported.

  3. In the Fields/XML dialogue there is a Browse button for XSL stylesheets and there is an option to include the width and height. The dimension are normally those of the field but in the case of images it is the actual image width and height in pixels, and a SCALE attribute specifies any scale factor that EscapeE has applied to the image.

  4. In the case of images with no intrinsic resolution the default resolution is now stored in the image if it is exported to XML.

  5. If the printer is set to duplex just before printing a document then that form of duplex overrides the setting in the file.

  6. The IDF wizard has been enhance so as to recognise UberEd IDF files and call UberEd to edit them.

Bug fixes:

  1. When exporting to FDL forms the Y coordinates for text were slightly wrong.

  2. Multiple entries could be made in the fonts list in cases of selecting a scaleable font by ID.

ESCAPEE 8.70
Features:

  1. The IDF wizard can read back the generated IDF file and allow changes.

  2. There are some Advanced options for the IDF Mailmerge which allow multiple copies, tray selection etc.

  3. The RTPCLDL symbol can now be specified in the [PCLVIEW] section of an INI file and will override the setting in the [RedTitan] section of the RT.INI file.

Bug fixes:

  1. Problems with multi-page macros.

  2. The boolean composite field feature {?fieldname} yielded T (true) if field contents were not null, without checking that the field was found on the current page.

  3. Having printed to a file the Print dialogue could subsequently sometimes have a spurious checkbox on it.

  4. Not all relevant tags were considered when processing a field which is to be terminated on encountering another tag.

  5. The HP GL command IR (relative scaling) worked wrongly if the coordinates had been rotated.

  6. The substitute fonts display had incorrect captions.

ESCAPEE 8.69
Features:

    The /RUN option has been enhanced to allow the name of a program to be specified. This program will be called on completion of the output file and passed the output file name as a parameter.
    The full syntax is:



    ESCAPEE /RUN
    or ESCAPEE /RUN Y


    runs the default program associated with the output file type.


    ESCAPEE /RUN N


    does not run any program (this the default action).


    ESCAPEE /RUN myprog


    runs program myprog, looking in the EscapeE software folder if no path specified.

  1. A composite field (one defined in terms of other fields) retains its value even if it is a sub-field of a tag with does not occur on the current page. If an equals sign is placed before the name when referring to a composite field then a null value is used if that field is not found on the current page. For example if only one of FIELD1 or FIELD2 occurs on the current page then {=FIELD1}{=FIELD2} will contain the value of whichever occurs. Without the equals signs the previous value of the non-occurring field would be used.

  2. 8.69C: modifications to permit Windows fonts to be used by the Addtext plugin. The ADDTEXT plugin now allows Windows fonts to be used by selecting them from the list of installed fonts. There is a Browse button for the File case to allow a specific RFF font to be selected. The names of the libraries have been changed to be more self-explanatory:

    EscapeE library
    (formerly WIN) - EscapeE's resident fonts
    Downloaded
    (formerly PCL) - fonts currently in use by the document.
    File
    (formerly FILE:) - an explicit RFF font read from a file
    Windows
    (new) - any of the installed windows fonts
    PDF
    (unchanged) - a PDF substitute font

    These names get translated if a non-English language is in force.

  3. 8.69C: more generous allowance for errors in the PDF's paper size specification when matching against standard sizes.

Bug fixes:

  1. A null PDF could cause an exception to occur.

  2. It could be very slow to find a specified page within a file which used a large number of graphics.

  3. When reading PDFs the font substitution did not apply to externally referenced fonts.

  4. RasterOps did not always work correctly in conjunction with PCL XL images.

  5. When scaling to a resolution other than 600 dpi the clip region was sometimes incorrectly rounded down by a pixel.

  6. 8.69C: Bitmap fonts using Unicode encoding did not scale properly when used in IDF documents.

  7. 8.69C: Fields could not continue to a subsequent page.

ESCAPEE 8.68
Features:

  1. The are arrows to scroll the page on view from within the Fields dialogue.

  2. The boundary of the current field is shown when the Fields dialogue is called.

  3. The Cancel button (a red cross) is active when seaching for end of file.

  4. Better help for interpreting error messages regarding such things as missing fonts. The Errors panel of the Document Properties windows will give extra information when a font has not been matched exactly e.g.


    Unknown font {esc}(9E{esc}(s0p18.91h10vs2b3T used weight 3 not 2 at byte 313


    The first part of the message gives the complete PCL selection sequence that was used to select the font and there may follow an explanation of the most important reason why no exactly matching font was found. In the example above a weight of 2 (semi-bold) was requested but a bold font was the nearest that could be found.

  5. When adding fonts to the TTLIB character recognition database there is now the option to view the characters of the font before assigning a font name. If the characters are being merged with an existing library font then any duplicates can optionally be removed.

  6. There is a button in the Font Properties dialogue to add the font to the character recognition database.

  7. The /TTLIB option allows a specific database to be used e.g.


    ESCAPEE /TTLIB TEMP.TTK


  8. There is now specific help for each pane of the Document Properties window.

  9. Support for downloaded Truetype fonts where a nonexistent character is used a a space.

  10. PCL XL Yspacing now supported.

  11. 8.68C: Improved page caching strategy.

  12. 8.68C: The font selection sequence is shown in the font list with any mismatched characteristics shown in red.

Bug fixes:

  1. Specifying PRINT as the default format did not work if a macro number was also specified.

  2. In PCLXL the rectangular clipping was not always correct.

ESCAPEE 8.67
Features:

  1. Can handle graphic compression mode 1030 and character scaling as used by some Brother printers.

  2. IDF overlays are supported. When an INCLUDE tag is used to refer to a group or another IDF file the new attribute CACHE="YES" on the INCLUDE tag or the included group requests that the included object be treated as an overlay. An included object does not inherit any properties from the group that includes it, though that groups X and Y position and rotation are applied to the object. For certain export formats, such as PDF and Postscript, an overlay may be stored just once and invoked repeatedly for efficiency.

  3. IDF data files can now have field separators other than comma. Adding the attribute SEPARATOR=";" to a FILE tag for example allows a data file with fields separated by semicolons. Note that the default is to allow fields separated by commas and which may or may not be enclosed in double or single quotes. Setting SEPARATOR="," would force any quotes to be treated as part of the field data.

  4. Better diagnostics for IDF errors such as missing include files.

  5. JPEG files with non-standard extensions are recognised by their contents.

  6. 8.67A: When searching for a page the progress bar and page number are updated at intervals.

  7. 8.67B: On the Fields dialogue there is now a set of four arrows near the page forward/back arrows which scroll the main form.

  8. 8.67B: Shows the current field outline when the Fields dialogue is called.

  9. 8.67B: The Cancel button is now enabled when going to end of file.

Bug fixes:

  1. Images drawn with RasterOp 240 no longer cause the whole page to be rendered as an image in PDF output.

  2. 8.67A: When searching for a page in a large file and excessive amount of memory could be used by cached graphics.

  3. 8.67A: Tray numbers not very visible in PCL configuration dialogue.

  4. 8.67A: Improved IDF overlays.

  5. 8.67A: Setting the View/Page extent to Unlimited did not work properly if the View/Unprintable area was set to Crop.

  6. 8.67B: Items could be added twice by plugins such as ADDTEXT and ADDIMAGE.

  7. 8.67B: Problems could occur under Vista when switching to another program whilst reading Postscript files.

ESCAPEE 8.66
Features:

  1. DeviceN colour support in PDF reading.

  2. The Print option has manual duplex support for non-duplex printers.

  3. It is now possible to change the number of files stored in the history in the INI file. The command line option is /HISTORY n or HISTORY=n in the [PCLVIEW} section of RT.INI If you use /HISTORY 0 then it never writes the file names to the INI file.

Bug fixes:

  1. Problems with certain character codes in Truetype fonts.

  2. IDF null CSV fields.

  3. IDF wizard mailmerge blank lines and spaces could sometimes be removed from the added text.

ESCAPEE 8.65
Features:

  1. The RTDDFIN DLL supports simple DDF scripts i.e. .PPO, .PPG and .PRE files.

  2. Generated FDL form names contain only alphanumerics.

  3. Error reporting using line numbers for formats such as DDF and IDF.

  4. Normally when run from the command-line, Escapg:rt.inieE returns a numeric error code if it detects errors. The /ERROROK command tellso EscapeE to ignore
    specified errors. The syntax is:


    /ERROKOK a,b,c...


    where a,b, c etc. are error codes that are to be treated as acceptable and ignored when setting the error return code from EscapeE. For example to ignore errors concerning unknown fonts and printing beyond the page bounds use


    /ERROROK -133,-136


  5. When exporting Postscript the original element order is retained.

  6. 8.65B: Preprinter script is now usable in IDF documents

  7. 8.65B: Some special symbols have been added to the composite fields mechanism to allow the date/time to be expressed in local time, rather than Universal Coordinated Time which is the default. The symbols are:

    {_Local}
    subsequent times are local
    {_UTC}
    subsequent times are in Universal Coordinated Time
    {_GMT}
    Times are in Greenwich Mean Time - essentially the same as {_UTC}


    So for example
    {_GMT}{_day}/{_month}/{_year} is a GMT date in European format
    {_local}{_month}/{_day}/{_year} is a local date in U.S.A. format {_local}{_hour}:{_minute}:{_second} is a local time

  8. 8.65D: Better Truetype font handling in PDFs and some PCL files.

  9. 8.65D: JPEG format always shown in the formats list.

  10. 8.65D: When exporting images the name of the file and its resolution in dpi are shown in the console log.

  11. 8.65D: PDF 1.5 compressed index tables are supported for simple cases.

  12. 8.65G: If a PDF requires the Wingdings font and it is not available then MS Gothic will be used instead if available.

  13. 8.65G: Very large graphics can now be viewed. The previous limit for a graphic was just over 9 feet.

Bug fixes:

  1. 8.65D: Problems with smoothed scaled images.

  2. 8.65D: ClearType sometimes used when generating images not meant for the screen

  3. 8.65D: Ctrl-C (Copy to clipboard) did not work on the log window.

  4. 8.65E: Direct print could sometimes fail.

  5. 8.65E: Problems in character code assignment when reading PDFs containing embedded Truetype fonts that have no cmap.

  6. 8.65F: Plugin default configuration could be wrong when changing plugins.

  7. 8.65F: Problem when csv control file referenced the same input file with different field definitions.

  8. 8.65F: PDF export using default fonts sometimes failed to select a bold font.

  9. 8.65G: spurious error messages if TCP/IP input enabled when using a CSV control file.

  10. 8.65H: PCL XL fonts with short character headers.

  11. 8.65H: Extracting text from fixed pitch fonts when the character widths are zero.

  12. 8.65H: Extracting text when the font has a printable code 0.

  13. 8.65J: Re-reading a page of a PCL XL file did not work if the fonts had been released.

ESCAPEE 8.64
New buttons and About box, using Arial rather than MS Sans Serif, better layout for non-English dialogues.

8.64A: Improved icons, tabbed notebooks etc. for Vista

8.64B: Improved scaling up of coloured images. Improved appearance. Adaptive compression for PDF reading is now implemented.

8.64C: The progress bar has been moved to the status panel and a drop shadow added to show the edge of the page.

8.64D: Exceeding the bounds of the page is now regarded as less serious than other errors, so an exclamation mark in a yellow triangle is used rather than one in a red triangle.

The "Show unprintable area" item on the view menu has been replaced with two items:

Page extent
Specifies the size of the valid part of the page:

Printable area
The area available for printing on a standard HP printer i.e. 1/6" in from the edge of the paper.
Paper size
The full size of the specified paper.
Unlimited
Not limited by paper size.

Unprintable area
Says how any unprintable area of the page (as defined by Page extent above) is to be shown.

Crop
Do not show anything that falls outside the printable area.
Outline the valid region
Show the limits of the unprintable area using a dotted rectangle.
Outline if not blank
Show the dotted rectangle only if the unprintable area is not blank.

There are corresponding options on the Viewing page of the Configuration dialogue.

The Page extent can be set by the command-line option VIEWPAGE with parameters as follows:

P
Printable area
A
Unlimited (All). This is the default for plotter mode.
S
Paper size. This is the default for PCL mode.

The Unprintable area can be set by the command-line option CLIP with parameters as follows:

Y
Crop
N
Outline the valid region
B
Outline if not blank

Fields can now have one of a number of different types of search tag. In addition to a search for a particular text string or graphic it is possible to search for a graphic, a line or a shaded area of a particular size. The easy way to define such a field is to right-click on an example of the item to be found and choose New tag from the popup menu. This several sub-options:

This graphic
to search for this particular graphic (not applicable to lines or shades).
This size graphic
to find a graphic, line or shade of the same width and height.
Any graphic
to search for any kind of graphic, line or shade in this area.
This text
The text under the mouse.
Any text
Any text in the area of the field.

Having set up a field it may be necessary to amend the search criteria, so in the Fields dialogue click on the "Searching" tab and perhaps change the search string or other criteria. For a specific graphic the search string is actually a hexadecimal MD5 hash so should not be altered except by copying the string from another field or from the console log when you have asked for Graphic details. For a graphic of a particular size the string takes the form of width X height e.g. 200X100 for one that is 200 pixels by 100. To search for any graphic simply clear the string but check the "Match" checkbox next to it. This also applies to a search for an arbitrary text string. You may also need to alter the area of the page in which the search will take place, either by typing numbers explicitly in the "Definition" section, or by dragging the corners of the red box on the page.

IDF improvements (8.64J):

  1. The RTF group has a NEWLINE attribute with values

    IGNORE
    ignores line endings (the default).
    BREAK
    starts a new line for each line of input.
    SPACE
    treats end of line as a space.

  2. A group can be positioned with respect to the end of the preceding paragraph of RTF (rich text) by specifying TOP="Y".

  3. An exact match is required when selecting scaleable fonts rather than merely within 0.25 points.

Bug fixes:

  1. CMYK output to Postscript did not work.

  2. 8.64D: image caching problem in IDF using multiple PDF input files.

  3. 8.64D: Nested filled or clipped paths did not work properly if non-zero winding mode was used.

  4. 8.64F: Spurious entries were sometimes made in table of fonts in use.

  5. 8.64G: The page extent viewing option did not work as described.

  6. 8.64G: Setting the initial window size in the Configuration/Viewing dialogue was not useful if the windows was currently maximised.

  7. 8.64G: When making unique file names (/SAVE O) the suffix never went

  8. 8.64G: The /ERRORLOG option forces /REPORT to ensure an error log is produced. above #10.

  9. 8.64H: Excessive memory usage if ICC colour profiles used.

  10. 8.64H: Problems if the fields file cited an nonexistent header file.

  11. 8.64H: better handling of truetype fonts with negative character sizes.

  12. 8.64J: Fields dialogue poor appearance under Vista.

  13. 8.64J: Too many decimal digits shown for page size in the Print configuration.

ESCAPEE 8.59
Features:

  1. Improved handling of unprintable area. The View/Show Unprintable Area menu item has three options:

    White
    The display is clipped to the printable area of the page - anything outside this is not shown, so the unprintable area is left white.
    Grayed-out
    The unprintable region of the page is shown as a gray frame but items falling within it are shown.
    If not blank
    As for the previous option but the gray frame is only shown if one or more items fall outside the printable area.

    The Configuration/Viewing dialogue has a drop-down list with these same options to allow the default viewing mode to be specified and saved.

  2. IDF fields can be defined in terms of other fields, including any special ones such as the time or a value obtained by prompting the user.

Bug fixes:

  1. When using the File/Print scaled menu option and choosing "Print as image" the image was always positioned at the top left of the page.

  2. When using IDF to scaling a PCL file there could be problems when moving back to a previous page.

  3. In PCL it was possible to position beyond the bottom of the logical page.

  4. The PCL Set paper source command no longer throws a new page when the source has not changed. Note that this agrees with the action of HP printers but not those of all other manufacturers.

ESCAPEE 8.58
Features:

  1. There is now an "Advanced" button on the PDF options dialogue. This invokes options for JPEG compression and area selection. The area that is exported is now governed by these options regardless of whether the printable region is being viewed or not.

  2. In the image options and PDF "Advanced" options there is an option for trimming to the size of the paper. The options are now:

    Paper size
    The image is trimmed to the size of the selected paper.
    Printed region
    white space is removed to leave the smallest rectangle which will contain all the printing.
    Printable region
    The image is trimmed to the area of the page which a PCL printer would print on.
    Selected area
    If an area has been swept out then that is the area which is output, otherwise if there are any fields define then the first one is used to define the area. Failing these possibilities then this is equivalent to "Full" below.
    Full
    The default. The whole page is output, including any items which fall outside the area of the page.

  3. Better algorithm for selection of JPEG compression in PDF export

  4. 8.58A: Can now use fields with search tags in pages generated by IDF

  5. 8.58B: A change to prevent a white foreground colour interacting with colour raster graphics.

  6. 8.58C: Fields can set up links to other PDFs.

  7. 8.58C: More accurate display of fields and links when moving the mouse over them.

Bug fixes:

  1. When reading PDFs containing embedded Truetype fonts, characters in the range hex 80-9F were not shown.

  2. Substituting for embedded Truetype fonts in PDFs could lead to problems when exporting.

  3. 8.58C: Accessing embedded Truetype fonts in PDFs using the glyph IDs did not always work.

ESCAPEE 8.57
Features

  1. Exported PDF images, both colour and greyscale, can now use JPEG compression mode. On the PDF advanced options page, instead of a single check box "Use data compression" there is now a "Data compression" button which invokes a new dialogue. This offers a number of parameters:

    1. A check box "Use data compression", which governs whether data compression is in use at all. If it is, then the JPEG compression items are enabled.

    2. There is a drop down list maked "Use JPEG for images" where a standard value can be chosen or any value in the range 0 to 100% can be typed. 0 means never use JPEG compression for images, 100 means always use it, with the default being 50% which will usually make a sensible choice based on the type of the image. Intermediate values can be used to bias the choice towards or away from JPEG compression.

    3. The "Quantisation quality" box again has a value from 0 to 100% with 50% being the default. A value of 0 quantises the levels very heavily and will result in low quality but highly compressed images. A value of 100% will produce larger images with minimal degradation resulting from the quantisation process.

    4. The "Low resolution colour" box, if checked, causes the colour information to be sampled more coarsely than the luminance, which yields smaller images with some loss of quality.

    5. The "Low colour quantisation" box, if checked, causes the colour levels to be more coarsely quantised than the luminance, again yielding smaller images with some loss of quality.

    6. The reading of PNG, JPEG or BMP images no longer requires the calling of a DLL.

  2. When exporting in DICOM format, any items known to be times are converted from HH:MM;SS to DICOM time format. Dates can be converted from most formats e.g. 12th February 2007, Feb 12 2007 or 12/2/07 (day/month order determined by the locale). For alphabetic month names the language has to be that for which EscapeE has been configured, and must be English, French, Spanish or German at present.

  3. The Fields dialogue now has a Refresh button which re-evaluates the fields whilst the dialogue remains on view. There are also check boxes "Show fields" and "If found" which correspond to the View menu Fields/All and Fields/If found i.e. when viewing a page all the fields are shown outlined in red or just those that have been found on the current page.

  4. Improved OCR plugin: When you configure the plugin it asks

    1. If you want to include the text when exporting (in white under the image).

    2. Leave blank if OCR failure? which leaves the field blank if the OCR fails, rather than giving an error.

    3. If the OCR module is not installed you are asked if you want to simulate it. Replying Yes causes lines to be generated of the forn "Line n of field f". Up to 5 lines are generated so as to fill the field at 1/6" line spacing. Replying No causes the field to be blanked or to contain the error message according to the configuration as mentioned earlier. Clicking Cancel causes an error message box each time OCR is attempted.

  5. The option parsing allows the combinations of an output format with
    the Direct print option. e.g.


    ESCAPEE TEST.PRN /PRINT D /HP


  6. It is easier to resize fields which are defined by a plugin e.g. when OCRing.

  7. The right click menu has "Copy as IDF" if the RedTitan menu is enabled.

  8. In PDF if a font has no name then the package name is used as its name.

  9. Combining text strings together when creating PDFs could lead to misplaced text.

Bug fixes:

  1. Field values for OCRed text were sometimes not updated.

  2. The clip area was not reset after including a file in an IDF document.

  3. Overflow could occur if a very larg margin setting were used.

  4. In HPGL with label origin mode 18 and rotated coordinates the text was not offset properly.

  5. The point size could be wrong when exporting a PDF using substituted fonts.

  6. Clipped TIFF images in IDF were wrong if there was originally a white border.

  7. When reading a list of files the "Go to end of file" button did not work properly.

ESCAPEE 8.56
Features:

  1. Supports IDF text, line and other drawn items at angles other than multiples of 90 degrees. The IDF syntax now allows for fractional rightangles and there is a DEGREES modifier e.g. e.g. ROTATION="23.5 DEGREES"

  2. Conditional IDF groups are implemented. The syntax of the attribute is
    CONDITION="String Operator String" where Operator is one of

    =
    equal
    >
    greater than
    <
    less than
    >=
    greater than or equal
    <=
    less than or equal
    <>
    not equal

    and String can be a quoted string or an expression involving EscapeE fields
    e.g.


    CONDITION = "{FIELD1}='First'"


    Note that for technical reasons, the special EscapeE field always returns zero at present. If the condition is not satisfied then the group is not processed. If there are multiple CONDITION attributes then they all have to be true for the group to be processed. The comparison is case-sensitive.

  3. When using "Print scaled" or "Direct print" there is now a combo box to allow the printer to be selected.

  4. The is an option to copy any existing PJLcomments to the output file when exporting to PCL. The command line option is /COMMENTS P

  5. User defined line patterns are supported when reading PDFs.

  6. The /RELOAD option forces EscapeE to reload a file if it changes, rather than asking the user if it should do so.

  7. field types are supported (but without validation): On the first page of the fields dialog you have a choice of type:

    Any content
    Alphabetic
    Alphanumeric
    Numeric
    Decimal
    Currency
    DateDMY
    DateMDY
    DateYMD
    Phone
    Email
    URL

    If the field type is not 'Any content' then exporting a field to XML adds a TYPE attribute with the value 'ANY','ALPH','ALNUM','NUM','DEC','CUR' ,'DMY','MDY','YMD','TEL','EML' or 'URL' corresponding to the types above.

  8. 8.56D: Rotation of images in IDF supported.

  9. 8.56E: Added the ability to recognise a rectangular area of a graphic. To set up a field which will search for a part of a graphic just select the area of the graphic by sweeping it out with the mouse, then right-click and choose Define tag.

    The selected area of the graphic is extracted, trimmed to remove white space and a hash total is generated. This procedure is carried out for each page of the document and if the hash total matches that of the field then the field is actioned.

    To create a tag of a complete graphic simply right-click on it without selecting an area, then choose Define tag. In this case the whole graphic is used when generating the hash total. When processing the document any graphic whose top left corner falls within the target area of the field will have its hash total generated for comparison with that of the field.

    In the Fields/Searching Dialogue there is a combo box showing the type of tag: Text, Graphic or Part of a graphic.

  10. 8.56F: If "Show blank pages" in the Configuration/viewing menu is not checked then pages containing only spaces are now treated as blank

  11. 8.56F: The OCR plugin did not work well for multi-page documents or when extracting multiple lines.

  12. Making a macro from a document that only contained macros did not work properly.

Bug fixes:

  1. The dialogue box asking whether to reload a file after an update could in some cases be underneath the main window.

  2. A spurious selected area could be shown after reloading a file following an update to it.

  3. 8.56B: Extra bytes at the end of downloaded characters were not ignored

  4. 8.56B: Null graphics could cause wrong positioning of the next item.

  5. 8.56D: If including Media commands when exporting to PCL then blank pages caused problems.

ESCAPEE 8.55
Features

  1. The Print menu option defaults to printing the whole file rather than the current page.

  2. 8.55D: Can recognise DOS EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) files with binary headers.

Bug fixes:

  1. Problems if exporting 24-bit colour as a full-page graphic.

  2. Using a fields file which specified a header page in conjunctions with a CSV control file caused the first page to be duplicated.

  3. Memory leak when reading untrimmed TIFF images.

  4. PDF fonts using Symbol encodings failed when re-exported.

  5. PDF scaleable fonts were not always listed in "Fonts in use".

  6. 8.55A: Problems with re-export of PDFs using embedded Truetype fonts with Symbol encoding and non-standard character codes.

  7. 8.55B: the dimensions of the printed area were not calculated correctly when an overlay added by a field exceeded the original bounds.

  8. 8.55C: Duplicate PJL comments were not copied to the output file.

  9. 8.55C: The reading of PCL XL now does not terminate until 100,000 errors have been encountered rather than 1000 as previously.

  10. 8.55D: Alphanumeric IDs were not always propagated into an exported PCL file.

ESCAPEE 8.54
Features:

  1. The OCR plugin can be configured to include the text when exporting.

  2. IDF files can include Rich Text with embedded graphics.

  3. 8.54B: There is an option to avoid the overwriting of existing output files. If the box marked "Do not overwrite files" is checked in the Configuration/Automatic dialogue then a suffix of #1, #2 etc. is added to the filename to make it unique. To achieve this effect from the command-line add the letter 'O' to the /SAVE options e.g. /SAVE O

Bug fixes:

  1. When exporting to PDF as a graphic with text also included then the original graphics might also be output to the PDF.

  2. The alignment of certain rotated items in IDF files was wrong.

  3. 08.54D: Mixing CMYK and RGB colour in PDFs caused the wrong colour to be shown

  4. 08.54D: Colour of text could be wrong in PDF export if differnetly coloured lines were combined together.

  5. 08.54D: Multiple entries could be made in the fonts list when readin PDFs that used an unknown font.

  6. 08.54E: Action on encountering an invalid number in HP GL was not correct.

  7. 08.54E: Problems with temporary fonts on systems running for more than 24 days without a restart.


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