ESCAPEE 9.00
Features:

1. AFP import is now supported.

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.99
Features:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   
   {+field1=#,,0}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bug Fixes:

1. Transparent white images still marked the page.

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

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

4. Problems with rotated opaque images in PDFs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.98
Features:

1. Improved Configuration dialogue appearance.

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

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

4. Better error messages for some font problems.

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

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

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

8. 8.98E: Faster JPEG reading.

Bug Fixes:

1. Problems with certain rare raster operations.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.97
Features:

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

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

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

4. Better handling of spaces in Postscript font names.

5. Better handling of Symbol fonts in Truetype format.

Bug Fixes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.94
Features:

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

   _DocTitle

   title of the document

   _DocSubject

   subject of the document

   _DocKeywords

   keywords of the document

   _DocAuthor

   author of the document (name of person who created it)

   _DocCreator

   creator of the document (program that created the original document)

   _DocProducer

   producer of the document (program that output the document)

   _DocCreationDate

   creation date of document

   _DocUpdateDate

   last update date of document

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

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

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

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

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

Bug fixes:

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

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

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

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.93
Features:

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

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

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

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.92
Features:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bug fixes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.91
Features:

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

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

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

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

Bug fixes:

1. Slight memory leak when skipping pages in Postscript.

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.90
Features:

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

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

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

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

   
   ESCAPEE filename /PS /PSPREMBLE {RT_XRX}

   
   

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

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

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

   
   ESCAPEE DFA0001 /USING MAILSHOT.RS2 /NQ /X

   
   

Bug fixes:

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

ESCAPEE 8.89
Features:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bug fixes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.88
Features:

1. Improvements to Rich Text formatting.

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

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

4. Improvements to Rich Text formatting.

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

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

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

Bug fixes:

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

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

3. Problem if reload IDF file after a change.

4. Spurious error: too many concurrent users.

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.87
Features:

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

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

3. Improved field markup for IDF export.

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

5. Images can be rotated through any angle.

Bug fixes:

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

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

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

4. Minor problems with composite field syntax.

5. Minor problems with Log file conditional entries.

6. Coloured graphics using raster OP 240.

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

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

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

10. LIDIL graphics only worked at 300 dpi resolution.

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

12. Problem with updating colour palettes.

ESCAPEE 8.86
Features:

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

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

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

Bug fixes:

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

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

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

4. FDL outout failed to recognise duplicate RFF fonts.

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

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

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

8. The parsing of conditional fields was not correct.

9. Nested clip regions did not always work properly.

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

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.85
Features:

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

   A

   all defined fields

   B

   the log file is to contain Bates page numbers

   C

   the log file is to be in comma-separated format

   E

   write a log record at end of file*

   F

   the log file is to contain the filenames

   H

   header-line containing field-names to be omitted from CSV log files

   L

   a new log file is to be generated for each output file

   N

   no log file to be generated

   P

   suppress page numbers in log file (the default if not XML format)*

   #

   include page numbers in log file (the default if XML format)*

   R

   the log file is renamed on completion

   S

   the selected fields

   T

   all text (only applies to log files in text format)

   X

   the log file is to be in XML format

   1

   makes one log file entry for each output file (not each page)

   Options for /SAVE:

   I

   for TIFF output: an individual file is created for each page.

   D

   discard list of files previously created. A new output file will overwrite one of the same name creaed in this run.*

   O

   a suffix of #1, #2 etc. is added to the filename to make it unique if it would overwrite an existing file.*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   
   

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

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

   
   

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

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

Bug fixes:

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.84
Features:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bug fixes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9. Problem with nested clip regions in PDF overlays.

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

ESCAPEE 8.83
Features:

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

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

Postscript import enhancements:

1. Added support for DOS EPS headers.

2. Added support for CMYK ink colours.

3. Better resource support.

4. RESOURCEFORALL now working.

5. undefinefont implemented.

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.82
Features:

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

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

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

Bug fixes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8.82B: Fixes to Postscript import

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

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

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.81
Features:

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

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

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

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

5. PDF import improvements:

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

   2. Warning for use of unimplemented transparency groups.

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

Bug fixes:

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

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

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

4. Fields with multiple occurences did not always work correctly

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

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

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.80
Features:

1. Updates to the Portuguese translations.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bug fixes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.79
Features:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bug fixes:

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.78
Features:

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

   /NP

   number_of_pens

   /CR

   red_low,red_high,green_low,green_high,blue_low,blue_high
   Colour range for each of red, green and blue (used in the PC options below). The default range is 0 to 255.

   /PC1

   red_value,green_value,blue_value for pen 1

   /PC2

   red_value,green_value,blue_value for pen 2

   etc.

   /PW

   pen_width sets the the width of all pens to the specified value in standard HP-GL units of 1/40 mm.

   /PW1

   pen_width for pen 1

   /PW2

   pen_width for pen 2

   etc.

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

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

   
   

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

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

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

   
   /CUSTOM DL,8.4,3.5

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

Bug fixes:

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

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

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

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

ESCAPEE 8.77
Features: