Support for Delphi 12.3 and installing in the 64 bit IDE. Now FlexCel installs in both the 64bit and 32bit IDEs in Rad Studio 12.3
Support Grouping objects. A new command GroupObjects allows you to group existing shapes.
Exporting Conditional Format Icons and DataBars to HTML. Now we export icons and databars in conditional formats to HTML. All other conditional formats were already exported, so this completes the HTML exporting of conditional formats. All other formats, like SVG or PDF, already exported everything.
Exporting gradient cell backgrounds to HTML. Now gradient background in cells are exported to HTML
Faster rendering of files when there are thousands of hidden rows. Now FlexCel can be up to an order of magnitude faster when converting to pdf or printing files with tens of thousands of hidden rows. Normal files shouldn't be affected much, but they could be a little faster too.
Improved rendering of conditional formats icons. We redrew all icons in conditional formats to look like they do in the latest Excel version.
Improved recovery mode. Recovery mode can now handle more types of invalid files.
Bug Fix. In special cases, charts copied with InsertAndCopy commands wouldn't show in Excel online.
Bug Fix. If a group (but not the shapes inside it) was marked as "do not print" FlexCel would print it anyway. Now we behave as Excel, and only print/don't print depending in the main shape of the group. You can't disable individually printing shapes inside a group.
Bug Fix. When recalculating a formula with =AVERAGEIF that had a a bad argument (for example a string where there should be a reference) FlexCel would throw a Invalid Cast exception. Now it returns #N/A! for the value of the formula.
Bug Fix. A bidirectional report having a full column range could raise a "too many rows" exception in some cases where there were enough rows left.
Bug Fix. When inserting or deleting cell, pivot tables might not move.
Bug Fix. Right-align indented text wasn't correctly exported to HTML.
Bug Fix. When exporting cells with "WrapText=false" to HTML, FlexCel would wrap the enters inside anyway.
Bug Fix. Depending on the font, when exporting a cell to PDF which had an enter but no wrap text, FlexCel could draw an empty rectangle instead of completely ignoring the enter.
Bug Fix. FlexCel could fail to export some files with invalid characters to HTML, due to issues in GDI+.
Bug Fix. FlexCel could fail to open old xlsx files which had notes with non-breaking spaces.
Bug Fix. FlexCel failed to open xls files with a missing OPT record.
Gridlines colors are now exported to HTML. You can change the default color for gridlines in Excel going to Options->Advanced. Now FlexCel will export the correct gridline color to HTML if you change it form silver (It already exported them to PDF and the other formats)
Support for Delphi 12. We now provide official support for Delphi 12. While Delphi 12 was already supported, we now optimized the codebase for Delphi12.
Improved Lazarus support. We now require a trunk of December 1, 2023 or newer. This version is tested with FPC: 7ecb19f906 and Lazarus: 25c7f3c141
Support for creating your own cultures when rendering Excel files. Now you can override the dates returned by your app so they look exactly like Excel. For more information read the tip localized month names
Better support for subnormal numbers. Excel doesn't support subnormal floating point numbers and instead converts them to 0. Now FlexCel does the same, instead of saving those numbers to the files.
FlexCel is more forgiving with too long data validation formulas. FlexCel used to raise an error if a formula in a Data Validation is longer than 255 characters, because that is what the spec says and what Excel allows you to enter in its Data Validation Dialog. But, if you save a longer formula by manually editing the xlsx file, Excel won't complain, and the formula will still work. It won't work well, since you won't be able to edit the formula with the UI (and you might be corrupting Excel memory), but Excel won't complain. In order to let you edit those files, now FlexCel won't complain either when you open a file with a longer formula, and it will preserve the formula when you save the file back. But it still will throw an Exception if you try to manually enter that formula, so you know it is invalid. You can still enter the invalid formula manually by turning Recovery Mode on.
Now FlexCel will use its own Random implementation. This implementation not only is faster and better than Delphi's built-in, but also avoid FlexCel code calling Randomize, and changing the state of the Random Number generator if you were counting in some seed. See https://support.tmssoftware.com/t/call-to-randomize-when-opening-an-xlsx-spreadsheet/22016/3
New setting FlexCelConfig.LocalizedTEXTFunction allows you to fine tune how FlexCel recalculates the "=TEXT()" function. The setting FlexCelConfig.LocalizedTEXTFunction allows to change the way the =TEXT() function behaves in FlexCel. Look at the link above for more information.
Improved Label rendering when drawing charts. Now we allow to show the fields "X Value" and "Y Value" in labels of scatter charts. Sometimes the marker if the label was set to show markers was drawn left-aligned, not centered.
Removed canvas.getMatrix calls in Android as they are deprecated. FlexCel now keeps internal track of its Matrix, to avoid calling canvas.getMatrix which was deprecated in Android 16.
Bug Fix. If the column names of a table had a format like "@_@" or similar, FlexCel would apply them and the column name would be wrong. Now the names are the same as in Excel. Some other improvements in handling of column names.
Bug Fix. The XLOOKUP function would return "not found" when searching for a value bigger than any on the list and the match mode was "Exact match or next larger item", when there were empty entries in the list. This is the logical way to do it, it is how Google Sheets does it, and it is how Excel itself behaves in the other match modes. But for this match mode, Excel returns the first empty item in the list, not "not found". Now FlexCel mimics this behavior.
Bug Fix. The SINGLE function could return wrong results in very special cases.
Bug Fix. When autofitting rows FlexCel ignored empty columns formatted with big fonts.
Bug Fix. When parsing some PNGs FlexCel could raise an arithmetic overflow.
Bug Fix. FlexCel could fail to detect circular references in some corner cases, causing a Stack Overflow.
Bug Fix. When drawing Error Bars in charts, if there was no line color assigned, FlexCel would not draw the lines instead of drawing them in Black.
Bug Fix. Some files could show the error: "Value was either too large or too small for an Int32" when opened.
Support for the new Excel2023 default format including the default aptos font. Now when calling ExcelFile.NewFile there is a new option to create a file with the new office 2023 theme and fonts.
Added new units FlexCel.VCLSupport, FlexCel.FMXSupport, FlexCel.LCLSupport and FlexCel.SKIASupport to replace VCL.FlexCel.Core, FMX.FlexCel.Core, LCL.FlexCel.Core and SKIA.FlexCel.Core respectively. The units VCL.FlexCel.Core, FMX.FlexCel.Core, LCL.FlexCel.Core and SKIA.FlexCel.Core still work, but we added new units FlexCel.PlatformSupport which should be preferred now as they behave better in C++ builder. You can read more about this change at VCL.FlexCel.Core vs FlexCel.VCLSupport
New property TExcelFile.PrintComments allows to directly manipulate how to print the comments. The new property ExcelFile.PrintComments allows you to directly change how comments are printed without having to use TExcelFile.PrintOptions.
FlexCel can now render comments "As displayed". When ExcelFile.PrintComments is "As Displayed", FlexCel will now print and export to PDF/HTML/SVG the comments as they are displayed. See https://support.tmssoftware.com/t/excel-with-comments-export-to-pdf-with-comments-showing/19377
New property TExcelFile.PrintErrors allows to directly manipulate how to print the errors in formulas inside the sheet. The new property ExcelFile.PrintErrors allows you to change how the errors in the sheet will be printed.
FlexCel can now render error in formulas according to the printer settings. When ExcelFile.PrintErrors is not "As Displayed", FlexCel will now print and export to PDF/HTML/SVG the correct values.
New properties TExcelFile.PrintOptionsInitializedFromPrinter, TExcelFile.PrintOverThenDown and TExcelFile.PrintDraftQuality. The new properties ExcelFile.PrintOptionsInitializedFromPrinter, ExcelFile.PrintOverThenDown and ExcelFile.PrintDraftQuality allow to change the TExcelFile.PrintOptions in a simpler way. Now there are properties to change every one of the individual PrintOptions, and so APIMate won't suggest changing PrintOptions, but the standalone properties instead. APIMate will still show the code to change PrintOptions, but commented out.
ApiMate won't show PrinterDriverSettings by default. PrinterDriverSettings are a huge binary blob which can make the output of APIMate much harder to read. It was already commented out, but now it is not shown at all by default. There is a checkbox to show it if you need it.
Bug Fix. When rendering charts inside xlsx files, sometimes FlexCel could fail to render the correct colors of some series, using black instead.
Bug Fix. Formatted numbers inside cells with "Shrink to fit" didn't shrink when exporting to HTML
Bug Fix. <#if> tag in reports would consider the condition true if it evaluated to NAN or a number.
Bug Fix. <#ref> tag in reports now returns a real reference instead of a string with the cell reference. While for most uses it is the same, in some cases like in the "Cell" function, the old <#ref> tag wouldn't work.
Experimental Lazarus support. We now experimentally support compiling in Lazarus. See the new Lazarus guide for more details.
Support for functions FILTER, SORT, SORTBY, and UNIQUE. There is now support for the functions introduced in office 2021 : FILTER, SORT, SORTBY, and UNIQUE.
Support for functions MAP, REDUCE, SCAN, MAKEARRAY, BYROW, and BYCOL. There is now support for the functions introduced in office 365 : MAP, REDUCE, SCAN, MAKEARRAY, BYROW, and BYCOL.
Support for functions TEXTBEFORE, TEXTAFTER, TEXTSPLIT, HSTACK, VSTACK, TOROW, TOCOL, WRAPROWS, WRAPCOLS, TAKE, DROP, CHOOSEROWS, CHOOSECOLS, and EXPAND. There is now support for the new functions introduced in office 365 beta : TEXTBEFORE, TEXTAFTER, TEXTSPLIT, HSTACK, VSTACK, TOROW, TOCOL, WRAPROWS, WRAPCOLS, TAKE, DROP, CHOOSEROWS, CHOOSECOLS, and EXPAND.
New SHEET VISIBLE tag that allows to change the visibility of a sheet in a report. You can now use the new Sheet Visible tag to hide or unhide sheets. See https://support.tmssoftware.com/t/hide-worksheet-in-report-tags/18336/2
You can now run reports on TList<primitive> like TList<double>. Now you can use a list of a primitive type like TList<string> in reports. You have to write <#list.Value> in the template for it to work. See the modified example of using lists as datasets. See https://support.tmssoftware.com/t/using-list-as-datasource/18513/4
Ability to change the newline separator when exporting to CSV or Fixed-lenght text files. By default FlexCel exports to CSV or fixed length using the newline separator from the OS. (that's CR/LF in Windows and LF in Unix/macOS). Now you can explicitly define the newline string when calling Export See https://support.tmssoftware.com/t/settings-for-new-line-character-when-saving-texcelfile-to-csv/17886/3
Support for Array formulas, UDFs, external names and Lambda names in Tokens. Tokens now support Array formulas, user-defined functions (UDF), names that refer to external files, and Lambda names (like if you write in a formula "=MyName(4)" and MyName is a lambda function.). Standalone lambda functions (without using names) were already supported. The only thing not supported in tokens right now is what-if tables.
Function "INDEX" is now array-enabled. Now you can pass arrays in the col and row parameters of the INDEX function and FlexCel will return an array of results.
Improved behavior when inside Docker containers. Now when you try to run FlexCel in a Docker container without any fonts installed, FlexCel will tell you the problem and how to fix it. There is also a new tip explaining how to handle fonts inside docker containers.
Bug Fix. The functions SWITCH and IFS could fail is some border cases.
Bug Fix. Bubble charts could render bubbles of the wrong size if there were empty points in the chart data with bubble size different from 0.
Bug Fix. Negative dates now show empty instead of "########" when they are labels of charts. This is the behavior Excel has too.
Bug Fix. Cells with diagonal borders, but borders style set to none could be rendered by FlexCel in some cases.
Bug Fix. Some files containing khmer characters (or other complex scripts) could raise an exception when exporting to pdf.
Bug Fix. Sometimes RenderObjects would not render the images. See https://support.tmssoftware.com/t/images-disappear-sometimes/18567/6
Bug Fix. There could be errors in some specific cases when copying sheets from one file to another which had linked formulas.
Bug Fix. The limit for custom formats in xls files was in 4000 when it really is 4050. We've updated FlexCel to allow 4050 custom formats when saving as xls.
Bug Fix. The TYPE function didn't return 128 for lambda functions.
Bug Fix. When third-party files had invalid modify/creation dates, FlexCel would refuse to open them. Now it will just ignore invalid dates and let those properties empty.
Bug Fix. APIMate generated some code with invalid syntax in C++.
Support for bubble charts. Now FlexCel can render Bubble charts. You can also enter them with the API and APIMate will show you the code to do it.
New <#Swap Series> tag for reports. The new <#Swap Series> tag allows you to create charts that grow or decrease their number of series according to the data available.
New CustomizeChart event for reports. The new CustomizeChart event allows you to further customize the charts in the report once they have been generated.
Support for optional lambda parameters. There is now full support for the new optional lambda parameters in Excel.
IsOmitted function support. There is now full support for the new IsOmitted function.
Improved recovery mode. RecoveryMode can now load more types of invalid files.
Support for localized versions of the CELL function. Now you can write the first argument of function CELL in 24 languages, and FlexCel will understand them anyway. Before only English was understood. The languages added are Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Hungarian, Italian, Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese-Brazil, Portuguese-Portugal, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian
Bug Fix. Now FlexCel will throw an exception if you try to save a chart with more than 255 series. Before this release, FlexCel would just save the file, but a file with more than 255 series crashes Excel.
Bug Fix. APIMate wouldn't report deleted chart titles, which could lead to chart titles appearing when there was a series with a name.
Bug Fix. It was impossible to manually enter lambda formulas referring to names if AllowEnteringUnknownFunctionsAndNames was false.
Bug Fix. A horizontal fixed band in a report would insert columns if using more than the fixed space, instead of just overwriting the cells.
Bug Fix. Sometimes it was not possible to read properties from xls files.
Support for office 2021. While we already supported it since we support Office 365, we added enumerations to create files with office 2021 defaults, and identify the file as being created by Excel 2021.
Support for Radar charts. Now FlexCel can render Radar (Spider) charts. You can also enter them with the API and APIMate will show you the code to do it.
Support for the "Black and white" printing option in Excel. Now when exporting to pdf, html, or printing, FlexCel will honor the "Black and White" option in the print options. Note that Black and White priniting in Excel doesn't mean to print in grayscale, but printing all backgrounds white and all lines black no matter the actual colors. It also depends in what you render, for example colors in a chart bar will be replaced by patterns. There is also a new convenience method PrintBlackAndWhite that will let you modify the PrintOptions directly to print in black and white.
Ability to set the bottom row when specifying an autofilter. Now SetAutoFilter can have an extra parameter to specify the bottom row of the Autofilter. Note that if there are more rows after the bottom row, those will be included anyway. Setting the bottom row is only useful to ensure that rows up to bottom rows are included, no matter if there are blank cells in the middle.
New convenience method LoopOverUsedRange that can be used to loop over a range of cells. There is a new method LoopOverUsedRange which will let you loop over a range of cells in a simple and efficient way.
New properties TextHorizontalOverflow and TextVerticalOverflow in TShapeProperties. The new properties TextHorizontalOverflow and TextVerticalOverflow allow you to set how the text overflows a shape. This corresponds to the checkbox in Excel "Allow text to overflow shape"
New convenience properties TextRotated, TextVerticalAlignment, TextHorizontalAlignment and LockText in TShapeProperties. The new properties LockText, TextVerticalAlignment and TextHorizontalAlignment allow to set or get TextFlags in a simpler way.
The new property TextRotated allows to set TextRotation in a simpler way. APIMate now shows those properties instead of TextFlags and TextRotation. Read more in the tip about xlsx and xls approaches to text rotation.
New method SetObjectProperties to set all the object properties in one step. There is a new method SetObjectProperties that will allow to easily change the properties of an object. You just call GetObjectProperties, modify the values you want and then call SetObjectProperties.
New property IsLocked in TShapeOptions. There is a new property IsLocked which controls how if the shape is locked or not.
New overloaded version of SetObjectProperty for booleans. There is a new overload of SetObjectProperty that will allow you to set the property directly, without calculating the position in the set.
Improved legend drawing in charts. Legends items in charts should render better now when some items are empty, and multiline items were improved too.
Bug Fix. Background of Axis text set by the API was ignored.
Bug Fix. Rotation of Axis text set by the API was ignored.
Bug Fix. When setting an Axis position in a chart to cross in the max value with the API, the value was ignored and it always used the manual crossing point.
Bug Fix. Some hidden fills in files could be read as normal fills and so would appear if reading and saving a file.
Android demos now use AndroidX instead of Support Library. The Android Support Library is deprecated and replaced by AndroidX. So we've modified the demos using the old Support library to use AndroidX instead. Also the documentation has been updated to use AndroidX.
Support for SVG images embedded in xlsx files. Excel has recently started allowing SVG images inside xlsx files. This releases adds full support for adding and reading SVG images to/from xlsx files. Note that we don't currently have a SVG renderer, so to add a SVG image you need to provide both an SVG and a PNG image. you can get more details in this tip
Breaking Change: Now when exporting to HTML and SVG, the SVG images stored inside the file will be embedded as SVG. Before, FlexCel would always embed the PNG fallback image. To keep the old behavior, there are 2 new properties: TFlexCelHtmlExport.RasterizeSVGImages and TFlexCelSvgExport.RasterizeSVGImages
Ability to add chart sheets with the API. There is a new method AddChartSheet which will allow you to add chart sheets with the API. As usual, APIMate will show you the code needed to add a chart sheet.
Ability to link shape text to cells via the API. The new methods GetShapeLinkedCell, SetShapeLinkedCell in TExcelFile and GetShapeLinkedCell, SetShapeLinkedCell in IExcelChart allow you to read and write linked text in shapes.
Full Window management via API. There is a new property ActiveWindow which allows you to select the window you are working on. You can then set the zoom, selected cells, etc. for that window, leaving the other windows unaffected. The new commands AddWindow and DeleteWindow allow you to add or delete windows. WindowCount will let you know how many windows you have in the file. ActiveSheetForActiveWindow will let you select an active sheet for each window, even if the ActiveSheet for FlexCel won't change.
Includes in reports can now be FIXED. Now you can use the word FIXED in the "Shift type" parameter of the include tag . Fixed includes won't insert rows or columns, just overwriting the cells in the main report.
Support for recalculation of function NUMBERVALUE. Now FlexCel can recalculate the NUMBERVALUE function introduced in Excel2013. As usual, the list of supported Excel functions is at supported-excel-functions.html in the docs
Ability to set shape effects like glow or shadow with the API. Now you can set shape effects with the API, and APIMate will tell you the code to do it.
Improved recalculation speed. We've implemented caches for some common formula patterns which should make your recalculations go much faster if your files use those patterns.
Improved support for Tiff and Gif images. FlexCel used to convert tiff and giff images to png when loading them, so they could be saved inside xls files (xls files don't support those formats). Now FlexCel will preserve the file formats, and only convert them to pngs if you are saving in xls format.
Improved HTML5 exporting. We've made the html5 files generated by FlexCel more compliant with html5 validators.
Improved drawing of shape shadows for xlsx files. FlexCel will now render better the shadows in shapes inside xlsx files.
Improved drawing of log-chart gridlines. Now the gridlines in logarithmic charts behave more similar to Excel in border cases
Comments added with the API won't include a shadow. Now when you add a comment with the API, it won't include a shadow, same as modern Excel doesn't when you add a note. You can always use SetCommentProperties to add a shadow if you want to, and APIMate will show you the code.
Bug Fix. Excel could crash with files including charts with Soft edges effect.
Improved handling of linked text in autoshapes. Now FlexCel will preserve the properties of empty linked text in autoshapes. It will also handle better shapes with text linked to names that reference different sheets.
Bug Fix. Sometimes FlexCel could fail to parse formulas with hard-coded arrays which had strings inside.
Bug Fix. Conditional formats with iconsets where some values of the iconset were "No icon" could be saved wrong.
Bug Fix. Comments could lose or gain a shadow when converting from xls to xlsx or xlsx-strict. Also colors in the comments could be wrong in border cases.
Bug Fix. When renaming tables FlexCel wasn't renaming references in column formulas
Bug Fix. FlexCel could crash when rendering chart labels with "Value from cells" if the range existed but was null.
Bug Fix. Accessing some Conditional formats with inner borders could cause an Exception.
Bug Fix. FlexCel would not export to pdf 3rd-party files which had unreadable file properties.
Bug Fix. When using <#database.#rowcount> in expressions outside the sheet, you could get an exception.
Bug Fix. FlexCel could throw an exception when inserting columns in xls files with invalid external references
Bug Fix. FlexCel could throw an Exception when manually adding an autoshape to a chart that was created via the API.
Bug Fix. Better compatibility with files generated by FastReports. Excel ignores border style 0 and fill styles 0 and 1, and now FlexCel ignores those too.
Better handling of third-party xls files. Now FlexCel will convert the deprecated labels in biff8 xls files to sstlabels instead of keeping them as-is, allowing for much decreased memory usage when reading those files, and smaller result files.
Bug Fix. Text to autoshapes added with the API would always be left-aligned.
Bug Fix. FlexCel could report the BOM when reading custom XML parts inside xlsx files. Now the BOM is stripped out as it should.
Bug Fix. Reports using TDataSets in master-detail could get the wrong results if both master and detail had the same underlying dataset.
Bug Fix. ApiMate would not suggest how to add a shape without borders
Support for functions LAMBDA and LET. We've reworked the recalculation engine to add support for LAMBDA and LET functions. With Lambda, the calculation engine is now turing-complete.
Support for functions SINGLE, VALUETOTEXT and VALUETOARRAY. Added support for SINGLE, VALUETOTEXT and ARRAYTOTEXT functions.
Support for rendering multi-level labels in category axis. In Excel you can set a category axis to have more than one row/column, and Excel will render those multi-level ranges in a different way than normal ranges. Now FlexCel will behave the same.
Support for legend keys in chart labels. Now when exporting to PDF/HTML, if the option "Legend key" is enabled in the label options of a chart, FlexCel will render them.
Support for "Label contains Value from range" option in charts. Now FlexCel will correctly handle the "Label Contains: " "Value from Cells" options for chart labels available in newer Excel versions. They will be exported to PDF/HTML and APIMate will show the code to create them in your programs.
Breaking Change: The property LabelValues in IDataLabel changed from TArray<TCellValue> to TArray<TDrawingValue>. In order to support the "Label contains Value range" options in charts, we needed to change the type of the array to a more complete type. The current type was used in xls files, but xlsx files have a more complex type.
While this is a breaking change, it should break at compile time. If you get an error compiling a line like Title.LabelValues := TCellValueArray.Create('This is my Chart!'); change it to Title.LabelValues := TDrawingValueArray.Create(TDrawingValue.Create('This is my Chart!')); ApiMate will now show the updated method.
Improved drawing of x-axis in charts. Now FlexCel will automatically adjust the x-axis labels to 45 degrees if needed, and also take the space from near labels if those are empty.
TXls3DRange now supports an external filename. The object TXls3DRange now has a property with the filename, in case that the range is from another file. This allows to use external files in user-defined functions.
Hyperlink Base support. Now FlexCel will correctly preserve Hyperlink Base in xlsx files (it was already preserved in xls). Now the hyperlink base is also used when exporting to HTML, SVG or PDF.
Support for using an expression like <#joinedtable.tablejoined.*> to make a generic report in only one of the joined tables. Now when you join tables in the template you can use <#joinedtable.tablejoined.*> or <#joinedtable.tablejoined.**> to create a generic report only in the fields of that subtable.
The <#ref> tag can now use tags in its parameters. Now you can write something like <#ref(<#dataset.#rowcount>,3)>. Before this version tags were not allowed as parameters.
New property "IsCameraObject" in TImageProperties. The new property IsCameraObject lets you know if an image is a camera object or not.
Improved compatibility with xlsx files created by SoftMarker Office. SoftMaker office adds many extensibility points in places of the xlsx where they are not allowed. FlexCel complained about that, but in the new version we ignore the ones we could identify.
The SKIA lib used in Linux now runs in Ubuntu 16.04 and newer. We have updated the SKIA library we use for graphics support in Linux to the latest, and compiled it in Ubuntu 16.04 so it is compatible with 16.04 and newer.
Axis labels will now render with a background color if they have one. Now the axis labels will render the background color if you assign a color to them.
Bug Fix. FlexCel would always render labels in the category axis as not "linked to source" even if they were.
Bug Fix. Labels which come from cells that are formatted to show negative values in different colors show with that color in Excel, except in pie charts. FlexCel used to ignore that color, not it will display it.
Bug Fix. When rendering xlsx charts, labels which were manually positioned would ignore the default numeric formatting.
Bug Fix. Structured references with text formatting could be saved wrong to new xlsx files.
Bug Fix. Rotated labels in charts could a little below or above from where they should go.
Bug Fix. FlexCel could fail to parse a formula where the sheet name started with some Unicode characters, like for example "※MySheet"
Bug Fix. When reading structured references in Virtual Mode, there could be an access violation.
Bug Fix. FlexCel didn't preserve or render text linked to cells in shapes inside charts.
Bug Fix. FlexCel would allow you to name a sheet starting with a single quote ('), and that would cause an invalid file. Now the quote at the start of the name will be replaced by a "_" as other invalid characters do.
Bug Fix. There could be a memory leak when calling TFlexCelReport.ClearTables
Support for Rad Studio 10.4 Beta. If you are in the Rad Studio 10.4 Beta, FlexCel setup will list it as an option for installing.
Support for rendering logarithmic charts. Now FlexCel will render logarithmic charts to PDF or HTML.
When rendering pages to PDF and PNG, if an image or chart goes over the columns or rows in a page, now it won't overflow. In previous FlexCel versions, if an image spilled over to the next page, it would also go over the last cell in the current page.
Now FlexCel will search in c:\Windows\Fonts and %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Fonts for fonts when exporting to PDF. Windows 10 version 1809 introduced the concept of "local fonts", that is fonts that are installed for the current user only. (see https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/06/27/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-17704/ ) So now FlexCel will search in the traditional Windows fonts folder and the current-user-font-folder by default. You can always change the behavior with the GetFontFolder event. See the new section about fonts in Windows inside the PDF exporting guide
Now FlexCel won't throw an Exception if a Font folder in the PDF FontFolder path doesn't exist. Now when you specify multiple paths in the GetFontFolder event, FlexCel won't show an error unless none of those paths exist. In previous version, if you returned for example "c:\mypath1;c:\mypath2" and mypath2 didn't exist, FlexCel would shown an error. Now it will only show an error if both mypath1 and mypath2 don't exist. You can change this behavior with the new property OnFontFolderNotFound
Improved handling of chart gaps when there are null values. In Excel 2003, an area chart would never have a gap: Null values would be considered 0. After Excel 2007, area charts can have gaps. FlexCel behaved like Excel 2003, never showing gaps for area charts. Now FlexCel will behave like Excel 2007 when reading newer xls/x files, while still behaving like 2003 when reading old xls files.
Bug Fix. Sometimes when calling RenderObjects the border of a chart would not be exported to PDF or PNG.
Bug Fix. Leader lines in stacked bar charts were wrong when the axis was reversed
Bug Fix. Manually positioned labels in stacked bar charts were a little offset from their manual position.
Bug Fix. Now FlexCel will draw a maximum of 10000 ticks per axis in charts, to avoid taking too long drawing too many ticks that aren't visible anyway.
Bug Fix. Xlsm files containing macros and with sheet names starting with a number and bigger than 24 characters, could generate invalid files when saved in FlexCel.
Bug Fix. Now FlexCel will validate when manually setting a sheet codename, that the name is ASCII and starts with a letter.
Bug Fix. Bidirectional reports could fail to delete rows or columns in complex reports.
Bug Fix. FlexCel would consider a protected range title containing a "?" invalid. This would prevent it from loading files that used "?" in protected ranges.
Bug Fix. When manually installing FlexCel in Delphi XE, Delphi XE would raise an exception. Note that this is a fix only for manual installation: automatic installation worked fine.
Support for adding charts to a sheet with the API (xlsx files only). A new method AddChart will allow you to add a chart to a sheet in xlsx files, which you can then customize with other methods like AddSeries. There is a new demo Chart API, and as usual, APIMate will show how to add a chart similar to one in Excel. Note that this method will work only in xlsx files, not xls.
New methods SetTitle, SetOptions, SetChartLegend, SubchartCount, GetSeriesInSubchart, SetSeriesInSubchart and AddSubchart in ExcelChart. The new method SetTitle will allow you to set the title of a chart. SetOptions will allow you to customize the properties of the chart. SetChartLegend customizes the legend or adds a new one. SubchartCount will tell you how many subcharts there are in the main chart. GetSeriesInSubchart and SetSeriesInSubchart allow you to read or set one series of one subchart. AddSubchart adds a new subchart to the chart. Note that the methods are only for xlsx files.
New set method in the properties PlotArea, Background in ExcelChart. PlotArea can now change the properties of the plot area like the position or fill color. Background can now change the background of the chart. Note that all the methods here will only work in xlsx files.
Now SetSeries and AddSeries, DeleteSeries work also in xlsx charts. SetSeries, AddSeries and DeleteSeries now work in xlsx charts the same as they work in xls charts.
Support for calculating the upcoming XLookup, XMatch, RandArray and Sequence functions. FlexCel can now calculate the functions XLookup, XMatch, RandArray and Sequence which are coming to Excel in July 2020.
Better chart rendering when there are date axis. Now in some cases of date axis, FlexCel should render them better.
Support for importing bullet lists when importing html. Now when calling SetCellFromHtml, doing reports from html strings, or in general when importing html into a cell, FlexCel will import ordered and unordered bullet lists (<ol> and <ul>).
Preserving and adapting single cell mappings in XML Maps in xlsx files. Now FlexCel will preserve and modify the references to single cells in an XML map inside an xlsx file.
Improved compatibility with invalid third party files. Now FlexCel will ignore some parts of the xlsx file that should exist but might not when the xlsx files are manually edited. This will allow you to open those files anyway if there are no more errors besides that one.
Bug Fix. FlexCel wasn't calculating conditional formats if the formulas defining the conditions were array formulas.
Bug Fix. FlexCel could fail to process some files where a shape had an ending coordinate smaller than the starting coordinate.
Bug Fix. When rendering charts you could get an index out of bounds in some corner cases.
FlexCel will ignore invalid themes when reading xls files. Now when an xls file has an invalid theme, FlexCel will ignore it and just use the default theme instead of throwing an exception. This is the way Excel behaves.
Android64 Support. Now we support Android 64bit in Rio 10.3.3
Improved chart rendering. Many small tweaks. We now support different line cap and join styles. The chart axis now goes above bar charts but below line charts. There is support for arrows at the end of lines in charts. The legend items draw a little larger to be more like Excel. And many more details.
Reports can now use nested properties in Aggregates, Filters, Sort and Master-details relationships. Now in the config sheet you can filter or sort by a nested property, like for example sorting in the value of field1.field2.field3. Also you can use nested properties in relationships and in aggregates like <#aggregate(max;table.field1.field2.field3)>
Now for reports you can set semi-absolute references in the config sheet. Besides the old way to set semi-absolute references with SemiAbsoluteReferences, now you can change the setting directly in the config sheet. There is also a new tip on what semi-absolute references are.
Now you can use report expressions that call themselves recursively, as long as the recursion converges. Now you can have a <#tag> that depends on other <#tag2> which at the end depends on <#tag1> again, as long as it is not an infinite recursion. FlexCel now limits the number of recursions via the new property ExpressionRecursionLimit
Improved recalculation speed and decreased memory usage. We've fine tuned the calculation engine so it is faster and uses a less memory. We've also added 2 new methods: StartBatchRecalcCells and EndBatchRecalcCells. When you are doing multiple calls to RecalcCell you can speed up the recalculation by writing the calls between Start/EndBatchRecalcCell calls.
Breaking Change: Removed overload method TExcelFile.GetImage(Integer, string, TXlsImgType, TStream). The method TExcelFile.GetImage(Integer, string, TXlsImgType, TStream) was confusing, because the ObjectPath (the second parameter), was always ignored. To use the objectPath, you needed to use GetImage(Integer, string, TXlsImgType, TStream, Boolean) and set the last parameter to true. If you were passing an empty object path, then you could just call GetImage(Integer, TXlsImgType, TStream)
The HTML engine can now parse <font style> tags. When setting a cell or a RichString from an HTML string, the old FlexCel could parse HTML like font color="red" or font size=3 but not font style="color:red;size:16px" Now both ways are supported.
Support for calculating BAHTTEXT function. Now FlexCel can calculate BAHTTEXT.
Improved compatibility with invalid xlsx files. Now FlexCel will ignore some missing parts in a corrupt xlsx file the same way Excel ignores them.
Updated to the latest version of Skia for Linux. We've updated the Skia graphics engine we use in Linux to the latest.
Bug Fix. FlexCel might not preserve comment backgrounds in xlsx files if the background was an image or texture.
Bug Fix. FlexCel would nor correctly read or write left and right cell borders in strict xlsx files.
Bug Fix. FlexCel was failing to render images which had an image filled background.
Bug Fix. FlexCel could fail to open some files which didn't completely implement the xlsx spec but which Excel could open.
Breaking Change: Support for rendering charts inside xlsx files. We have fully rewritten the charting engine so it can now render charts inside xlsx files too. As charts inside xlsx files are completely different from charts inside xls files, this support meant that we had to modify some of the APIs to retrieve the chart information. If you are manually retrieving chart information like the color of the plot area or the title of a chart, some methods might have been moved or changed, so this is why this is a breaking change. But for most uses, nothing should break.
Support for Delphi Rio 10.3.2 including the new macOS 64 platform. Now FlexCel can install in 10.3.2 and compile in macOS 64 apps.
Breaking Change: Improved compatibility with "Autosave" in Excel 2019. When OptionsCheckCompatibility is set in a file, Excel disables the Autosave function. To avoid accidentally writing this setting and thus diabling the Autosave function, now FlexCel will ignore this option by default and not write it to xlsx files. If you really want to save this setting to the file, you now also have to set ForceUseOptionsCheckCompatibility to true.
FlexCel will now generate "faux" bold and italics when exporting to PDF. When exporting to pdf and the used font doesn't have italics or bold variants, FlexCel tries to simulate the styles by making the pen wider (for bold) or slanting the characters (for italics). The method used in older FlexCel versions only worked when not embedding the fonts, but today most fonts are (and should be) embedded. This new FlexCel version creates "faux" italics or bold variants even when the fonts are embedded. To turn this feature off, you can use the property UseFauxStyles property in FlexCelPdfExport .
Ability to specify different fallback fonts for italic, bold or bold-italic variants when exporting to PDF. In addition to the existing FallBackFonts property in FlexCelPdfExport we have now added 3 new properties: FallBackFontsBold, FallBackFontsItalic and FallBackFontsBoldItalic. If set to empty (the default) then FlexCel will keep looking for fonts in the usual way with FallBackFonts. But if you have fonts that have only regular, bold, italic or bold-italic variants, now you can specify different fall back fonts for each. So for example, you could use "Font1Bold" as a bold fallback, and "Font3Regular" as the regular fallback.
GetHtmlFromCell now can add the cell formatting to the resulting string. The old version of GetHtmlFromCell would return only the format of the rich string inside the cell, but not include the format of the cell itself. So if a cell was formatted as bold, but inside there was a plain "text" string, GetHtmlFromCell would return "text", and expect the text was hosted inside a table cell with style bold (<td style="bold">text</td>). Now there is a new parameter "includeCellFormatting" that when true, FlexCel will return "<b>text</b>" so you can use it outside formatted td tags.
Breaking Change: Support for semantic theme colors. We added 4 new values for TThemeColor : Dark1, Light1, Dark2 and Light2. In the xlsx specification, there are 12 theme colors, which include "Dark1/2" and "Light1/2" variants. In Excel cells, the text color is "Dark" and the background color is "Light". But in drawings or charts, you can use 4 semantic colors: "Text1", "Text2", "Background1" and "Background2". While those colors are mapped Text->Dark and Background->Light, it is possible to manually edit an xlsx file and change the mapping. So now FlexCel differences between TThemeColor (which now includes semantic colors) and TPrimaryThemeColor which includes only the 12 real theme colors and no semantic colors. Most of your code should stay the same, but if you are changing themes in code, you might need to replace some instances of TThemeColor by TPrimaryThemeColor. This is a compile-time breaking change: If your code compiles then nothing is broken. If your code doesn't compile anymore, you need to change TThemeColor by TPrimaryThemeColor where the compiler complains, and the code will keep working like before.
Breaking Change: Most properties in TDrawingRichString are now nullable. Properties like bold or italics in a TDrawingRichString now can have a null value, which means that the value of the parent should be used. This change shouldn't affect most uses of TDrawingRichString, but if you were manually parsing DrawingRichStrings, you might now need to check if the nullable properties have a value before using them.
The <#evaluate> tag in reports can now evaluate a string multiple times. There is a new optional parameter in the evaluate tag in reports that allows you to evaluate a string multiple times. This is useful if you store tags in the database itself. For example, if you have a field in the database named "Expression" with value "<#other tag>", then <#evaluate(<#db.expression>;2>)> will evaluate first the value of expression, find out it is <#other tag>, then evaluate again <#other tag> and write the value of other tag in the cell.
Support for creating or reading xlsx files with uncompressed size bigger than 4 Gb. FlexCel now uses the Zip64 file format automatically when creating xlsx files which won't fit in a standard zip container. It also can now read xlsx files saved with Zip64 file format.
New overloads for DeleteSheet allow to delete a sheet by its name or index. There are now 2 new variants of DeleteSheet. The first variant will let you delete a sheet given its name -- DeleteSheet("sheet1") --, and the other will let you delete n sheets since some index -- DeleteSheet(SheetIndex, NumberOfSheetsToDelete)
Improved bidirectional text handling. We updated the Unicode bidi algorithm to the latest version, and added support for glyph mirroring and bracket matching algorithm. This should render right-to-left text in a way that is more compliant with the Unicode standard.
Improved drawing of autoshapes. Excel 2007 changed the way in which it draws autoshapes in many small but visible ways. We made some tweaks in the autoshape algorithms and color handling routines to make autoshapes render even more like Excel 2007 and not Excel 2003.
Improved drawing of gradients and conversions from xls to xlsx. We did a big rewrite of the gradient-handling code to better support the newer gradient styles in xlsx.
Improved drawing of patterns and conversions from xls to xlsx. All pattern rendering code was reviewed and updated to better match Excel. Now every pattern style is exported to pdf/html/printed/etc.
Improved rendering in iOS, macOS, Android and Linux. The rendering engines for CoreGraphics (used in iOS and macOS), SKIA (used in Linux) and Android have been updated to generate more accurate rendering of Excel files.
Improved support for Excel themes. We've improved the theme engine to better handle files with wrong data in the themes. Now FlexCel can fix those files when you save them.
Improved compatibility when saving strict xlsx files. While the strict xlsx files FlexCel created before were valid, now we create files that are more similar to what Excel creates when you save as strict xlsx.
Improved compatibility with invalid files created by third-party tools. Now FlexCel can read files which have invalid cell references in the cell table, ignoring the reference completely as Excel does.
Improved conversion between strict and transitional xlsx files. Now when preserving full parts of the xml of a strict or transitional file, FlexCel will convert the namespaces accordingly if you save as transitional or strict respectively.
Function Cell("filename") now returns the filename. Now FlexCel can recalculate cell with Cell("filename"), which can be used to know the sheet where a cell is. Note that for security reasons, FlexCel won't return the folder there the file is, only the filename.
Breaking word in hyphens. Now FlexCel will break words in hyphens when it has to fit multiple lines of text, same as Excel does.
Breaking Change: The Links property of TSheetSelector now is a readonly list of TSheetSelectorLink. Now Links in TSheetSelector contains not only the name of the html sheet but also the name of the corresponding excel sheet. If you were using this property, you will need to use Links[index].HtmlSheetName instead of Links[index]. Anew method GetHtmlSheetNameFromExcel allows you to easily find the associated html sheet name from an Excel sheet name.
Bug Fix. Some non visual characters like "right to left mark" were exported to pdf, even when they are invisible. Now they don't show in the generated pdfs.
Bug Fix. FlexCel won't let you save files where tables have 0 rows of data, since that would become an invalid xlsx file. Now it will raise an exception if trying to save such file.
Bug Fix. FlexCel won't let you enter empty array members anymore, like in the formula ={1,,2} which would create an xlsx file which could crash Excel. It will also automatically remove spaces before and after the element, so the formula ={ 1, 2, 3 } will be entered as {1,2,3}. Before this version, the formula ={ 1, 2, 3 } would be considered invalid.
Bug Fix. When autofitting columns with line feeds (character 10) inside, FlexCel might fail to recognize them and try to fit everything in one line.
Bug Fix. Arrows in lines were not scaling when printed or exported at a zoom different from 100%.
Bug Fix. In html exporting, a cell which expanded over adjacent cells could cause the output to shift if there were hidden columns in the middle.
Bug Fix. An unitialized variable when running reports could crash the report in rare cases
Bug Fix. When exporting a file as HTML with tabs for sheets and there were hidden sheets between sheets, the links in cells to a different tab could be incorrect.
Bug Fix. Some hyperlinks in xls files could return an empty string when read, even if they had data.
Bug Fix. Lines with 0 width were not showing in SVG files.
Bug Fix. Sometimes when copying cells between files the indexed colors could be converted to similar but not equal RGB colors.
Bug Fix. When using the SKIA/Android graphic stack some lines in the charts could appear not connected.
Bug Fix. FlexCel was not exporting correctly to CSV when using Big-Endian UTF16 encoding.
Support for Excel 2019. Because we support Excel 365 and changes in Excel 2019 are a recollection from the changes in office 365 from 2016 up to now, FlexCel already supported Excel 2019. For example, support for recalculating the new functions introduced in Excel 2019 was introduced by FlexCel 6.7.16 back in march 2016. But this new FlexCel version adds a new TRecalcVersion.Excel2019 enumeration which will avoid the question about saving for changes when closing the file. It also adds a "v2019" enumeration to TFileFormats, which allows you to specify you want the file to identify itself as office 2019 and comes with empty 2019 files to be created with NewFile. Empty 2019 files are virtually identical to empty 2016 files, but the colors "Accent1" and "Accent5" in Excel 2016 are swapped to correspond to "Accent5" and "Accent1" respectively in Excel 2019.
Reports now can use tables as datasources. Now you can use Excel tables as sources for reports. Take a look at the new Tables as datasources demo and the section about excel tables in the Report designers guide.
New method to rename tables. The new method RenameTable can rename a table to a newer name, changing all references in formulas to the new name.
New Debug mode for Intelligent Page Breaks. Now you can use the property DebugIntelligentPageBreaks in a report, or the methods DumpKeepRowsTogetherLevels and DumpKeepColsTogetherLevels in the API to debug how intelligent page breaks are working. Look at intelligent page breaks in the API Guide for more information on how to use the feature.
Better drawing of conditional formats at very low or high zoom levels. Now icons and databars in conditional formats dynamically adjust the margins to look better at high or low zoom levels.
Bug Fix. Cell indent was not being considered when autofitting rows or columns.
Bug Fix. FlexCel wouldn't let you rename a sheet to the same name but with different upper or lower cases.
Bug Fix. CountIF, CountIFs and similar xIf/xIfs functions could return ERRNA if one of the conditions was an unknown user function, instead of returning 0 as Excel does.
Bug Fix. The function Rank.EQ was ignoring cells with errors while Excel returns the first cell with error if any cell in the range has an error.
Bug Fix. Inside a <#preprocess> section of a report a <#delete row> or <#delete column> tag could end up deleting the wrong column.
Bug Fix. Error when calculating What-If tables that had their variables in a different sheet.
Bug Fix. When deleting rows in reports with multiple levels of intelligent page breaks the engine could calculate more page breaks than necessary.
Bug Fix. FlexCel will now validate that a table isn't named the same as a defined name or vice-versa, to avoid creating invalid Excel files.
Bug Fix. When rendering a file to pdf or images FlexCel could pick the wrong normal font in very rare cases.
Bug Fix. Reports in DataSets with primary keys of type GUID could throw a null reference exception if the master key didn't exist for a detail instead of outputting an empty row.
Bug Fix. APIMate could report code that wouldn't compile for embedded xml content.
Support for Rad Studio 10.2.2. Rad Studio 10.2.2 introduced some changes that prevented FlexCel from compiling.
Support for default CryptoAPI xls encrypted files. Now FlexCel can read and write xls files encrypted with the CryptoAPI encryption. This is the default encryption algorithm for files created by Excel 2003 or newer. With this addition, all modes and encryption algorithms in both xls and xlsx are now supported.
Full support for manipulating XML Mappings in xlsx files. Now XML Mappings will be preserved when opening and saving xlsx/m files, and there are two new commands in the API to set them or read them with code. The new commands are GetXmlMap and SetXmlMap . As usual, APIMate will show how to use SetXmlMap. Note: The new API only works in xlsx/x files, not xls. Xml mappings inside xls files will still be preserved when opening and saving xls files, but not converted between xls and xlsx.
Bug Fix. Images made transparent with Excel tools might not preserve their transparency when saved as xlsx.
Bug Fix. When rendering shapes with semi-transparent gradients to PDF or SVG the gradients were exported as fully opaque.
Bug Fix. Files with table slicers saved by FlexCel might not open in Excel 2013. (They already worked fine in Excel 2016, and Excel 2010 doesn't support table slicers).
Bug Fix. Rotated shapes inside groups in xlsx files could be rendered wrong.
Bug Fix. Groups that were flipped horizontally or vertically weren't flipped when rendering. Objects inside were flipped, but the groups themselves weren't.
Bug Fix. Filled polygons could be exported wrong to PDF in some border cases.
Bug Fix. Filled polygons could be exported wrong to images with the SKIA backend used in Linux.
Bug Fix. Legacy system colors in drawings inside xls files could be rendered as transparent instead of the correct color in border cases.
Bug Fix. Xlsx files with complex gradients where the stops were not sorted could cause invalid PDF files.
Bug Fix. Textboxes with more than 8224 characters would corrupt the file when saved as xls.
Bug Fix. Very complex images could cause a GDI+ error when previewing them.
Full Support for Excel tables in xlsx files. This release completes the support for tables in the FlexCel API introduced in 6.11.
- Tables are now exported to PDF/HTML/SVG/Images and printed with all the table formatting including banded columns and rows, etc. All formatting is supported.
- Now FlexCel can recalculate the structured references used in tables. Everything is supported, from simple references like Table1[@column] to references in tables from another file. (for external table references you need to create a Workspace )
- Complete API for adding, deleting or modifying tables with code. APIMate was modified to show how to use the new things in the API.
- API for adding, deleting or modifying custom table styles. APIMate shows how to enter table styles with code.
Support for reading and writing Strict Open Xml files. Now FlexCel can read and write Strict Open XML spreadsheets. The default is to save to strict xml only if you opened a strict xlsx file and saved it, in the other cases we fall back to the standard transitional xlsx. There is a new property StrictOpenXml which you can set to force saving as strict xlsx, and read to know if the file you opened was strict xlsx.
Ability to add autoshapes to charts. Now the existing method TExcelFile.AddAutoShape works also in chart sheets, and there is a new method TExcelChart.AddAutoShape that allows to add shapes to charts embedded inside a sheet.
FlexCel will now preserve embedded OLE objects in xlsx files. Now FlexCel will preserve embedded OLE documents (like for example a word document) in xlsx files.
Improved performance in reports with thousands of hyperlinks. Now FlexCel is much faster dealing with thousands of hyperlinks in reports.
<#row height> and <#column width> tags in reports now accept expressions. Now you can write something like <#row height(<#someexpression>)> where expression will be calculated at the moment of running the report.
Now FlexCel converts strings with timestamps to dates more like Excel. In Excel you can write a string with an invalid timestamp like "3:61" (3 hours 61 minutes, which is 4 hours 1 minute) and it will be accepted by the system. FlexCel was rejecting those timestamps, but now it accepts them just like Excel.
Support for #GETTING_DATA error in TFlxFormulaErrorValue. The enumeration TFlxFormulaErrorValue now contains a new ErrGettingData member which corresponds to the type in Excel. Also Error.Type function will return 8 for this error. Note that Excel doesn't save this error in xlsx files (it saves #N/A instead), but it does save it in xls files. FlexCel preserves it in both.
Better support for comments in xlsx file in high dpi. The size of the comments is preserved better now when ScreenScaling is > 0
Now TExcelFile.RenderObject can render shapes inside groups and use an objectPath parameter to specify the name of the object to render. There are new overloads in TExcelFile.RenderObjects and TExcelFile.RenderObjectAsSVG that take an objectPath parameter. This allows you to render an individual shape inside a group instead of the full group, and also to specify directly the name of the shape to render as in xls.RenderObject(1,"@objectname")
Reduced memory usage when loading fonts for exporting to PDF. We've optimized the pdf font engine so it uses less memory when loading the fonts.
Support for returning arrays with the INDIRECT function. When doing a Sum, SumIf or N of an Indirect function which returned an array, FlexCel worked like Excel 2003 or older and only used the first value of the array. Now it uses the full array in SumIf and N like Excel 2007 or newer, and in Sum, like Excel 2010 or newer. This allows you to write formulas like the ones mentioned here: https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/indirect-function-limitations.1750391/
Note that this formula behavior is exclusive to Excel 2010 or newer: Neither LibreOffice or Google docs implement it.
All examples available in Github. Now besides being available with the setup and at the documentation site the examples are also available on Github
New methods TUIFont.CreateFromMemory and TUIFont.CreateFromFile. The new methods TUIFont.CreateFromMemory and TUIFont.CreateFromFile allow you to create TUIFonts from fonts not installed in the system.
Improved conversion of control points in autoshapes between xls and xlsx files. Now for some shapes like a roundrect or a smiley face are converted better to xlsx when read from xls files. The default control points for those shapes weren't converted correctly.
Now you can enter macros that refer to other files with the API. Now when you call AddButton or similar methods, you can use a macro that refers to a different file like file2!macro1. As usual APIMate will report the exact syntax to link to a different file.
Breaking Change: Added a new parameter to TExcelFile.RecalcRange. Now when you call RecalcRange you need to specify if the formula has relative references (as is the case in conditional formats, data validations and names) or if the references in the formula are absolute (as it is the case in normal spreadsheet formulas). Before this version RecalcRange assumed absolute references, so if you are updating existing code and want to keep the exact behavior just add ", false)" as last parameter. But make sure to review that the formula is not a relative formula.
Breaking Change: Bug Fix. The parameters MaxWidth and MinWidth of the <#column width> and <#row height> tags weren't working properly when autofitting. Now they work according to the docs. If you were using MaxWidth and MinWidth in <row height(autofit...)> or <column width(autofit...)> please review those tags and make sure minwidth and maxwidth are in the correct positions.
FlexCel will now check names of tables are valid when you create a table with the API. Now FlexCel won't let you name a table with an invalid name (like for example a name containing spaces).
Bug Fix. When the print zoom was bigger than 100% the maximum column to print could be calculated wrong.
Bug Fix. When evaluating data validations with CheckDataValidation introduced in FlexCel 6.15, INDIRECT functions using RC notation were evaluated wrong.
Bug Fix. When doing bidirectional reports with multiple horizontal master detail X ranges, the rows for the vertical ranges could be wrong.
Bug Fix. When a SPLIT tag was used inside a multiple master-detail relationship in a report the results could be wrong.
SKIA library updated to the latest. We have updated the code that uses the SKIA library in Linux to the latest version of the library. We removed calls to deprecated methods and replaced them with equivalent methods.
Bug Fix. When exporting arabic rich text with multiple formats in the same cell and a scale factor different from 1 to pdf the results could have the wrong font sizes.
Bug Fix. Row() and Col() functions would return 1 when called from <#Format range> or <#Delete range> tags. Now they return the row and column of the cell where the tag is written.
Bug Fix. Error when creating fonts in SKIA and Linux
Bug Fix. Some non standard xlsx files could become invalid if you opened and saved them with FlexCel.
Support for RAD Studio 10.2 Tokyo including full Linux support. FlexCel now fully supports Rad Studio 10.2, including support for rendering (exporting to pdf, images, html, svg, etc) in Linux using the SKIA graphics library.
New documentation center. We've completely redesigned the documentation, including lots of new code examples, a tips and tricks section and much more. We've manually reviewed all the user guides to make sure they are up to date with the latest information. You can find the new documentation center at our website
Note: This version removes support for integrating help in DelphiXE7 or older. For those versions you can't use F1 to get help and will have to manually search in the web or in the included chm file.
Support for Web Addins, either of Content or Task pane types. Now FlexCel will preserve Web addins in xlsx files. There are 2 new methods in the API: TExcelFile.HasWebAddinTaskPanes and TExcelFile.RemoveWebAddinTaskPanes which you can use to know if there are any task pane addins in the file and remove them. The content addins are just objects and you can remove them with DeleteObject. You can find if an object is a Web Add-in by calling the new property TObjectProperties.IsWebAddin
Support for Table Slicers. Now FlexCel will preserve Table Slicers in xlsx files (xls files don't support them). Note that Pivot Table Slicers where already preserved, this refers to the new Table Slicers in Excel 2013.
New static method CreateKeepingAspectRatio in TClientAndhor allows you to fit an image inside a range of cells maintaining the aspect ratio of the image. You can either specify the 4 coordinates of the range where you want the image inside, and have the image centered or aligned inside that range, or you can leave one of the coordinates at -1. If you set Row2 or Col2 at -1, then this method will create an image that fits in the other Col1-Col2 or Row1-Row2 respectively, and keeps the aspect ratio.
New method SetTable allows to modify existing Tables. While you could modify existing tables by using RemoveTable and AddTable, now you can modify them directly with SetTable.
New DrawBorders method in TExcelFile allows to quickly draw a border around a range of cells. This new method is just a shortcut for calling SetCellFormat but it is a little easier to discover and use.
Now you can specify multiple folders with fonts when exporting to pdf. Now in the OnGetFontFolder event of a FlexCelPdfExport you can return a list of strings separated by semicolons. So you can return a string like "c:\font1folder;c:\font2folder" and FlexCel will search for the fonts inside font1folder and font2folder.
Now <#includes> in reports will balance in the containing band. Now when you include a subreport in a report, the main parent will be balanced as it is with ranges inside ranges.
Bug fix. TFlexCelPrintDocument.PrintAllVisibleSheets could print the wrong "page n of m" headers or footers when starting to print with a page not in the first sheet being printed.
Bug fix. When you dropped a TFlexCelPreviewer in a FireMonkey form and run the app there would be an exception while debugging in Delphi Berlin about a non existing property. While the exception was caught and the app would run normally if you continued it, now no exception is thrown at all as we adapted the properties for Delphi Berlin.
Bug Fix. When "Precision as displayed" was set to true in the file options, the recalculation engine could calculate some values with a different precision than the one in the cell.
Bug fix. When a file with dates starting in 1900 had a linked formula to another file with dates stating in 1904 the value of the dates in the 1904 file would be considered to be at 1900. Similar for a 1900 file linking to a 1904.
Support for rendering Right-To-Left sheets. Now FlexCel can export sheets where A1 is at the right side of the page and the cells grow to the left instead of to the right. A new property XlsFile.SheetIsRightToLeft allows you to read or write the right to left state of the sheet directly without needing to use SheetOptions. APIMate will now also suggest SheetIsRightToLeft instead of SheetOptions for RTL sheets.
Improved right to left support for text. Now FlexCel will support mixed right to left and left to right text more as the Unicode BIDI algorithm defines it. The Context property of the cell is now also used to figure out if it is rtl text embedded in ltr text or ltr text embedded in rtl text.
New static properties TExcelFile.CompressionLevel, TFlexCelConfig.XlsxCompressionLevel and TFlexCelConfig.PdfPngCompressionLevel. Properties TExcelFile.CompressionLevel and TFlexCelConfig.XlsxCompressionLevel are the same and control the zip compression level used to creating xlsx files. TFlexCelConfig.PdfPngCompressionLevel controls the compression level for pdf and png files. FlexCel uses "zcDefault" zlib compression level, which normally gives the best ratio between speed and size. But note that Excel itself uses zcFastest when saving xlsx files, resulting in faster saves but also bigger files. While you won't probably want to change the defaults, now you can.
New static property FlexCelConfig.DpiForReadingImages. This new property FlexCelConfig.DpiForReadingImages allows you to force a resolution in the images you are loading. Normally FlexCel will use the resolution stored in the images to calculate the desired width in inches, but now you can override whatever is saved in the file by changing this property.
New implementation of wildcard matching for all functions that use them. The new algorithm to match patterns like * or ? and used in functions like MATCH or COUNTIF is now much faster and can use much less memory in pathological cases.
New method FlexCelReport.Run(Stream templateStream, Stream outStream, TFileFormats fileFormat). This method allows you to specify the resulting file format when running a report to a stream.
Better handling of expressions or formats defined both in an included report and the master report. Now when an included report has the same expressions or formats defined in the config sheet as the master, those local definitions will be used, instead of raising an error of repeated formats/expressions.
Breaking Change: Better handling of image resolution in reports. Now when adding an image to a report and resizing it, FlexCel will take in account the image resolution if it is saved in the image. If the image doesn't have a resolution saved, FlexCel will use the screen resolution.
You can revert to the old way of assuming a resolution of 96 dpi for all images by changing FlexCelConfig.DpiForReadingImages
Bug Fix. When exporting to HTML and a merged cell covered hidden rows or columns, the resulting html could be wrong.
Bug Fix. When exporting to HTML with embedded SVG images, the fill colors in the SVG images would be wrong if there were gradients.
Bug Fix. When exporting to SVG, text in controls or shapes could go a little lower than it should.
Bug Fix. The formula parser would fail to detect some unicode characters as valid characters for a sheet name or named range.
Better display of complex numeric formats. Now we handle some complex formatting the same as Excel does, handling also invalid formats which Excel doesn't allow better.
Bug Fix. Now FlexCel allows names with spaces as macro identifiers when loading files. While those aren't valid names and Excel won't let you enter them directly, you can enter them with VBA code, and FlexCel was refusing to read those files. Now FlexCel will open them correctly.
Bug Fix. When a file had "Precision as displayed" set and there were cell formats including percentage signs, the numbers might be rounded wrong.
Bug Fix. Report filters in the config sheet could have wrong results for some values.
Bug Fix. When using a report as a master in a sheet name, and the detail was the same dataset filtered, FlexCel would raise a range check error.
Bug Fix. There could be an stack overflow when a camera object rendered a range of cells which included the cells where the camera object was.
Support for Excel tables in xlsx files. There is partial support for tables in the FlexCel API.
- Tables are preserved when editing xlsx files. Note that we refer to the tables introduced in Excel 2007: Other tables like "what-if" tables were already preserved.
- Tables will be copied and modified when you insert or copy ranges.
- API for reading tables
- Preview API for writing tables. Note that this API is not complete yet and might fail in some cases. APIMate will show you how to add a table with the API.
- There is no rendering yet (exporting tables to pdf, etc), and no calculation of table references like =SUM(@Table1[column2]
Support for Delphi Starter. New binary setup added to install in Delphi Starter.
New properties FullRecalcOnLoad and FullRecalcOnLoadMode in TXlsFile. FullRecalcOnLoad will tell you if the xlsx file opened with FlexCel had the property "Full Recalc on Load" true. When it is true, normally the file doesn't have the values of the calculated formulas and you need to do a manual XlsFile.Recalc() to get the values. FullRecalcOnLoadMode allows you to tell FlexCel how it should mark the files it creates. In the default mode it will mark them as not needing full calculation id they were calculated on save by FlexCel (the default) and mark them as needing recalc on open in other case. Note that those 2 properties only apply to xlsx files: xls files don't have this property and the value returned by those properties will always be false.
Some repeated function results are now calculated only once for better recalculation speed. Now FlexCel can detect repeated subexpressions inside a formula and calculate them only once. So for example if you have a thousand formulas like =If(A1,2,3... = Sum($B$1:$E$1000),1,Sum($B$1:$E$1000)) then the Sum($B$1:$E$1000) will be calculated only once for all the formulas. This can have significant speed improvements if you have formulas with this pattern.
Performance improvements in function calculations. Some of the most used functions like SUM, COUNT, AVERAGE, SUMIF, COUNTIF, etc have been optimized to work at a higher speed.
Performance improvements in formula parsing. Now the formula parser is a little faster and that can lead to faster loading of xlsx files with thousands of formulas.
Performance improvements loading xlsx files with thousands of comments. Now xlsx files with thousands of comments should load much faster.
Improved rendering of numbers which don't fit inside a cell. When a number doesn't fit inside a cell, Excel shows #### instead. But it will always show at least one #, if it can't fit a complete # into the cell, then it will display it empty. FlexCel was showing part of a # sign when a full # sign wouldn't fit, not it behaves as Excel and shows the cell empty.
Bug Fix. In form objects like checkboxes or listboxes saved by Excel 2007 in xlsx files, the resulting coordinates could be wrong if the value of the anchor took more than one cell. FlexCel would move the anchor to the next cell, but Excel just ignores the extra width or height. Note that this only applies to xlsx files saved by Excel 2007, xls files or xlsx files saved by Excel 2010 or later would be correctly read by FlexCel.
Bug Fix. When deleting sheets with locally stored defined names and you had multiple references to those names in a single formula, FlexCel could fail to update the names.
Bug Fix. When setting a column format for many columns at the same time and reset cells true, some cells might not be reset.
Bug Fix. Now FlexCel won't let you enter formulas with unions ranges of numeric or string values. Before it would allow you to enter a formula like "=1, 2" and it would be interpreted as the union of the reference "1" and "2". Excel would read it if saved as xls, but would fail to parse the formula when saved as xlsx. So now we don't allow those formulas anymore.
Bug Fix. While it is invalid to write a file with conditional formats or data validations with formulas that refer to other sheets, Excel can load them (but you won't be able to modify them). Now FlexCel can read those too without reporting an error.
Bug Fix. FlexCel could raise an exception when deleting ranges with conditional formats.
Support for preserving ActiveX controls in xlsx files. Now FlexCel will preserve ActiveX controls when you open, modify and save xlsx/m files. ActiveX objects are not converted between xls and xlsx files.
Form controls are now read from and written to the Excel 2010 stream besides the Excel 2007 stream. FlexCel now reads the Excel 2010 stream for Form controls and uses it if available instead of the Excel 2007 stream. It also now writes both an Excel 2007 and 2010 stream. The Excel 2010 stream is better because it saves the coordinates in device independent units, so controls will look fine when opened in High DPI displays. Excel 2007 on the other hand uses real pixels, which results in different dimensions for the controls when opened in high dpi mode.
Files created with NewFile will now not have printer settings, and the locale of them all will be English. Depending in the Excel version passed to NewFile, FlexCel could add some printer settings to the empty file, and some versions had different locales. Now all locales for files created by NewFile are US English, and there are never printer settings.
Support for camera tool (linked images) in xlsx files. Now "camera tool" pictures will be preserved when saving to xlsx, and converted between xls and xlsx. They will also update when you insert rows or columns. Note that FlexCel won't update camera tool images if the cells change, but they will be updated by Excel when you open the file.
New global variables TSmoothingMode_FlexCelDefault and TInterpolationMode_FlexCelDefault. Those new variables let you decide what is the default antialiasing and interpolation mode used when rendering images.
Breaking Change: Autoshapes in xls files are now rendered using the xlsx definition of them if it is stored in the file. Excel 2007 and newer save the autoshapes in two different places inside an xls (not xlsx) file: One that is read by Excel 2003 or older, and the other which is read by Excel 2007 or newer. FlexCel used to read the section of Excel 2003 or older to render the autoshapes, now it is using the section of Excel 2007 or newer.
While in general this should improve autoshape rendering, note that this change is potentially breaking if you have files with the correct definition in the xls section and incorrect in the xlsx section. For more information, please see: https://tmssoftware.com/site/blog.asp?post=347
Recovery mode can now open files with invalid format strings. Now when XlsFile.RecoveryMode = true and the file has invalid format strings, FlexCel will open the file anyway and report the errors in FlexCelTrace.
Bug Fix. FlexCel could fail to load some CSV files.
Bug Fix. In some border cases when opening and saving a file multiple times and adding the same format every time, the format could be added each time instead of detecting it already existed.
Bug Fix. Localized projects could fail to find FlexCel resources.
Bug Fix. Some autoshapes with holes inside could be rendered as fully filled.
Bug Fix. Improved rendering of custom xls autoshapes
Bug Fix. There could be an error when saving pivot cache slicers or timelines in multiple sheets.
Bug Fix. Some colors in controls or shapes in xls files could be read wrong.
Bug Fix. Improved compatibility when opening invalid xlsx files.
Support for Rad Studio 10.1 Berlin. FlexCel now supports Rad Studio 10.1 Berlin
Full support of Hyperlinks in autoshapes in xlsx files. Now hyperlinks in shapes inside xlsx files are fully preserved as they were in xls files. They also will convert between xls and xlsx, and you can change the hyperlinks of the shapes with xls.SetObjectProperty. Links are exported to pdf, html and svg.
Full support for "Allow users to Edit ranges" in the API. The new methods XlsFile.Protection.AddProtectedRange, XlsFile.Protection.DeleteProtectedRange, XlsFile.Protection.ProtectedRangeCount and XlsFile.Protection.ClearProtectedRanges allow you to read and modify protected ranges. Note that for simple protection you can still just lock or unlock the cells in the cell formatting. APIMate should report now how to enter Protected Ranges too.
New <#Switch> and <#IFS> tags in FlexCel reports. Those tags behave like the IFS and SWITCH functions added in Excel 2016 january update. They can eliminate "if chains" and make the expressions simpler. For example <#ifs(<#value> < 10;<#format cell(red)>;<#value> < 20;<#format cell(yellow)>;true;<#format cell(green)>)>
Autosize of chart axis when rendering charts. Now when exporting xls charts to pdf/html/etc, the axis of the chart will move to fit the data in the axis so it doesn't get cut out.
New parameter convertFormulasToValues added to PasteFromXlsClipboardFormat. This parameter will allow you to paste the formulas as values from the clipboard. This is useful specially if the formulas you are pasting reference other books, so they won't reference the correct cells when pasted.
New parameter recalcBeforeConverting added to ConvertFormulasToValues and ConvertExternalNamesToRefErrors. This parameter will allow you to convert formulas to values without first having FlexCel recalculating the file (which was the default before). So if your file can't be recalculated by FlexCel because for example it contains links to other files that don't exist anymore, you can still convert the formulas to the latest calculated values.
New overload of TFlexCelPdfExport.ExportAllVisibleSheets taking a filename. This overload is a shortcut for creating a filestream, calling BeginExport on the stream, then calling ExportAllVisibleSheets and then calling EndExport.
Better performance when opening csv files. The speed in opening CSV files can be up to 10 times faster now.
Support for ShrinkToFit attribute in cells when exporting to pdf/html/svg/images/printing/previewing. Now the ShrinkToFit attribute of cells is rendered when exporting, and will show in printing, previewing and exporting.
Support for adding horizontal scrollbars with the API. There is a new property in TSpinProperties which allows to specify if the scrollbar is horizontal. APIMate will report how to do it from a horizontal scrollbar in Excel.
<#IF> tag in reports can now omit the false section. You can now write a tag like <#if(true;hi)> instead of <#if(true;hi;)>
Better chart rendering for xls files. Now the labels overflow in a way similar to Excel, and FlexCel calculates the chart axis positions so t won't overflow.
Performance tweaks on the codebase. We changed the hash algorithm used by FlexCel from Lookup3 to Mumur3, added direct overloaded functions to enter strings and numbers into cells, and many other small tweaks that should make FlexCel a little faster overall.
The file created by TXlsFile.NewFile(n, TExcelFileFormat.v2016) now is in the Excel "January update" format. The "January update" of Excel 2016 added some new fonts to the themes and changed the build id of a default empty file. Now the empty files that FlexCel generates when you specify v2016 include those new fonts in the themes. The build id had already been updated in a previous FlexCel release.
Bug Fix. When exporting xls bar and column charts with a single data series and "Vary colors per point" = true, FlexCel was not changing the colors on each point.
Bug Fix. When copying sheets with data validations to other files, and the data validations would refer to a list in a different sheet, the data validation would be copied wrong.
Bug Fix. When rendering conditional formats in xls files sometimes the background color could be ignored.
Bug Fix. When importing fixed text with blank lines, the file might not be imported on its totality.
Bug Fix. The constructor of TBlipFill wasn't public.
Bug Fix. TXlsFile.DpiForImages would be ignored in some metafiles.
Support for the new functions introduced in the Excel 2016 January Update. Now FlexCel can recalculate and recognize the 6 new functions introduced in the Excel 2016 January Update : TEXTJOIN, CONCAT, IFS, SWITCH, MINIFS, MAXIFS.
Updated the RecalcVersion for Excel 2016 to the Excel 2016 January Update. The january update of Excel 2016 changed the RecalcVersion id saved in the xls and xlsx files. This means that xls or xlsx files saved with Excel 2016 "pre-january-update" would ask for saving when opened and closed in Excel 2016 "post january update". Now when you choose the RecalcVersion in FlexCel to be 2016, FlexCel will identify the file as saved by "post-january-update" Excel 2016. This will avoid the save dialog when opening in Excel 2016 with all the updates.
New value in TRecalcVersion: "TRecalcVersion.LatestKnownExcelVersion" will identify the file saved by FlexCel as the latest Excel version that FlexCel knows about. If you set xls.RecalcVersion to be TXlsRecalcVersion.LatestKnownExcelVersion then FlexCel will identify the file as saved by the latest Excel version it is aware of. Currently this means the files will be identified as saved by Excel 2016 january update. When newer Excel versions appear and FlexCel is updated to support them, then this version will automatically increase to the latest without needing to modify your source code.
New property UsedZoom in TOneImgExportInfo. The property UsedZoom will tell you the actual zoom that is going to be used when printing or exporting the sheet. So you now can call TFlexCelImgExport.GetFirstPageExportInfo and get the zoom of the pages that will be printed, including the zoom calculated for print to fit if set.
Improved compatibility with invalid xls and xlsx files. Now FlexCel will fix files which have an invalid active sheet stored, and set the active sheet to the first in those cases.
Improved compatibility with thid party xlsx files. FlexCel will now understand xlsx files which use absolute references like $A$3 in cell value addresses. Note that Excel never writes absolute references in the cell values addresses, but some third parties might. Now you will be able to read those files too.
Bug Fix. When exporting sheets with multiple print ranges, and those print ranges had different zoom (due to having a PrintToFit zoom), FlexCel could raise an error. Now, similar to Excel, it will calculate the smallest zoom needed for all the ranges, and use that in all the print ranges.
Bug Fix. Formatted tags inside autoshapes would lose their format when replaced in a report.
Bug Fix. Rendering of images in headers and footers in xlsx files could be wrong if the sizes in the file were in mm.
Bug Fix. A report without any tags in cells, but with tags inside shapes would not replaces those tags.
Bug Fix. Empty Default values in tags inside reports weren't working. So if you wrote "<#Db.SomeFieldThatDoesn'tExist;>" in a template, then an exception would be raised to tell the field didn't exist. Now it will correctly set the value to empty since it has a semicolon (;) meaning an empty default value at the end of the tag.
Now TReportValue converts automatically from an Extended floating point type. Now you can write something like Report.SetValue(10.2) without converting the extended 10.2 into a double first.
New methods OffsetRelativeFormula and RecalcRelativeFormula in TExcelFile. Those new methods allow you to know the real value of a relative formula, such as those returned by names and data validations. Relative formulas depend on the cell the cursor is, so if the cursor moves the formula changes. As FlexCel doesn't have a cursor, it always returns the formulas considering the cursor at A1. With OffsetRelativeFormula you can get how the formula would look like when the cursor is at for example B3, and with RecalcRelativeFormula you can recalculate the formula and get the result when the cursor is at B3.
Support for quoted column names in reports. Now you can quote a column name inside a tag in a report, like <#"db.column ) "> This can be useful if you have column names with for example unbalanced parenthesis. Note that you don't need to quote the name if it has balanced parenthesis.
Bug Fix. In some cases when opening an xls file with existing formats, and calling AddFormat for a format already present in the file, FlexCel would fail to realize the format already existed and create a new one. This could lead to having more formats than the number allowed by Excel if you opened a file, added existing formats and save it a lot of times.
Bug Fix. When <#including> subreports inside FlexCel Reports with the RC option, empty row formats would be copied to non empty row formats.
Bug Fix. ActiveX controls with a size larger than an Int32 would raise an Exception when loading.
Bug Fix. Bidirectional reports could fill some wrong cells when using multiple master-details in the rows.
Bug Fix. Xlsx files with autofilters could become invalid if you deleted the range which contained the autofilter.
Bug Fix. VLookup and HLookup would return a match if you searched for a blank string ("") and the cell was empty. Excel doesn't return a match in those cases, and now FlexCel doesn't either.
Bug Fix. Double bordered lines could render wrong when the zoom was big (about 200% or more)
Bug Fix. Some invalid formulas including more than one "=" sign in a not valid location, like "=1 + =1" didn't throw an Exception when you tried to manually enter them, and would raise the exception later when trying to save. Now FlexCel will report those formulas as invalid when you try to enter them.
Bug Fix. Components in the palette would show only as Win32compatible for Delphi XE6 or newer, even if they were compatible with all platforms. Now they show correctly
Bug Fix. DISTINCT tag in Reports could fail in Delphi 64 bits.
Copy to the clipboard now supports html. Now there is an extra option in the formats to be copied to the clipboard: In addition to native xls (best for copying from one spreadsheet to another) and text (for apps that don't understand anything else), now you can also copy as html, which gives the best results when pasting a spreadsheet in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. You can copy to html either using XlsFile.CopyToClipboardFormat or FlexCelHtmlExport.ExportToClipboardFormat.
Bidirectional Reports. Now you can create ranges in shape of a cross that expand to the right and down at the same time. While you could do this before by splitting one of the ranges in 3, now you can directly intersect the ranges and get the correct result. Take a look at the new Bidirectional Reports demo and the documentation in the report designer guide.
Breaking Change: FlexCelFormatSettings methods now need a "Locale String" as a parameter. This locale string is used to know the sort order of the locale, to allow correct sorting. Now calls to methods like TFlexCelFormatSettings.SetGlobalFormat(fmt) will be like TFlexCelFormatSettings.SetGlobalFormat('en-US', fmt)
Changed default fallback fonts in pdf. Windows 10 doesn't come with MS Mincho or MS Gothic installed by default (you need to manually install the language packs to get the fonts). So now FlexCel looks for both MS Mincho/Gothic (for windows older than 10), and YuMincho/Gothic for Windows 10.
The tags <#List>, <#DbValue> and <#Aggregate> can now work inside nested Array/Linq datasets. Now when you have a master detail relationship where the detail is a property of the master, FlexCel can find the master dataset for the <#List>, <#DbValue> and <#Aggregate> even when they are not added with AddTable.
New property XlsFile.DocumentProperties.PreserveModifiedDate. FlexCel by default sets the modified date of the files it saves to the date when the file was saved. But if you want to change this date to an arbitrary date, then you can set PreserveModifiedDate to true.
FlexCel will now set the creation and modification date in xls files too. Now Creation and Modification dates are stored in xls files, same as they already were in xlsx.
FlexCel will now allow you to set the file creator for xlsx files. By default, files created by FlexCel are identified as created by FlexCel in the document properties. Now you can change the application creator by writing xls.DocumentProperties.SetStandardProperty(TPropertyId.NameOfCreatingApplication, "SomeNewCreator")
Bug fix. LastModifiedDateTime wasn't returned correctly for xlsx files.
Bug fix. FlexCelPreview could get too slow if you had thousands of merged cells.
Bug fix. Macros converted from xls files to xlsx could fail to open in Excel 2016 in some border cases.
Bug fix. Nested <#aggregate> or <#list> tags could fail for reports using TDataSet as datasources.
Improved support for C++ builder FMX. Now FlexCel should work better in FMX C++ cross platform applications.
Improved setup. Now you can opt to not compile Debug dcus when installing FlexCel. This will disable the possibility to debug FlexCel code, but it will install twice as fast and use half the disk space.
Improved Getting Started document. Now GettingStarted shows actual code examples on how to do simple tasks and contains links to all documentation.
Support for new Excel 2016 features. While old FlexCel versions will still work fine with Excel 2016 (as expected), FlexCel now provides support for new extra features in Excel 2016. Now XlsFile.NewFile allows to create files like Excel 2016 creates by default. Also XlsFile.RecalcVersion has a 2016 option to tag your files as created by Excel 2016 so Excel 2016 doesn't ask for saving when closing them.
Improved installation speed. We have refactored the code to make it easier for the Delphi compiler to compile it. This lead to about 10 times faster compile times, which mean the setup will install FlexCel in about 1/10 of the time it used before.
Improved support for DataValidations that have lists with cells from other sheets. DataValidations with lists of cells from other lists were introduced in Excel 2010, and while FlexCel preserved them, it wouldn't modify them when inserting or deleting ranges. They wouldn't either be reported by the API. Now they are modified and also reported by the API, just like all the other data validations.
Slicers for Pivot Tables are now preserved in xlsx. Now FlexCel will preserve the slicers for pivot tables present in xlsx files. This is a feature available only in Excel 2010 or newer, so you won't see them in older Excel versions, but the generated files will still open without errors.
Excel 2010 equations are now preserved in xlsx. Now FlexCel will preserve the new equations in Excel 2010 (Ribbon->Insert->Equation)
Center across selection cells are now exported to html. Now html export will export cells marked as "center across selection", same as exporting to pdf or other exports already did.
Improved exporting of superscripts and subscripts to html. Now superscripts and subscripts are exported better to html files.
Full support for formulas attached to textboxes or autoshapes. Now FlexCel will preserve and convert betwen xls and xlsx textboxes or shapes which have their text linked to a formula. If you modify the linked cell, the text in the textbox will change.
New methods XlsFile.SheetID and XlsFile.GetSheetIndexFromID. Those new methods can be used to identify a sheet in a FlexCel session and get it back later. Note that as this ID is not saved in the file, it will change every time you load a new file and so it can only be used in a single session.
Data validations entered manually in xls files could fail to work when opened in Excel. In some border cases, Excel would report all values as invalid for a data validation entered with FlexCel, even if the values were valid. This only applied to xls files.
Now FlexCel can open xlsx files with images with the wrong image type. If an xlsx file now contains for example a png but it is declared as jpg, now FlexCel will open it as a png anyway. This will only happen with corrupt files or files generated by incorrect third-party products.
Improved =RoundUp and =RoundDown compatibility with Excel. Now when a number is just a delta over the integer part (like in 345.00000000000006) it will not be rounded up to the next integer (346) but to the nearest (345). Excel works this way, so RoundUp/Down in FlexCel could be returning different (if correct) results for those border cases.
Error when deleting rows in a pivot table. When deleting rows in a pivot table in an xlsx file, the rows could go negative creating invalid files.
Bug Fix. FlexCel could fail to load the recalculated value of formulas whose result was an empty string in xlsx files.
Bug Fix. Reports could fail with some combination of format row tags
Bug Fix. Xlsx files with 0 bytes xml files inside could throw an "Invalid XML file" error.
Improved compatibility with third-party tools. Workaround for some tags not understood by other third-party tools, and now we can read files missing some required records.
Rad Studio 10 Seattle support. Includes support for the new C++32 compiler, and all demos have been revised to support High DPI. APIMate also supports High DPI now.
Support for opening xls versions from 2 to 4. As FlexCel already supported xls 5 and up and Excel 1 doesn't exist for Windows, this completes the support for all versions of xls. While xls versions from 2 to 4 aren't in wide use, they are still used by other third-party libraries.
Enhanced High DPI Support in FlexCelPreview. Now FlexCelPreview supports High DPI in Windows, besides iOS or OSX as it already did.
Breaking Change: Property Resolution in FlexCelPreview has been removed. The property Resolution of FlexCelPreview has been removed because now FlexCelPreview automatically adjusts to the resolution of the monitor.
Full support for background images in a sheet. XlsFile adds two new methods to deal with background images in a sheet: SetSheetBackground and GetSheetBackground. Background images are now converted between xls and xlsx. ApiMate will also report the code to add a background image to a sheet. A new property ExportSheetBackgroundImages allows you to print or export the background images. (note that Excel never prints the background images, so this property is false by default)
Full support for manipulating Custom XML parts with XlsFile. The new methods CustomXmlPartCount AddCustomXmlPart, GetCustomXmlPart and RemoveCustomXmlPart in XlsFile allow for reading and writing the custom xml files of an xlsx files, as explained here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb608618.aspx
ApiMate will now show how to enter custom xml parts in an xlsx file.
New property for PDF files: InitialZoomAndView. The new InitialZoomAndView property allows you to specify the initial page and zoom when opening the document.
New property for PDF files: PageLayoutDisplay. The new PageLayoutDisplay property allows you to specify if to display one or two pages, and continuous scrolling or one page at a time when opening the document.
Two new modes for PDF files PageLayout. Now generated PDF files can use a PageLayout of TPageLayout.OptionalContent to show the optional content panel, or TPageLayout.AttachmentPanel to show the attachments panel.
New property ScreenScaling in XlsFile. This new property allows you to workaround Excel bugs when working in high dpi displays. For more information read https://www.tmssoftware.com/site/blog.asp?post=311
Better handling of stored numbers in xlsx. Now numbers are saved in xlsx with a roundtrip format, which ensures the number we write in the file is exactly the same number that will be read.
Ability to <#insert> empty names in reports. Now when you use the <#include> tag in a report, you can leave the name to include empty. This will mean to insert all the used range in the active sheet.
New overload for XlsFile.DeleteRange. There is a new option for XlsFile.DeleteRange, which will clear the cells but not the formats on it: It will behave similar to when you press "Delete" in a range of cells in Excel.
New property ExportEmptyBands in FlexCelReport. ExportEmptyBands replaces the existing ExportEmptyRanges property which has been deprecated. It allows you to choose between 3 possibilities when the data table has 0 records: Delete the range and move cells up, clear the data and format of the range, or clear only the data.
Bug Fix. Now FlexCel will make sure the xml declaration in the custom xml parts added with AddCustomXmlPart have the same encoding as the encoding being used to store the file.
C++ builder support for Android and iOS. Now we ship the needed hpp files to compile from C++ builder in Android and iOS
Bug Fix. Added workarounds for bugs in XE8 iOS64 compiler. Some things weren't working properly in iOS 64 bits.
Bug Fix. Xlsx files with external formulas referring to other sheets starting with a number weren't quoted, and Excel would report an error when opening those files.
Bug Fix. FlexCel would fail to load files with formulas which pointed to tables in other files with the new table formula syntax.
Breaking Change: Improved lookup tag in reports. The <#lookup> tag in reports has been rewritten to be faster and behave better. IF you are defining your own VirtualDataSets and overriding the Lookup function you might need to rewrite it, as parameters changed. But with the new base lookup implementation that is now available for all, you might just remove the override and use the base.
Bug Fix. Subtotal function could recalculate wrong in border cases.
SPLIT Datasets in Reports can now be used as datasets for sheets. This allows you to overflow a report into multiple sheets. When the data in a sheets reaches the maximum of the split, it will continue in a different sheet. A new sample "Overflow sheets" shows how to do it.
Copy to clipboard wasn't working in Excel 2013. We modified the clipboard format so now it is working.
Bug Fix. When inserting or deleting columns, array formulas located in other sheets might not update to take in account those changed rows or columns.
Bug Fix. Sometimes when moving a range array formulas which pointed to that range might fail to update.
Bug Fix. Some functions with array arguments could not be calculated correctly when the formula was not an array formula.
Mobile demos for XE8 were separated from XE7. Now we have separate XE7 and XE8 firemonkey mobile demos, because by using the XE7 demos in XE8 there was no easy way to add iOS64 as a target.
Bug Fix. The lookup tag introduced in 6.6.32 could fail if the lookup value was a tag in the template
Bug Fix. The functions SumIfs, AverageIfs and CountIfs could give wrong results in some cases.
Bug Fix. When rendering a chart with an image inside, there could be an exception.
Bug Fix. Images inside charts with negative coordinates weren't rendered.
Bug Fix. Now scatter charts behave like Excel, and if any of the x-axis values is a string, it will be rendered as a line chart instead.
Bug Fix. XlsFile.SetAutoRowHeigth wouldn't work if the row was empty.
Bug Fix. The tag <#db.*> wasn't working in reports from TList<> . Now <#db.*> will only output public or published properties of the class, not the methods.
Bug Fix. Chart rendering now renders charts where all values are 0.
Bug Fix. Chart rendering now respects the label positions next to axis, high and low.
Bug Fix. ExportEmptyBands introduced in 6.6.25 wouldn't work in detail reports.
Bug Fix. In some cases when generating reports and exporting them to pdf directly without saving them as xls/x, there could be a range check error.
Bug Fix. Tabs inside text in autoshapes now will render as 8 spaces. (note that we don't use the tab definitions from the autoshape, so this is an approximation)
Breaking Change: Bug Fix. Implemented a workaround for bad GDI+ header files in Delphi which could cause crashes in 64 bit. Now you need to pass a NativeInt (or ULONG_PTR) instead of a Cardinal (or ULONG) to FlexCelDllInit and FlexCelDllShutdown, if you are using those methods.
Bug Fix. When exporting to bitmaps, the bitmaps where a little bigger than the page size
Bug Fix. Sometimes the TFlexCelPreviewer component could show wrong borders when showing all sheets.
Bug Fix. TUIImage.ToNativeImage didn't work in FireMonkey.
Improved compatibility with invalid xlsx files generated by third parties. FlexCel can now read some invalid formulas written in xlsx by other third-party products.
Rad Studio XE8 support. FlexCel now supports Rad Studio XE8
iOS 64 bit support. FlexCel now supports the new iOS 64 bit platform introduced in XE8.
New property SheetView in XlsFile allows you to set the page view mode and zoom for each mode. Now you can see or set the page view mode in a sheet (normal, page layout or page break preview). You can also specify the zoom for each of the modes. As usual, APIMate will show you the syntax.
New property LinksInNewWindow for FlexCelHtmlExport and FlexCelSVGExport. When you set LinksInNewWindow to true, both FlexCelHtmlExport and FlexCelSVGExport will export the hyperlinks in the file to open in a new window.
Links to local files and to current workbook are now exported in TFlexCelHtmlExport. Now links to local files or other cells in the current workbook are exported to html. This allows for navigating inside a file. Links in the current workbook work even when exporting to different tabs.
Breaking Change: XlsFile.AddImage(row, col, TUIImage) now takes in account the declared image dpi. Now if you are calling AddImage without specifying the dimensions, FlexCel will use the dimensions corrected by the dpi declared by the image. This is the same way Excel works. In previous FlexCel versions we always assumed a 96dpi image.
Rendering of error bars in xls charts. Now when exporting to pdf/html/etc, FlexCel will draw error bars. All modes (StdErr, StdDev, fixed, percent, custom) are supported.
Improved display of line charts. Now colors and sizes of lines in xls charts will be read from the new xlsx records on it if they exist. This leads to a more faithful rendering, because the xlsx records have extra information, like for example a line width that isn't restricted to 4 sizes.
TXlsNamedRange.GetRanges is now public and documented. GetRanges will return an array with the ranges composing a name. So if you for example have a name with the range "1:1, A:A", GetRanges will return an array with 1:1 and A:A. This method can be used to parse the PRINT_TITLES range.
Improved display of markers in charts. Now markers in charts render much more alike Excel 2013, with the new options for images, etc.
Bug fix. XlsFile.FillPageHeaderOrFooter could return an extra "&" character at the end in some cases.
Improved Setup. Now the registered setup includes the binary dcus for the latest Delphi version (XE7 at the time of writing this), resulting in a much faster setup for those users.
New UsePrintScale property in FlexCelHtmlExport. If you set the new property FlexCelHtml.UsePrintScale to true, then the exported html will use the scaling of the printed sheet instead of being exported at 100% zoom.
Bug fix. Some JPEG images weren't recognized as such.
Bug fix. Reports might not read expression values when tags had a default value, like <#value;0>
Improved APIMate. Now APIMate produces better Delphi and C++ code.
Bug fix. Sometimes FlexCel could fail to load an xlsx file with different images with the same extension but different case (like image1.png and image2.PNG)
Fixed linking in C++ builder 32bits when using FlexCelReport and not runtime packages. We added a workaround for bug: http://qc.embarcadero.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=99647 (Rad Studio < XE6). Now it should be possible to link FlexCelReport in C++ builder 32bit apps.
New parameters in FlexCelPdfExport.AfterGeneratePage and BeforeGeneratePage events. The new parameters are the XlsFile being exported, the FlexCelPdfExport component doing the export, and the current sheet.
Improved RecoveryMode. Now FlexCel can recover more types of wrong files when RecoveryMode is true.
New "Features" demo for reports. This demo shows how to load images on demand in a report, and other interesting things like how to use a SheetSelector.
When drawing xls charts, we now use the options for not plotting empty cells. This option was introduced in Excel 2007, and FlexCel was ignoring it. Now if you choose not to ignore hidden rows or columns, the chart will render as expected.
New method XlsFile.RemoveUserDefinedFunction. XlsFile.RemoveUserDefinedFunction allows to unregister a previously registered UDF for recalculation.
Breaking Change: Now when drawing chart labels that have N/A! error as result, FlexCel won't draw them. Excel 2003 or older is different in the way it draws #NA! errors in chart labels from Excel 2007 or newer. In older Excel versions, the label would just draw as #NA!. In newer Excel versions, it doesn't draw. To be consistent with more modern Excel versions, now FlexCel won't draw them either when exporting to pdf or html.
Now FlexCelDocExport is compatible with C++ builder. Now you can use the mobile component FlexCelDocExport in C++ builder mobile applications.
Bug fix. In some cases, when pasting a file with autofilters from Excel you could get a range error. This is because Excel copies the filter in its totality and part of the filter might be outside the range copied. Now FlexCel will resize the autofilter if it extends beyond the copied range.
Bug fix. FlexCelReport might not filter datasets in the config sheet when they were the master.
Fixed memory leak in FlexCelReports that happened when some Exceptions were raised. In some cases where an exception happened in a particular place while generating a report, there could be a memory leak.
Support for recalculating 31 new functions introduced in Excel 2013. Support has been added for: DAYS, ISOWEEKNUM, BITAND, BITOR, BITXOR, BITLSHIFT, BITRSHIFT, PDURATION, RRI, ISFORMULA, SHEET, SHEETS, IFNA, XOR, FORMULATEXT, COT, ACOT, COTH, ACOTH, CSC, CSCH, SEC, SECH, ARABIC, BASE, DECIMAL, COMBINA, PERMUTATIONA, MUNIT, UNICHAR, UNICODE
Subtotal command in XlsFile. There is a new command xls.SubTotal(...) which works the same as the command "Subtotal" in the Excel Ribbon, "Data" tab. While you shouldn't use this when creating new files, it can be useful for formatting old files. For new files, it is best to just create the subtotals in place.
New option "ExcelLike" in XlsFile.Sort. Now when doing a XlsFile.Sort command you can choose between the correct way to handle formulas (this was the only option before) or the "Excel" way of handling formulas, where references are not updated when a row is moved of place in the sort. The ExcelLike mode doesn't adapt formulas that reference those rows, but it can be much faster for tens of thousands of records.
New methods IsRowMarkedForAutofit and IsColMarkedForAutofit in XlsFile. The new methods will return true if a row or column was marked for autofit.
New property ExcelFile.AllowEnteringUnknownFunctionsAndNames. If you set this property to true, you will be able to enter unknown functions inside formulas, like "=SomeText()". Excel will show the result as a #NAME! error. When this property is false (the default) FlexCel will raise an Exception if the name is not know, which is better to detect misspells.
New properties XlsFile.RecalcVersion and FlexCelReport.RecalcVersion. This new properties allow you to specify the Excel version that last calculated the file. If you set it to for Example Excel 2010, any Excel newer than Excel 2010 will recalculate the file on open, and ask for saving changes when you close the file. Excel 2010 or older won't recalculate the file on open. If you want every version of Excel to recalculate on open set this property to AlwaysRecalc (the default). Look at the API developers guide for more information.
Breaking Change: XlsFile.RecalcForced and FlexCelReport.RecalcForced properties have been removed. RecalcForced used a way to make files recalculate on open which has been deprecated in newer versions of Excel, and will cause validation errors with the generated files. For this reason, RecalcForced wasn't doing anything in the last couple of years.
Look at the new RecalcVersion property if you were using RecalcForced and want new not deprecated way to create files which Excel will recalculate on open.
Included reports can now reference the formats of the parent report. Now an included report can reference the formats of the parent report, same way as it can reference the expressions.
New overloads of XlsFile.GetObjectProperties and XlsFile.GetObjectAnchor that take an object path. This new methods allow you to access the properties and anchor of an object by specifying its name, as in Xls.GetObjectAnchor(-1, "@MyObject")
Autofitting columns with 90 degree rotation would work always as if the column had "Wrap text" enabled. When autofitting columns which had a rotation of 90 degrees, FlexCel would always try to wrap the text so it fitted in many lines, even if the cell wasn't set to wrap. Now it will only do this if the cell has "Wrap text" on.
Pivot tables in xlsx are now copied when you copy sheets. Now if you InsertAndCopySheet(...) a sheet with a pivot table from an xlsx file, the table will be copied. (pivot tables in xls were already copied)
Unknown names in formulas now return #NAME! instead of #NA!. Now when a formula references a name that doesn't exist, FlexCel will return #NAME! as the formula result, instead of #NA! as it used to do.
Bug Fix. When using a user-defined function twice with a FlexCel Report, the memory would be freed twice.
Bug fix. When setting the text of an object using SetObjectText the font might not be preserved.
Bug fix. When changing the font in HtmlFont event in TFlexCelHtmlExport there could be an Exception.
Bug fix. RoundUP and RoundDown functions could return the same number and not the rounded up number in some cases when the number of digits was negative.
Bug Fix. Rendering some files with thousands of hidden columns could take too long.
Improved C++ Builder support. Some public interfaces didn't define a GUID, and that made them unusable from C++ Builder. Now all public interfaces define a GUID.
Hidden rows could sometimes count when finding the maximum used column in the sheet. When printing or exporting an xls/x file, a hidden row with columns outside the printing range could in some cases cause the maximum column to be that in the hidden row, which wouldn't be printed.
Improved compatibility with invalid xls files. Now FlexCel can read some more invalid xls files created by third parties.
Sheet names aren't always quoted when returning formula text. In older FlexCel versions, the sheet was always quoted in formulas. So if you retrieved for example the formula in A1, it could be 'Sheet1'!A2. Now we quote the sheet only if needed, same as Excel does. So we would return Sheet1!A2 instead.
New convenience constructor for XlsFile which takes a Stream. Now you can create an XlsFile and open a stream in a single operation, without having to first create the XlsFile and then call xls.Open.
Improved error message when opening files with 0 bytes. Now when opening files with 0 bytes or streams with the position at the end, FlexCel will say a clear message instead of saying that the file format isn't Excel or newer.
New properties TFlxConsts.MaxRowCount and TFlxConsts.MaxColCount. Those properties return TFlxConsts.Max_Rows + 1 and TFlxConsts.Max_Columns + 1 respectively. Max_Rows and Max_Columns were zero based, so for example Max_Rows return 65535 for xls and not 65536 which is the row count. The new properties return the one-based maximum, which makes it simpler to work in the one-based FlexCel API.
Reports. FlexCel for VCL has now a fully featured reporting engine, similar to the already available in FlexCel.NET. You can now generate files by writing tags in Excel and having FlexCel replace those tags for you. Take a look to the over 30 new demos in the "Reports" section.
New Setup doesn't modify system path. The setup will now create symbolic links to the FlexCel BPLs from the FlexCel folder to the Delphi BPL folder, so Windows can find FlexCel BPLs. Windows path won't be modified anymore.
New MigratingFromFlexCel3.pdf document. The new document explains in detail what is needed to migrate from FlexCel 3.
New unit FlexCel.Core to make easier to share VCL/FireMonkey code. Before this version, you had 2 different units: VCL.FlexCel.Core and FMX.FlexCel.Core which you had to use depending in the platform. Now, while you still need to use at least once FMX.FlexCel.Core or VCL.FlexCel.Core (it might be in your main project), in all the other units you can use the platform agnostic "FlexCel.Core", and avoid using IfDefs.
Breaking Change: Now the result of ShapeOptions.Text is a TDrawingRichString instead of a TRichString. In order to allow more customizability in the text of shapes and objects, we had to move the text property from a TRichString (which is used for cells, and in xls was also used for objects) to a TDrawingRichString (Which in xlsx offers more possibilities to customize the text). As there is an automatic conversion from a TDrawingRichString to a TRichString, most code will just keep working. But there might be some cases (like functions where you pass a var parameter) where you will need to change the types form TRichString to TDrawingRichString in order to compile.
Better support for preserving autoshape text in xlsx. Now when you change the text of an autoshape in xlsx, the existing properties of the text will be preserved.
Support for reading and writing a cell's text direction (RTL, LTR or Context). Now you can specify the text direction in a cell, and APIMate will show you how to do it. The FlexCel rendering engine also now supports better RTL code (still without providing official RTL support, it is better in this version and usable in most cases)
Support reading the number of horizontal and vertical page breaks in a sheet. Two new properties: XlsFile.HPageBreakCount and XlsFile.VPageBreakCount return the count of page breaks in a sheet.
Bug Fix. XlsFile.LastFormattedCol returned the last formatted column - 1. Now it is returning the correct number.
Bug Fix. Rendered xls charts could show an extra line in some corner cases with missing data.
Bug Fix. FlexCel would fail to read CDATA sections in tags written by third-party tools.
Bug Fix. Macro references in buttons could be copied wrong when copying sheets.
Bug fix. When copying a range of cells to another sheet which included formulas introduced in Excel 2007 or newer there could be an error when saving as xls.
Bug Fix. FlexCel enforced a maximum of 1023 manual page breaks for xls but not for xlsx. Now We also check that the generated xlsx files don't have more than 1023 manual page breaks, since that would crash Excel.
Bug Fix. FlexCel used to embed a resourcestring of a single quote " which was crashing the localizer in Delphi. Now we include it as a constant.
Rad Studio XE7 Support. Rad Studio XE7 is now supported. FireMonkey demos have been rewritten to use the new FireUI designer.
PDF/A support. FlexCel can now export to PDF/A-1, PDF/A-2 and PDF/A-3 files. A new property FlexCelPdfExport.PdfType determines if the file is a standard PDF or the version of PDF/A.
Breaking Change: Generated PDF files are now tagged by default. The files generated by FlexCel are now tagged by default, as tagging is an accessibility requirement. Tagged PDF files are bigger than normal files so in order to try to get smaller files FlexCel uses now features available only in Acrobat 7 or newer. To go back to generating untagged files you can set FlexCelPdfExport.TaggedPdf = false. To go back to creating files compatible with Acrobat 5 or newer, set FlexCelPdfExport.PdfVersion = TPdfVersion.v14
Breaking Change: Generated PDF files are now compatible with Acrobat 7 or newer. In order to reduce the size of the tagged pdf files that FlexCel now creates by default, FlexCel now generates files that need Acrobat 7 or newer to open. To go back to creating files compatible with Acrobat 5 or newer, set FlexCelPdfExport.PdfVersion = TPdfVersion.v14. Note that as PDF/A-1 requires compatibility with Acrobat 5 or newer, when exporting PDF/A-1 FlexCel will use v14 automatically. PDF/A-2 and 3 don't require v14, so it isn't used by default for those formats.
Breaking Change: Generated PDF files now embed the fonts by default. Now the default value of FontEmbed in FlexCelPdfExport and PdfWriter is TFontEmbed.Embed. While this will create slightly bigger files, they will show fine everywhere, including mobile devices which might not have the fonts. You can revert to the old behavior by changing FontEmbed to be TFontEmbed.None.
Breaking Change: FlexCel will throw an Exception when trying to embed a font that doesn't have a license allowing embedding. FlexCel will now check that the embedded fonts in PDF have a license that allows embedding. You can revert to the old behavior by setting UnlicensedFontAction = TUnlicensedFontAction.Ignore, in case you have an agreement with the Font author. You can also set UnlicensedFontAction = TUnlicensedFontAction.Replace to replace the unlicensed fonts with a fallback font. FlexCelTrace will alert when replacing or ignoring a font that is not licensed.
Ability to embed files inside the PDF. Now you can embed arbitrary files inside the pdf. This allows for example to ship the original xls/x file inside the pdf. This is supported also in PDF/A-3.
Ability to set the language of the PDF files. You can now set a FlexCelPdfExport.Properties.Language to specify the language of the generated PDF file. Note that the language will be used by text-to-speech engines to read text out loud, so it is recommended to set this property.
PDF properties are now saved in XMP format. PDF properties (like Author, Title, etc.) are now saved in XMP xml format besides the PDF format. XMP is a requirement for PDF/A, and allows other tools that don't understand PDF to read the metadata. Note that the files generated by FlexCel will be now a little bigger due to this metadata, because it can't be compressed.
Ability to embed a Color Profile inside the generated pdf files. You can now set a FlexCelPdfExport.EmbedColorProfile property to embed a color profile in the generated files. Note that as a color profile isn't required and it increases the size of the generated files, this option is false by default. But as it is required by PDF/A, a color profile will be embedded in PDF/A files.
Breaking Change: Now if you don't specify properties for pdf files in FlexCelPdfExport (like Author, Title, etc.), those will be read from the Excel file being exported. If you want to revert to the old behavior, you can set UseExcelProperties = false in FlexCelPdfExport.
New structure StandardMimeType returns the mime types for xls, xlsx, xlsm, pdf, etc. You can use StandardMimeType where you need to specify a mime type for a file generated with FlexCel, instead of having to manually search for the type.
Improved Search and Replace. Now FlexCel preserves better the format of the cells being replaced. A new overload of XlsFile.Replace allows you to specify the format or the values of the replaced cells in a cell by cell basis.
Support for entering names referring to other files using Excel notation. A normal reference to another file has the filename inside brackets, like "[file1.xlsx]Sheet1!A1". But in the case of global names, Excel uses the notation "file1.xlsx!name1", without brackets, which makes it impossible to know if you are entering a name reference to another file (file1.xlsx) or a name reference to the same file, in a sheet named file1.xlsx. FlexCel didn't allow this way to specify the names, and it used to ask for brackets always so you would have to write [file1.xlsx]!name1 to enter the name. Now you can use the same notation as Excel, and FlexCel will allow it as long as you setup a TWorkbook before which includes file1.xlsx.
Support for format strings that specify fractions. Now when using a format string like "??/??" the numbers will be displayed as fractions. For example 0.75 will show as 3/4. All Excel formats for fractions are fully supported.
New constructor for XlsFile allows to specify the Excel version in one step. Now you can create a new file in for example Excel 2010 file format by writing XlsFile xls = new XlsFile(1, TExcelFileFormat.v2010, true); in C# or xls := XlsFile.Create(1, TExcelFileFormat.v2010, true); in Delphi.
New enumeration TExcelFileFormat.v2013. We now provide a specific TExcelFileFormat.v2013 enumeration to create Excel2013 files.
iOS and OS/X previewer compatibility improved. Some xlsx files generated by FlexCel that wouldn't show in iOS/OSX previewer will display now. Xlsx charts now update their caches so the previewer will show them correctly.
TFlxApplyFont as a new StyleEx property that allows for fine control of which styles are applied. Before this release you could only apply the full style of the font or nothing by changing the Style property. Now you can specify individual styles like bold or italics by changing the StyleEx property.
XlsFile.Sort does a stable sort. Now when you sort a range of cells, order will be preserved for items with the same values.
Bug Fix. Local named ranges could lose their sheet when inserting sheets from other file.
Shapes inside charts are now preserved in xlsx files.. Now xlsx charts will preserve the shapes inside.
Improved image rendering. Some files created by third parties could display the images in the wrong position.
Ability to preserve modification date in xlsx files. By default, FlexCel will set the modification date to the date the file was saved. But if you are modifying an existing file and want to preserve the original creation date, you can now do it by setting XlsFile.DocumentProperties.PreserveCreationDate to true.
Better support for Excel 4.0 macro sheets. Files with Excel 4.0 macros should load better.
Bug Fix. XlsFile.Replace might not keep existing cell formats when replacing dates.
Bug Fix. Some files could trigger an AV when deleting comments.
Bug Fix. Chart.DeleteSeries could break the format of the remaining series when called in a serie at the middle of the chart.
Bug Fix. There could be an exception when deleting some ranges of cells with hyperlinks.
Bug Fix. Negative dates when in 1904 mode used to display as ####. Now they display as in Excel (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/182247 ). Note that this is not a logical way to display dates, that is -1 doesn't mean 12/31/1903, but it means "-1/2/1904". Negative dates actually increase as the number get smaller.
Support for UTF16 surrogates when exporting to pdf. Now when exporting to pdf, FlexCel will correctly display UTF16 surrogates. FlexCel already was surrogate-aware in the rest of the codebase.
Support for space (" ") named styles. While Excel won't let you enter a cell style named " ", it will allow you to use it if you manually edit an xlsx file and create it there. To be able to deal with those files, FlexCel will now support reading and writing styles named with a space.
Now when adding controls with linked cells, the linked cells will be modified to match the initial value of the control. Now when adding comboboxes, listboxes or checkboxes linked to a cell, the cell will be modified to match. Note that the change applies to newly created objects, if you change the value of an existing control, the linked cell was always updated in all FlexCel versions that supported changing control states.
Bug Fix. Some xlsx files with charts could enter an infinite loop when loading.
Bug Fix. When replacing rich strings, the rtf runs could be wrong in border cases.
Rad Studio XE6 Support. Now FlexCel supports Rad Studio XE6.
SVG Exporting. A new component, FlexCelSVGExport allows to export xls/x files to SVG. A new example "Export SVG" is included too. SVG files are now supported by all major browsers, desktop and mobile, so you can use them when exporting to html to have resolution independent images.
HTML 5 Exporting. Now FlexCelHtmlExport can export to HTML5/CSS3 as one of the options. When exporting to HTML5 some new capabilities are available.
Improved support for document properties. Full support for setting standard or custom properties in xlsx files. (xls is still read only). A new method XlsFile.DocumentProperties.RemoveAllProperties will allow you to remove all properties in the xls or xlsx files, so you can be sure it doesn't contain unwanted information. A new method XlsFile.DocumentProperties.GetUsedStandardProperties will return a list of the used standard properties in the file. A new method XlsFile.DocumentProperties.SetStandardProperty allows to modify standard properties in xlsx. New methods SetCustomProperty, GetCustomProperty and GetAllCustomProperties allow to manage custom properties.
Document properties will be preserved when opening xls or xlsx files and saving as xlsx, or when opening and saving as xls. They won't be preserved when opening xlsx and saving as xls.
Embed images in HTML files. A new property: FlexCelHtmlExport.EmbedImages allows to embed the images as Data Uris ( http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2397 ) inside the html file. When setting this property to true the generated html file can be self contained, and you don't have to deal with managing the external images.
SVG images in HTML files. Now FlexCelHtmlExport.SavedImagesFormat allows a new possibility: THtmlImageFormat.Svg. SVG is a standard vector image format supported by most modern browsers, and using svg means that high-dpi/retina devices can zoom smoothly in the vector assets of the file, like charts or autoshapes.
TExcelChart.RemoveLegend method. A new method in TExcelChart allows to remove a legend. Note that currently this only works in xls charts, not xlsx.
Improved chart rendering. Now charts will have the frame box with rounded corners if you specify so in Excel.
Improved performance in VLookup. The implementation of the function VLookup is now much faster when searching in an unsorted range.
Improved performance in pdf/html exporting. Many optimizations in the rendering engine.
Improved APIMate. APIMate now shows how to autofit a comment box to the text size, and also how to set properties in xlsx.
Bug fix. Some cells with automatic background colors in xls files could be saved with the wrong color when converting to xlsx.
Bug fix. XlsFile.Find could keep returning the same values in corner cases.
Bug fix. When Inserting an empty sheet locally defined ranges wouldn't update the sheet where they were defined. This happened only with empty sheets, if you inserted a sheet with data it would work fine.
Bug fix. FlexCelPreview could show text as underlined in some third-party generated xlsx files.
Support for preserving PowerPivot tables in xlsx. Now PowerPivot tables will be preserved in xlsx.
New methods FlexCelDllInit and FlexCelDllShutdown. These new methods are designed to be called when you encapsulate FlexCel inside a dll. You need to call them from inside your main application before calling any methods in the dll. They will initialize and shutdown GDI+, as that needs can't be done from the dll itself.
Improved Excel 2013 support. FlexCel could fail to open some complex Excel 2013 xlsx files.
Improved handling of dates between 1900-1-1 and 1900-2-28. Excel considers 1900 to be a leap year, even when it wasn't. ( look at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/214326 ) As FlexCel uses the .NET DateTime which correctly assumes 1900 wasn't a leap year, dates between 1900-1-1 and 1900-2-28 would appear in FlexCel as one day before the dates in Excel. Now FlexCel corrects those dates so they look as in Excel, but the DateTime datatype still doesn't have Feb-29-1900, so that date will still be wrong. It is still advised to not use dates before march-1-1900 when working in Excel.
Support for running in machines with FIPS 140 enabled. Now FlexCel can be used in machines with FIPS 140 policies enforced. ( see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811833 )
Improved rendering of formatted numbers. Some formatting strings (for example "general;-general") were not rendered like Excel.
Improved default font in Headers and footers. In previous versions if no font was specified for the headers or footers, FlexCel would default to Arial. Now it defaults to the normal font in the file.
Support for displaying numbers in Engineering notation. When displaying numbers in Scientific notation, FlexCel would always use normalized notation ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_notation#Normalized_notation ). Now it can also use Engineering notation if the format string specifies it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_notation )
iOS and Android pdf encoding handling. Now FlexCel will create pdf files without using Win1252 encoding, which isn't included by default in Xamarin for iOS or Android.
SheetProtection is copied when copying sheets from one file to another. Now FlexCel will copy the sheet protection when you are copying sheets from other file object.
Bug fix. The rendering engine could fail to draw the top gridline in pages after the first when PrintGridLines was true and you were repeating rows at the top.
Bug fix. When opening xls files with data validations and saving them as xlsx, some relative ranges could point to an incorrect cell range in the xlsx file.
Bug fix. Charts in xlsx files didn't preserve textures.
Bug fix. There was an error when recalculating the =LARGE and =SMALL functions in non contiguous ranges of cells.
Bug fix. GDI+ could fail to work in Windows Server 2008 R1, due to a bug in the VCL.
Bug fix. Sometimes AddFormat() could repeat a format twice in the file.
Bug fix. In certain cases when a macro name had a dot "." on it, FlexCel could fail to open the file.
Improved 3rd party compatibility. Improved generated xls files so they can be loaded by some 3rd party tools.