escapee

ESCAPEE 8.63
New features:

There is a new Fields menu containing all the field-related items.
There is now a Document properties window with panels for errors, log file and viewing the source.
The IDF wizard can create multi-column documents and more types of booklet.
When rotating the page there is an option to rotate the extracted text.
CMYK colour is converted via the ICC profile if configured.
Stack size increased for Postscript import.

Bug fixes:

Negative vertical positioning was broken in a recent version.
Problems reading certain types of PDF containing embedded Truetype fonts using control codes.
White objects were counted as non-blank when computing the image size.

ESCAPEE 8.62
Features:

EscapeE can now generate PDF/A format. This is a version of Adobe's Portable Document Format but with various restricions which make it more portable. These include having to include all fonts witin the document, rather than referring to outside fonts. The command-line option is /PDFA
Added a Setup button to the Print dialogue.
Larger paper sizes can be handled by the Epson import DLL.

ESCAPEE 8.61
Features:

Improved Print dialogue - when printing to a file a sensible default output name and there is a Browse button.
Export to Extended Metafile (EMF) allows the metafile to be formatted for the screen or for the currently selected printer.
When images are added using the ADDIMAGE plugin they are held in the cache after the end of the page and will be retained in the printer. The default image cache size is 10 Mbytes but this can be changed by using the command-line option /IMAGECACHE n where n is a number of M bytes or putting IMAGECACHE=n in the [PCLVIEW] section of the RT.INI file.
Improved message box layout when reporting errors.
In IDF TEXT groups the FILL colour can be used to specify a background colour for the box that just bounds the printed text. The PAD values can be used to extend this area but beware of overlap if using multi-line text.
08.61A: A subset of a document can be constructed by defining a series
of page ranges in a file with extension .LOF (List Of Files)e.g.:
"s:\escapee\test\pages.pcl" /pages 2-3 "s:\escapee\test\pages.pcl" /pages 5 "s:\escapee\test\pages.pcl" /pages 9-

If the filename is identical in each line then the file is left open and as long as the pages are specified in ascending order, it is efficient.
08.61B: The Cancel button (a red cross on the toolbar) is now displayed whilst printing, to allow the job to be cancelled.
08.61B: The HP-GL LM (Label mode) command is now implemented for both single- and double-byte modes.
08.61B: In the PDF advanced options there is a check box "Unscaled printing" which sets the default for Acrobat to print without scaling.

Bug fixes:

08.61B: If a font containing only space characters were exported to PDF the bounding box was omitted, causing Acrobat to give a warning message.
08.61B: Under certain circumstances there could be an access protection fault when trying to recognise characters in embedded Truetype fonts.
08.61B: Mispositioning of text could occur when reading a rotated PDF and switching from single-byte to double-byte characters.

ESCAPEE 8.60
Features:

There is a new XML tab in the Field dialogue. This has options to include various extra information in any XML output file:

Include XY coordinates
Include font information
Include graphic field data.
A graphic field is one whose type has been set to "Graphic" in the drop-down list in the Fields Definitions section of the dialogue. Any graphics found in such a field will be converted to PNG images and included in the XML in base64 encoding. The attributes for such a field are:

TYPE="GRA" ENCODING="BASE64" FILETYPE="PNG" X="x coordinate" Y="y coordinate" BITS="colour depth" WIDTH="image width" HEIGHT="image height"

There are also boxes where various items can be specified:

The name of the top-level tag - the default being the stem of the fields file name.
The XSL stylesheet to be specified in the XML output (default none).
The name of the program to be called if the user asks to run the associated program. The default is normally the default browser.
The parameters to be passed to the XML program.

There are two new options for the /TEXT parameter which apply to plain text log files:

C - to show the number of sides output.
E - to show the number of sheets output.
The information is put at the end of the output file. The side count, if requested, is given first: "No pages produced" if nothing has been output, "1 page" or "n pages". Next, if requested, comes the sheet count: "1 sheet" or "n sheets" Note that the words will be translated into the selected language.
There is an extra Text option for text extraction: Minimum space width. This can be expressed as a percentage of the width of the space character or in absolute units. This measurement is used when deciding if two pieces of text are separate words or part of the same word. If the gap is more than this value then one or more spaces will be inserted in the extracted text. The command-line option for this is /SPACEWIDTH n where n may be followed by the % character to indicate it is a percentage, otherwise the current units (inches, cm, dots etc.) are used. The default is 33% of the space width.

ESCAPEE 8.59
Features:

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

White
The display is clipped to the printable area of the page - anything outside this is not shown, so the unprintable area is left white.
Grayed-out
The unprintable region of the page is shown as a gray frame but items falling within it are shown.
If not blank
As for the previous option but the gray frame is only shown if one or more items fall outside the printable area.
The Configuration/Viewing dialogue has a drop-down list with these same options to allow the default viewing mode to be specified and saved.
IDF fields can be defined in terms of other fields, including any special ones such as the time or a value obtained by prompting the user.

Bug fixes:

When using the File/Print scaled menu option and choosing "Print as image" the image was always positioned at the top left of the page.
When using IDF to scale a PCL file there could be problems when moving back to a previous page.
In PCL it was possible to position beyond the bottom of the logical page.
The PCL Set paper source command no longer throws a new page when the source has not changed. Note that this agrees with the action of HP printers but not those of all other manufacturers.

ESCAPEE 8.58
Features:

There is now an "Advanced" button on the PDF options dialogue. This invokes options for JPEG compression and area selection. The area that is exported is now governed by these options regardless of whether the printable region is being viewed or not.
In the image options and PDF "Advanced" options there is an option for trimming to the size of the paper. The options are now:

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

Better algorithm for selection of JPEG compression in PDF export
8.58A: Can now use fields with search tags in pages generated by IDF
8.58B: A change to prevent a white foreground colour interacting with colour raster graphics.
8.58C: Fields can set up links to other PDFs.
8.58C: More accurate display of fields and links when moving the mouse over them.

Bug fixes:

When reading PDFs containing embedded Truetype fonts, characters in the range hex 80-9F were not shown.
Substituting for embedded Truetype fonts in PDFs could lead to problems when exporting.
8.58C: Accessing embedded Truetype fonts in PDFs using the glyph IDs did not always work.

ESCAPEE 8.57
Features

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

A check box "Use data compression", which governs whether data compression is in use at all. If it is, then the JPEG compression items are enabled.
There is a drop down list maked "Use JPEG for images" where a standard value can be chosen or any value in the range 0 to 100% can be typed. 0 means never use JPEG compression for images, 100 means always use it, with the default being 50% which will usually make a sensible choice based on the type of the image. Intermediate values can be used to bias the choice towards or away from JPEG compression.
The "Quantisation quality" box again has a value from 0 to 100% with 50% being the default. A value of 0 quantises the levels very heavily and will result in low quality but highly compressed images. A value of 100% will produce larger images with minimal degradation resulting from the quantisation process.
The "Low resolution colour" box, if checked, causes the colour information to be sampled more coarsely than the luminance, which yields smaller images with some loss of quality.
The "Low colour quantisation" box, if checked, causes the colour levels to be more coarsely quantised than the luminance, again yielding smaller images with some loss of quality.
The reading of PNG, JPEG or BMP images no longer requires the calling of a DLL.

When exporting in DICOM format, any items known to be times are converted from HH:MM;SS to DICOM time format. Dates can be converted from most formats e.g. 12th February 2007, Feb 12 2007 or 12/2/07 (day/month order determined by the locale). For alphabetic month names the language has to be that for which EscapeE has been configured, and must be English, French, Spanish or German at present.
The Fields dialogue now has a Refresh button which re-evaluates the fields whilst the dialogue remains on view. There are also check boxes "Show fields" and "If found" which correspond to the View menu Fields/All and Fields/If found i.e. when viewing a page all the fields are shown outlined in red or just those that have been found on the current page.
Improved OCR plugin: When you configure the plugin it asks

If you want to include the text when exporting (in white under the image).
Leave blank if OCR failure? which leaves the field blank if the OCR fails, rather than giving an error.
If the OCR module is not installed you are asked if you want to simulate it. Replying Yes causes lines to be generated of the forn "Line n of field f". Up to 5 lines are generated so as to fill the field at 1/6" line spacing. Replying No causes the field to be blanked or to contain the error message according to the configuration as mentioned earlier. Clicking Cancel causes an error message box each time OCR is attempted.

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

ESCAPEE TEST.PRN /PRINT D /HP

It is easier to resize fields which are defined by a plugin e.g. when OCRing.
The right click menu has "Copy as IDF" if the RedTitan menu is enabled.
In PDF if a font has no name then the package name is used as its name.
Combining text strings together when creating PDFs could lead to misplaced text.

Bug fixes:

Field values for OCRed text were sometimes not updated.
The clip area was not reset after including a file in an IDF document.
Overflow could occur if a very larg margin setting were used.
In HPGL with label origin mode 18 and rotated coordinates the text was not offset properly.
The point size could be wrong when exporting a PDF using substituted fonts.
Clipped TIFF images in IDF were wrong if there was originally a white border.
When reading a list of files the "Go to end of file" button did not work properly.

ESCAPEE 8.56
Features:

Supports IDF text, line and other drawn items at angles other than multiples of 90 degrees. The IDF syntax now allows for fractional rightangles and there is a DEGREES modifier e.g. e.g. ROTATION="23.5 DEGREES"
Conditional IDF groups are implemented. The syntax of the attribute is
CONDITION="String Operator String" where Operator is one of

=
equal
>
greater than
<
less than
>=
greater than or equal
<=
less than or equal
<>
not equal
and String can be a quoted string or an expression involving EscapeE fields
e.g.

CONDITION = "{FIELD1}='First'"

Note that for technical reasons, the special EscapeE field always returns zero at present. If the condition is not satisfied then the group is not processed. If there are multiple CONDITION attributes then they all have to be true for the group to be processed. The comparison is case-sensitive.
When using "Print scaled" or "Direct print" there is now a combo box to allow the printer to be selected.
The is an option to copy any existing PJLcomments to the output file when exporting to PCL. The command line option is /COMMENTS P
User defined line patterns are supported when reading PDFs.
The /RELOAD option forces EscapeE to reload a file if it changes, rather than asking the user if it should do so.
Field types are supported (but without validation): On the first page of the fields dialog you have a choice of type:

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

If the field type is not 'Any content' then exporting a field to XML adds a TYPE attribute with the value 'ANY','ALPH','ALNUM','NUM','DEC','CUR' ,'DMY','MDY','YMD','TEL','EML' or 'URL' corresponding to the types above.
8.56D: Rotation of images in IDF supported.
8.56E: Added the ability to recognise a rectangular area of a graphic. To set up a field which will search for a part of a graphic just select the area of the graphic by sweeping it out with the mouse, then right-click and choose Define tag.
The selected area of the graphic is extracted, trimmed to remove white space and a hash total is generated. This procedure is carried out for each page of the document and if the hash total matches that of the field then the field is actioned.
To create a tag of a complete graphic simply right-click on it without selecting an area, then choose Define tag. In this case the whole graphic is used when generating the hash total. When processing the document any graphic whose top left corner falls within the target area of the field will have its hash total generated for comparison with that of the field.
In the Fields/Searching Dialogue there is a combo box showing the type of tag: Text, Graphic or Part of a graphic.
8.56F: If "Show blank pages" in the Configuration/viewing menu is not checked then pages containing only spaces are now treated as blank
8.56F: The OCR plugin did not work well for multi-page documents or when extracting multiple lines.
Making a macro from a document that only contained macros did not work properly.

Bug fixes:

The dialogue box asking whether to reload a file after an update could in some cases be underneath the main window.
A spurious selected area could be shown after reloading a file following an update to it.
8.56B: Extra bytes at the end of downloaded characters were not ignored
8.56B: Null graphics could cause wrong positioning of the next item.
8.56D: If including Media commands when exporting to PCL then blank pages caused problems.

ESCAPEE 8.55
Features

The Print menu option defaults to printing the whole file rather than the current page.
8.55D: Can recognise DOS EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) files with binary headers.

Bug fixes:

Problems if exporting 24-bit colour as a full-page graphic.
Using a fields file which specified a header page in conjunctions with a CSV control file caused the first page to be duplicated.
Memory leak when reading untrimmed TIFF images.
PDF fonts using Symbol encodings failed when re-exported.
PDF scaleable fonts were not always listed in "Fonts in use".
8.55A: Problems with re-export of PDFs using embedded Truetype fonts with Symbol encoding and non-standard character codes.
8.55B: the dimensions of the printed area were not calculated correctly when an overlay added by a field exceeded the original bounds.
8.55C: Duplicate PJL comments were not copied to the output file.
8.55C: The reading of PCL XL now does not terminate until 100,000 errors have been encountered rather than 1000 as previously.
8.55D: Alphanumeric IDs were not always propagated into an exported PCL file.

ESCAPEE 8.54
Features:

The OCR plugin can be configured to include the text when exporting.
IDF files can include Rich Text with embedded graphics.
8.54B: There is an option to avoid the overwriting of existing output files. If the box marked "Do not overwrite files" is checked in the Configuration/Automatic dialogue then a suffix of #1, #2 etc. is added to the filename to make it unique. To achieve this effect from the command-line add the letter 'O' to the /SAVE options e.g. /SAVE O
Bug fixes:

When exporting to PDF as a graphic with text also included then the original graphics might also be output to the PDF.
The alignment of certain rotated items in IDF files was wrong.
08.54D: Mixing CMYK and RGB colour in PDFs caused the wrong colour to be shown
08.54D: Colour of text could be wrong in PDF export if differnetly coloured lines were combined together.
08.54D: Multiple entries could be made in the fonts list when readin PDFs that used an unknown font.
08.54E: Action on encountering an invalid number in HP GL was not correct.
08.54E: Problems with temporary fonts on systems running for more than 24 days without a restart.
ESCAPEE 8.53
Features:

Shortcut names for colour spaces are supported when reading PDFs.
In the Configuration/Printer dialogue there is option to rotate graphics if the HPGL RO command has been used.
When reading PDFs any annotations are now shown.
Some improvements to the reading of Epson format.

Bug fixes:

The Postscript diagnostic string feature no longer causes a problem.
Moving fields used to locate IDF elements now works properly.
ESCAPEE 8.52
Features(8.52A):

Implemented Raster Ops in PCL XL
Implemented Merge Control in HP GL.
Added the option "Graphic elements first" to PDF export to export all the graphic elements followed by the text. This can lead to significantly smaller PDFs in cases where the different imaging models of PDF and PCL would otherwise mean that the PDF had to be rendered as a graphic.
Intelligent Document Format now supports generalised borders.
8.52C: When defining composite fields the value of some other
field can be inserted by enclosing the field name in curly brackets e.g.
Dear {name}
If that field name is preceded by ? then a boolean result is generated according to whether the field is found or not, and by default this is converted to 'T' (True) or 'F' (False). There may be an equals sign after
the field name, followed by one or two value strings e.g.
{?field1=Yes,No} {?field1='True value','False value'} {?field1=###,1}
If the field is found then use the first supplied value and if not found then use the second value. If a value is not supplied then 'T' or 'F' are used as before. If the value is not in quotes and consists of a number of # characters then it is a numeric value generated by incrementing the previous value (which is taken as 0 if invalid). If there are n # characters when n > 1 then the number if filled out to n characters with spaces.

Bug fixes:

DICOM RGB colours were wrong if RLE compression was used.
In IDF selection of a fixed pitch font by pointsize could sometimes yield the wrong pitch.
When the configuration is set to ignore images a suitable warning is logged when an image is ignored.
The /NOCACHE option could cause problems when reading Postscript files containing images.
Using the OCR plug to extract text from a sub-field did not work properly.
No error message was given if it was impossible to update the configuration file.
Defining field values on the command line did not work in all circumstances.
Page numbering could go wrong for composite documents driven by a CSV file if the "Remember number for next time" box was checked.
8.52B: When exporting from IDF to PDF the original element order is retained.
8.52B: Problem with caching of PNG images IDF documents.
8.52B: Colour selection problem in IDF after a Rich Text group.
8.52B: HPGL user-defined pattern shade was approximated poorly.

ESCAPEE 8.51
Features:

A composite field of the form {"What is the answer} prompts for an answer and stores it as the field value. The default is to prompt once per file but checking the "action when field changes" in the advanced options causes it to prompt for every page.
When exporting to DICOM format any dates are converted to YYYYMMDD form based on the current locale.
Some improvements to font substitution
PCL XL will honour any PJL DUPLEX commands.

Bug fixes:

PDF contents entries based on composite fields did not work in version 8.50.
In IDF documents the default tray number could be altered by including a PCL file.
The {_ext} special field could sometimes give the extension used by the output file rather than the input file.
8.51A: problem with DICOM run-length compressed colour output.
8.51B: in version 8.51 macro definitions were discarded on encountering a PJL command
ESCAPEE 8.50
It is now possible to use an existing PDF as the basis for an exported PDF
made from IDF format. In the IDF document you specify a PDF file name
as an attribute of the <RTF tag e.g.
<RTF FILENAME ="C:\TEMPLATE.PDF">

This PDF will be taken as the basis for any exported PDF but the pages can be rearranged and amended as required. Note that any unused data remains in the resulting PDF.
The line spacing in Rich Text Format in IDF documents now agrees better with that of Wordpad.
Adding the letter "D" to the print options on the command-line specifies
direct printing, bypassing the driver:
ESCAPEE /PRINT D

Bug fixes:

8.50A: cached graphics were not released when exporting to TIFF and other image formats.
8.50B: PDF passwords were stored wrongly in 8.50.
8.50B: PCL XL tray numbers were not honoured.
8.50B: PJL DUPLEX commands were not honoured.
ESCAPEE 8.49
There is now a the option to print directly, bypassing the Windows driver. Choose the printer using the "Printer Setup" menu then click on File/"Direct print". You will be given a choice of formats: PCL, Postscript, PDF and XPS and it is essential to choose one that is supported by your printer. The output is then formatted by EscapeE and passed directly to the printer.
ESCAPEE 8.48
DICOM import supported. Can right-click on a file and choose Print to print via EscapeE. Composite file names can include / Bug fix: reading Postscript files that use save/restore Added the <INFO tag and <?INFO processing instructions. Default to top,left alignment if trimmed file include Improved support for reading Epson files. Bug fixes: temporary fonts were sometimes not erased when finished with Improvements to Epson import: can configure dpi for 9-pin models; international symbol sets partly supported
ESCAPEE 8.47
DICOM export is now available. DICOM tag values can be defined using fields with names of the form DICOM_xxxxyyyy where xxxx is the hex group number and yyyy is the hex tag. There is a "DICOM name" button on the field definition dialogue near the top left of the screen. This invokes a dialogue where the posssible tags are shown in alphabetic order and also by group and hex value.
Bug fixes:

Floating point fault when exporting a zero-width image to PCL or PDF.
8.47B: In PCL/XL the SetCharSize command with fixed-pitch fonts could sometimes cause the wrong pitch to be used.

ESCAPEE 8.46
Colour profiles are available when processing CMYK images. Enable this from the image configuration dialogue by clicking on "Use ICC profiles" and choose a profile by clicking on "ICC configure".
Simple user-defined patterns are now supported in PCL/XL.
Bug fixes:

Some help buttons did not work with the new .CHM help files
When at end of file it was sometimes necessary to click twice on the "Back" button to go back a page.
The field widths on the status line were sometimes wrong.
When reading PCL/XL the resident font file was used even if it had been disabled.
8.46B: When reading PDFs with some types of embedded CFF font the character widths could lead to unwanted spaces in extracted text.
8.46B: Possible memory leak when clicking on a field.
8.46B: Optimisation of path filling could sometimes truncate paths that started with a rectangle.
ESCAPEE 8.45
Features:

Can handle colour blends in PDFS.
CMYK colours are preserved when reading PDFs.
RasterOps are implemented.

Bug fixes:

Nested clip regions did not always work when exporting back to PDF.
8.45A: A field which asks to omit the first page of output caused the wrong file name to be used.
8.45A: There were problems when exporting to PDF and combining words when including TrueType fonts in the output.
8.45A: Possible problem when changing the library folder definitions.
8.45A: The "Field found at ..." message was displayed in the fields dialogue in some cases when the field was not actually found.
8.45A: The state of the "enable" flag for the resident font library was not preserved.
ESCAPEE 8.44
Features

Dialogues adjusted in size to suit Vista.
Added the /NOCLOSE option not to close the input file when switching to another program. This gets around a problem which could cause the message "Invalid file handle" with some versions of Windows.
Temporary fonts were not always deleted until later.
RasterOP 184 is now supported for simple cases.
8.44C: Truetype fonts are now compressed when embedded in PDFs
8.44C: The IDF Wizard now highlights syntax errors when reading in an IDF file
8.44C: The IDF Wizard now has a check box to convert paths from/to relative or absolute form.

Bug fixes:

With certain printer drivers there were problems printing barcodes added by the BARCODE plugin.
Temporary font files were not always deleted.
8.44C: The IDF wizard used the wrong page number for some mail merges.
8.44C: Exceeding that number of cached files caused problems when reading IDF documents containing CSV data.
8.44D: Better handling of certain unusual syntactic constructs in PDF files.
8.44D: Truetype fonts embedded in PDFs were not compressed.
8.44D: After installing a Truetype font it was sometimes renamed with extension .~TT rendering it unavailable.
8.44D: Graphic details on the Right-click menu did not show details of a graphic if there was also a path at the same location.
8.44E: A a problem which could cause the message "Invalid file handle" has been eliminated.
ESCAPEE 8.43
Features:

Uses the new .CHM HTML help file format for compatibility with Vista.
Stores temporary Truetype fonts (made from downloaded fonts) in the Windows temporary folder rather than the download fonts folder, which is reserved for bitmap fonts used in FDL forms generation. This is for Vista compatibility.
Can handle character recognition of composite characters which use non-standard glyph numbers.

Bug fix: the field definitions file was not always invoked when running in automatic mode unless it was explicitly specified.
ESCAPEE 8.42
Features

Supports PNG and JPEG images invoked by the ADDIMAGE plugin.
Removes the characters ":", "/" and "\" from extracted fields when generating file names that use them.
1-bit graphics drawn in white are now ignored if the "Ignore white areas" option is chosen.
The "Font properties" dialogue combines text strings together to show longer pieces of text where possible.
In the Configuration/Text option there is a option "Space width = cell width" to use the font's cell width instead of its space width. The corresponding parameter following the /TEXT command-line option is "H".
In the Configuration/Viewing dialogue there is an option to show blank pages which can be used to facilitate page counting. The corresponding command line option is /BLANKPAGES Y or N. Note that, for backwards compatibility, if this is not specified then the default is to suppress blank pages.
Better comment handling and translations in the IDF modules.

Bug fixes:

The command-line file name is now expanded to full path to avoid problems if plugins referred to other folders.
8.42B: Rounding on path coordinates caused problems if the path included both beziers and lines.
8.42C: Character recognition did not always work for Truetype fonts with encoding 0 (Symbol).
8.42E: Various fixes to text extraction from rotated text.
8.42F: It was not possible to save the default output format in the case of JPEG or Subset.
8.42F: Saving a subset did not work in automatic mode if "Calculate font characteristics" was selected.
ESCAPEE 8.41
Features:
Better handling of Epson font selection.
8.41A: added support for CCITT4 compressed images

Bug fixes:

Complex nested fields were not always handled properly.
8.41C: if not a Professional version then spurious error saying too many concurrent users.
8.41D: IDF scripts could not read JPEG files.
ESCAPEE 8.40
Features:

Added support for export to Lightweight Imaging Device Interface Language (LIDIL) printers - check the appropriate box when exporting to PCL. This format requires the RTHPOUT DLL.
Improved handling of old Epson printer formats.
Can now use a field in the file name when saving a subset of the file.
Some kinds of image are now combined together for improved appearance, even if terminated by the PCL "End graphics" command.

Bug fixes:

When processing a CSV control file the last field was not defined.
Problems with palettes when moving back through a file.
When installing a fixed pitch Truetype font the character widths could be wrongly set.
ESCAPEE 8.39
Features:

IDF files can now have a digital signature.
When switching to another program the input file is closed to allow editing.
Fields can be selected by holding down the control key when clicking on the field name in the tree view, or (as previously) you can select all sub-fields by right-clicking on a field and choosing "Select for export".
Double-clicking in any of the boxes in the fields dialogue which specify the field height. width, left offset or top offset will change that item for all selected fields. So to align several fields at the left you select them all, then choose a field with the desired left offset (changing it if necessary). Then double-click in the box which gives the left offset and all the selected fields will be given that offset.
8.39B: There is a new option for EscapeE: /INPUT xx where xx is the input format.
EscapeE recognises the input file format firstly based on the file extension being one of the following: PCL, ,XL or PCL6, PS or EPS, PDF, ESCP, RTF, TIF or TIFF, DCX, BMP, PNG, GIF, JPG or JPEG, IMG, IDF and PCC. If the extension is not recognised then auto-recognition is attempted, based on the first few bytes. The following formats are recognised in this way: HP GL, PDF, Postscript, TIFF, Epson (EscP), PCL XL (PCL6), and PCX/DCX, failing which the file is assumed to be PCL5.
With the aid of the /INPUT option a file whose extension or initial bytes are
misleading can be read by specifying

ESCAPEE /INPUT format

Where format is one of the following:
PCL, PS, PDF, EPSON (or ESCP), RTF, TIFF, DCX, BMP, PNG, GIF, JPEG, IMG, IDF, XL (or PCL6) or PCC.
There is currently no dialogue support for this option but it can be put in the [PCLVIEW] section of the RT.INI file e.g. INPUT=PCL

Bug fixes:

Image size problems when exporting a list of files to PDF.
Memory leaks, especially in the case of lists of files.
8.39E: gray-shaded text at non-standard resolutions using bit-mapped fonts came out black.
8.39E: Seed row colour could be wrong for palette colour images in adaptive compression
ESCAPEE 8.38
Features:

Files can now be exported to the Microsoft XPS print format. Note that this requires RTXPSOUT.DLL which is not currently part of the standard delivery.
IDF files can be digitally signed.
Rotated text in IDF now supported.
Files beginning %!PS are automatically recognised as being Postscript.
Plugins can ask to move elements to the end of the display list thus overwriting all existing elements. The ADDTEXT plugin has a checkbox for this towards the bottom right of its configuration screen.

Bug fixes:

White text in monochrome output sometimes failed.
scaled PCL output was always rendered in gray-scale format.
The /FIELDS option could not precede the file name on the command line.
There was a possible memory leak if user-defined patterns were used and in the case of certain font redefinitions.
A spurious line could be drawn in some non-closed paths
character positioning incorrect when reading certain PDFs
save subset did not always set up the GL picture frame.
When converting to a graphic for export to PCL, PDF etc. and including text as well, some fonts were included as bitmaps.
Exporting scaled monochrome images to PCL could generate gray-scale images
8.38D: Some downloaded truetype fonts did not work properly if they used an extended character set.
8.38D: Saving a subset did not always work.
ESCAPEE 8.37
Features:

More Epson formats are now supported.
Better handling of scaled images in PCL output, giving much smaller files.
There is now a "Convert to monochrome" checkbox when exporting.
Retains 32-bit CMYK colour when reading TIFFs.
Better selection of fonts by name in PDF, RTF or IDF files.
Scaled direct print mode works better.

Bug fixes:

A negative byte count for a download character could cause an exception.
Reading LOF files in continuous mode caused problems.
Including OpenType CFF fonts in PDF sometimes gave the wrong character wdths.
Configure raster data with a byte count of 8 did not work properly.
There could be problems if the alphanumeric ID command was used and the print file contained errors.
Assigning a font ID could generate a spurious entry in the fonts list.
IDF CSV files could not be red outside of a page item.
ESCAPEE 8.36
New features:

If the current language (defined by the RTLANG symbol) is not English then in demo mode, when no file name is specified, EscapeE tries to load a file called ESCAPEExx.PRN where xx is the language number e.g. ESCAPEE.33 for French. If no such file is found then ESCAPEE.PRN is loaded.
It is now possible to process a wildcard spec such as *.LOF to process multiple lists of files.
When reading text in an IDF script embedded CDATA (no interpretation of
the characters "&" and "<") is now supported. For example
<TEXT><![CDATA[Errors & omissions]]></TEXT>

The default compression for coloured TIFFs is LZW
The Ignore images/shading/white ares options are now honoured when reading PDFs as well as when reading PCL files.
The case (upper/lower) of the filename is preserved in the output name.
Better handling of non-standard font encodings - for example Truetype fonts with character codes below hex 20 now work better when included in PDFs.
The command-line option /PDFOPTS -1 resets the PDF export options to their default values. Similarly /PCLOPTS -1 and /PSOPTS -1 do the same for PCL and Postscript.
8.36D: Improved image caching.
8.36E: Can handle PCL3GUI files which specify uncompressed data.
8.36F: ID for 04xxxxxx licences now shown correctly.
8.36F: /FIELDS '' uses no field definitions without error message.
8.36F: Allow either physical ID or 04xxxxxx licence ID when reading RTZ files.

Bug fixes:

Some memory leaks have been fixed that would cause trouble after processing large numbers of files.
For very complex 24-bit colour images the TIFF strip size could become more than 64k, which did not work properly.
If both "Byte-aligned" and "EOLs" are selected for TIFF output then the EOL codes are extended so that lines start on a byte boundary.
Various improvements to handling of non-standard font encodings. For example in downloaded fonts containing printable control codes the character codes in the range 80-9F did not work properly.
When exporting to PDF a file that was read from a PDF the original element order is retained.
/PDFOPTS 0 now turns off all PDF options.
PDF bitmap fonts could sometimes be shown with black and white interchanged.
Character widths were sometimes wrong for embedded Opentype fonts in PDFs.
Specifying a null parameter following a /FIELDS option caused the DEFAULT.EE file to be used rather than using no field definitions.
The actual PC ID was not shown for 04xxxxxx licences.
Under some circumstances there could be a spurious complaint "Unknown PRINT option".

ESCAPEE 8.35
Features:

Portuguese is now one of the supported languages, together with English, German, French and Spanish. EscapeE can be configured by clicking on Options/Change language or RTLANG can be set to 55 in the RT.INI file.
Can handle more varieties of embedded CFF fonts in PDFs.
Can process macros intended for flash memory using FLASHSIM PJL commands.
Only the first 1000 PCL XL errors are logged and then the file-reading is terminated.
8.35C: CCITT 3 2-D compression changed to CCITT3 fax compression. This has EOL codes but no bit-reversal.
8.35E: Dialogue support added for various TIFF modes: There is an advanced TIFF options section in the configuration dialogue. This is reachable via the Advanced button on the General page when TIFF is the format or via the Images page by clicking on the TIFF options button. The TIFF orientation options have been moved to this page and there are some extra options which pertain mainly to Faxing:

Bit reversal
The data bits are sent least significant bit first as in fax protocol.
EOLs
End of line markers are added at the start of each line.
Byte-aligned
Any partial bytes at the end of a line are filled with zeros.
Single strip
The image is output as a contiguous chunk of data rather than being divided into strips (which is the format recommended in the original TIFF specification). This is useful for simplistic programs or for direct access via Postscript on a printer such as a Xerox Docuprint.
The above options are stored as flag bits in the PACK value either in the INI file on on the command line:

16
Bit reversal
64
EOLs
128
single strip
256
Not byte aligned: carry odd bits over to next row.
These flag bits are in addition to the compression mode:

0
An appropriate packing is used according to image type.
1
Uncompressed
3
CCITT group 3 for fax
4
CCITT group 4
5
LZW
-32763
(hex 8005) Packbits
Then add the flag bits as already described.
8.35F: Adds blank pages in AFP output if necessary for correct duplexing.
8.35F: The option /DRAW 2 will rotate images and PDFs through 180 degrees. To retain the normal drawing mode for HP GL lines you should also add the S option e.g. /DRAW 2S
8.35G: When reading PDFs with repeated images are cached if memory allows.

Bug fixes:

Opaque white filling did not work properly in HP GL
Correction to HPGL FP command - pen up/down not preserved.
Better handling of downloaded fonts when exporting from CSV or LOF control files.
8.35C: When include Truetype fonts in PDF there was sometimes a spurious message "Fref fonts".
8.35C: Codes above 255 were omitted when converting OpenType embedded fonts to bitmap form in PDFs.
8.35C: When moving backward to a previous page in PCLXL files it was possible for fonts not to be found. This could happen if extra Truetype characters had been downloaded in later pages.
8.35G: In the AFP media configuration dialogue the tray number fields were too narrow.
ESCAPEE 8.34
Minor change of specification: when a macro overlay is invoked by a field it is now displayed before the other data rather than overlaying it.
Features:

Authorisation via the UP1 board.
More efficient reading of common types of colour images in PDFs.
Added the Print scaled menu option.
When exporting to PCL a warning is given if pages are output as images because the printer does not support scaling.
Added a solid block character to the HP-GL Stick font. This appears as hex code DB in PC symbol sets such as 10U.
8.34Q: PCL XL terminates after encountering 1000 errors.
8.34Q: Can have pre-scaled library bitmapped fonts.

Bug fixes:

Multi-page macros could cause problems.
Some combinations of beziers and straight lines in filled areas did not work properly.
When printing directly to a Windows print driver the DL envelope and C5 paper were not recognised.
If Windows failed to give the Reactivate message on resuming EscapeE then and "Invalid file handle" message could be given.
Export using "Combine text strings together" failed if there were multiple clip regions.
Spurious error message about mixed-colour fill for some HP GL fill patterns.
The default path for items within IDF INCLUDE files was that of the calling file.
Certain ways of selecting fixed pitch fonts gave inconsistent results.
Font substitution did not always work for PCL XL download fonts.
In PCL XL the cursor was not moved by the correct amount after text strings.
In PCL XL redefining a download font did not cause it to be reselected.
In PCL XL when the resolution was not 600 dpi the character spacing data was incorrectly scaled.
In PCL XL when no paper is specified then the EscapeE default paper is used.
Better validation when adding soft fonts to the library.
Better handling of rotated TIFF export.
8.34C: The last CSV field name of a control file was not read unless followed by a space.
8.34C: Shift-in and Shift-out to select primary/secondary font were not honoured in HPGL.
8.34C: Text at very shallow angles to the horizontal was not positioned correctly.
HPGL ER command did not set the polygon buffer up for use by future commands.
ESCAPEE 8.33
Features:

Fields can target specific graphics as well as text strings. To search for an image just right click on the image and select "New tag". The tag string is shown as 40 hex digits and the "Graphic" box will be checked in the Fileds/Searching dialogue. You can right click on a graphic and choose "Show details" to see what its tag is. The tag is a 16-byte MD5 hash plus the width and height, so two graphics can never have the same tag unless they are the same size. The probablility of two being the same when the data differ is about so low as to be negligible.
There is a "on the back" checkbox in the Fields/Advanced dialogue which causes the plugin action to occur on the back of the target page. If the page would have been simplex it is forced to be duplex with long-edge binding if portrait and short-edge binding if landscape. This allows the addition of text or an image on the back of all or selected pages.
For duplex input any fields that alter the input tray or output bin now apply to the back page also i.e. the whole sheet feeds from or to the selected tray or bin.
It is now possible to re-assign trays and bins when exporting to PCL in a similar way to when exporting to Postscript or IPDS.
There is now an option on the File menu to save macros in the macro library. Previously this could only be done by exporting and choosing the "Macros" format. This is the only sound way of installing regular PCL macros in the EscapeE macro library. It should be noted that "Save page as macro" and Export "as a macro" (which is another way of invoking the same function) are not very satisfactory and should not be used in preference to the save macros feature. They attempt to put a "start macro" and "end macro" wrapper around the PCL commands for the page. This fails if the page itself contains macros or is not PCL5 or contains download fonts. The third way of creating macros is to export to PCL and check the "Permanent" or "Temporary" box in the "Save as a macro" group. This works best if the output is in image format, otherwise font problems can occur.
Partial Epson support added via the RTESCPIN DLL.
Added the option to export just the printable area as an image.
Added the nQ spooler /NQERROR and /NQLOG options. NQERROR xxx promotes the file to folder xxx if there is an error. If xxx is null then leaves the output file in the input folder, so effectively ignoring the error. NQLOG specifies the path of a folder to contain any faulty input file and the error log file which in this case will be called DFAyyy.log where DFAyyy is the input file name.
The /NQ option no longer forces an exit from EscapeE on completion: use /X to achieve this.
The parameters following the /LPRJOB, /LPRU and /LPRQ command-line options can now contain field names using the usual {field} syntax. This means that the job class used when LPRing the output can be derived from
the contents of a field e.g.

ESCAPEE XX.PCL /PDF /LPR 123.45.67.89 /LPRC C{classfield}

This would use a class derived from the contents of the classfield field preceded by the letter 'C'
Field display options (no/all/if found/names) have been moved from the Fields dialogue to the view/Fields menu.
Can re-assign PCL trays using the PCL Advanced options dialogue.
Support for monochrome PCX files added.
When running in automatic mode a message box is no longer produced after an unexpected end of file.
Xerox IMG output defaults to monochrome output.
Better font matching for names such as Times-Roman as used in PDFs.
Can extract the nth string from a composite field e.g.{fieldname[2]} to extract the second space-delimited string.
A warning message is given if text is encountered in PCL GUI mode.
Bug fixes:

configure image data in CYM rather than RGB did not work properly.
When TIFF orientation=portrait is specified the page is rotated anticlockwise to match the printer's orientation. Previously the rotation was clockwise. There could also be problems if the x and y resolutions were not the same.
It was not possible to specify the left marging in fractional columns.
Truetype characters with null widths were not shown.
The Postscript tray configuration did not show the PCL tray number.
It was not possible to search for tags containing kerning characters.
When checking downloaded Truetype fonts against the font substitutes list the EETMPxxx name rather than the original Truetype name was used.
In PCL output the PJL RESOLUTION command now appears near the start of the file rather than after a macro definition.
Setting the media type sometimes caused problems.
Font handles could be lost when reading a PDF which requesed an
loop in IDF when infinite repeat specified. unknown font.

ESCAPEE 8.32
Several features added for OEM use. Greater tolerance for invalid Truetype files e.g. ones starting with an invalid format version number or not containing a character which is to be used as a space.
Help files are now available for the IDF wizard. When editing an IDF control file the default is to call IDFEDIT.DLL, if present, otherwise IDFWIZ.DLL is called, if available.
There is now an option /NQERROR <path> which tells EscapeE it is called by NQ and if there is an error it is to replace the input file with the error log and return the atom number of <path>. In this case the original file is renamed as *.bad. If no errors are detected then this option is equivalent to /NQ.
Bug fixes:

Minor bug fixes to Booklet creation wizard
It was possible to generate fixed pitch fonts with an innapropriate height to width ratio if they were downloaded and selected in a certain way.

ESCAPEE 8.31
There is a new item on the View menu: 'PCL source', which allows one to view a human-readable version of the PCL source. It is effectively a version of the RedTitan DOS PCL program. You can then choose one of

This page
to show just the current page
Up to here
to show all pages up to and including the current one
Whole file
to show the whole file.

There is also an 'Options' sub-menu with three alternatives

Omit graphics and character downloads
(the default)
Omit text and binary data
just show the commands
Show all, including binary
shows graphics and binary data in hex

and an option
Show command usage statistics
which, if checked, prints a summary showing the number of times each PCL command is used.

Beware: the output may be verbose and take a long while to show in the console window.
It is worth noting that a right-click in the console window gives several options:

Suppress Output
causes all console output to be suppressed until unchecked
Select All
selects the text on the current page
Cut
copies the selected text to the clipboad then deletes the text
Copy
copies the selected text to the clipboad
Paste
pastes text from the clipboad
Delete
deletes the selected text
Hide
hides the window
Save Log
prompts for a file name and saves the whole console log
Clear Log
discards the contents of the console log
Abort
aborts the program - forces an error as a way of terminating excessive output

The console window is divided into pages.
Page Up
goes to the prior page of the console log
Page Down
goes to the next page of the console log
Go to Start of log
and
Go to End of log
have the obvious meanings

Other features:

The option to include text as well as the graphic (introduced for PCL in version 8.29) is now available for PDF export.
The Barcode plugin now adds the barcode in opaque mode, thus blanking any background.
There is a new parameter on the /PRINT command-line option: I images the page in memory before printing. This gets around problems in various printer drivers that cannot handle fonts well.
The PP.JSL file now has stocksets OPR and MAIN so they can be specified in quotes like other stocksets.

Bug fixes:

Some problems concerning embedded Truetype fonts with non-standard character codes.
The warning about possibly needing to use plotter mode is supressed if the non-PCL data at the start of the file is just binary zeros.
Shifting of the graphical PCL output for non-European paper.
Duplex output to Xerox IMGs sometimes gave the wrong pagination.
Various minor bug fixes to the IDF wizard
8.31C: re-reading an HPGL file whose field file specifies a header could cause the header to be interpreted in GL mode.
Extra EOL code in CCITT compression at end of a strip.
Duplex Xerox metacode output was sometimes wrong.

ESCAPEE 8.30
Features:

Clicking on File/New Intelligent Document calls an IDF Creation wizard which makes it easy to create mailmerges or booklets.
Embedded TIFFs can be read in graphics compression mode 99
A null field definition file specification can be given on the command
line. This means that a command line such as

escapee myfile /fields /save a /to myfile.xxx /text pcy /x

can be used to generate a file containing a single line of the form

16 pages

Note that if there are no pages in the file the line says

No pages produced

or a translation of this, but if there are any pages then the fits thing on the line will be the page count.
When reading PDF files containing invisible OCRed text as well as a scanned image the text is retained invisibly but can be searched for or used in fields.
Can handle Truetype fonts with tags out of order.

Bug fixes:

When exporting PCL files the font IDs could sometimes be reused, causing incorrect font selection.
Literal fields read from a CSV file were included when saving fields and could also have their properties changed by the user.
It was possible to update a .EE field file even if it was read-only. A warning message is now given if the file is read-only and any field changes are made.
Various IDF bug fixes.
Change to ROP 136 drawing. can read PDFs even if not file extension .PDF
In the demo version export to PCL was inhibited unless Transformer mode was selected.

ESCAPEE 8.29 soft212.red
For PCL output (soon for PDF etc.) when exporting the file as a graphic there is an option to include text as well as the graphic. This is useful where text needs to be extracted from the output but there might be problems in using the original fonts.
In the fields dialogue there are options for how the fields are to be displayed when the "View fields" option has been selected. If "If found" is checked then only those fields that have been found on the current page are shown. If "All" is checked then the boundaries of all the fields are shown, whether found or not. Checking the "Names" option causes the name of the field to be shown above each field's bounding box. These options only take effect on exiting from the Fields dialogue. The option /DRAW parameter has a new option. B (Backwards) produces mirror-image TIFFs, PDS etc. (it still shows unreflected on the screen).
The /DRAW is an undocumented option with a number of single-character parameters which can be used in combination:

R
use filled rectangles when drawing orthogonal lines, rather than stroking with a pen.
M
use the ROP2 MASKPEN mode for drawing rather than MASKPEN
B
(Backwards) reflect left to right
X
restrict X position to logical page width

For historical reasons the default is R but if you specify /DRAW then you need to add R to get the default effect, hence to draw backwards specify /DRAW BR
Bug fixes:

Choosing to ignore downloaded bitmap fonts in PDFs caused a large amount of memory to be used.
There were problems in navigating backwards more than one page when reading Postscript. This is now possible but because of the sequential nature of the format it will entail starting again at the start of the file, so may be slow.
Gray-shaded graphics sometimes came out black when exported to PDF.
8.29C: Could not handle multiple Alphanumeric Media definitions.
8.29C: Simultaneous filling & outlining in different colours for PCL XL.
8.29C: User-defined line joins and caps were not implemented for PCL XL.
8.29E: PCL copy count not always honoured when exporting to PDF.
8.29E: Trailing line feed not skipped in PJL processing.
8.29E: Problem in exporting to PCL or PDF if new font encountered.
8.29E: Problem when exporting to PCL as an overlay if coloured graphics present.
8.29F: The 12U symbol set was slightly wrong

ESCAPEE 8.28 soft212.red
8.28A Supports character matching for PCL XL and PDF Shows the media type in the status bar 8.28B: can handle Deskjet colour mode -4. Bug fix: could crash if corrupt PCL3GUI file encountered Bug fixes: codes 80-9F failed in font substitutions. Some translations missing. IDF attributes REPEAT and BLANKLINES.
ESCAPEE 8.27 soft211.red
Features

Can read PCL3GUI files using compression mode 10
Manually defined bookmarks will be included in the PDF if "Remember bookmarks" is checked in the bookmark dialogue unless "Do not make a Table of Contents" is checked in the PDF options.
There is a /COMMENTS option to specify how comments are to be handled. Currently there is just one useful mode: /COMMENTS P to preserve PJL JOB NAME and PJL COMMENTS in Postscript and other output.
Can have resident font library FIFs with any name.
Can enable/disable a resident font library.
8.27B: In PCL export a delete font command is now used to remove fonts that are no longer required.

Bug fixes:

Text using codes below hex 20 did not work when exported to PCL or when read in HPGL mode.
Adding a page number in the fixed pitch fonts Courier or Lineprinter caused a new font to be created for each page, thus eventually using up memory.
Clipping in HP GL was not reset by the IN command.
Possible access violation when saving short palettes in PCL XL.
PDFs containing embedded TrueType fonts iwith just a Mac encoding did not display correctly.
8.27B: Substitute font widths sometimes wrong.
8.27B: If a control file cited two file containing downloaded fonts with the same ID and starting at the same byte address then the wrong font could be used.

ESCAPEE 8.26 soft211.red
Features

Better handling of Unicode characters above $FF in PDF export.
Can handle larger graphics and a message is given if the graphic is too large
Can generate a T or F field value (for True or False) according to whether a tag is found or not. e.g. a composite field "IMAGE{?INVTAG}" yields IMAGET if the INVTAG tag is found otherwise it generates IMAGEF.
Rectangular filled or clipped paths are optimised better.
Better results when reading PDFs containing certain types of non-conforming embedded font.
When the mouse is over a field the name of the field is shown as a hint.
When opening files using the Open menu item a much more comprehensive filter is used so that files with the standard extensions for all types of file handled by EscapeE are shown. the list currently is: .prn, .lsh, .pcl, .hp, .ps, .eps, .tif, .plt, .pdf, .bmp, .png, .jpg, .dcx, .pcx, .idf, .eec, .lof, .csv, .xml, .rtf
8.26A: There are now hot keys for changing the units used for such things as the mouse coordinates: Ctrl-1= cm, Ctrl-2 = Inches,Ctrl-3 = 300 dpi, and Ctrl-6 = 600 dpi.

Bug fixes:

Redefining user-defined patterns could lose memory.
If a PDF file ended a page with clipping still in force then the clipping was retained on the next page.
8.26A: When selecting a downloaded bound scaleable font by ID there was inefficiency if a different symbol set was requested from that of the font.
8.26A: Shaded text was opaque even when transparency was requested.

Intelligent Document Format enhancements:

bold fonts sometimes selected as normal in IDF.
IDF can handle multiple PCL files.
Navigating backwards in the file could sometimes fail.
8.26A: Can use any Windows font in IDF, not just the ones installed in EscapeE.

ESCAPEE 8.25 soft211.red
Intelligent Document Format enhancements:

There is a syntax-oriented editor for IDF files.
Can import EscapeE field definitions files.
Can give dimensions in Decipoints (1/720") using the DE qualifier.
The <![[CDATA...]]> construct can be used to encapsulate data when executing a program.
The &NBSP entity in IDF works for PDF output
8.25B: Better handling of nested scaling.

New features:

There is a sub-menu under File/New Control File which gives the option of creating a new Intelligent Document Format file using the IDF editor or a List of files (LOF) file.
The composite field syntax has been extended by the inclusion of the following special fields to allow date and time to be added: {_Day}, {_Month}, {_Year}, {_Hour}, {_Minute} and {_Second}.
For example a field with the definition

{_Day}/{_Month}/{_Year:3-4} {_Hour}:{_Minute}:{_Second}

results in a string such as 16/01/06 14:15:18.
PDFs which use standard Postscript names but non-standard fonts can now be read.
When displaying very small selected areas the resizing-handles are suppressed for clarity.

bug fixes:

The /TRIM command line option would only accept three parameters not just /TRIM 1
Downloaded bitmap fonts containing no space character did not have a space character added when embedding the font in a PDF.
Problems when embedding a substitute Truetype font in PDF or PCL output.
Better handling of duplicate characters when reading embedded Truetype fonts.
The &p<comment> read one too many characters.
scaleable fonts selected by ID and specifying the wrong symbol set could consume memory.
8.25C: fonts not always released when redefined.

ESCAPEE 8.24 soft211.red
Bug fixes (8.24D):

PDF substitutes broken in 8.24
Default PDF clip region slightly too small.
'Use acrobat fonts always' failed if download fonts present.

ESCAPEE 8.23 soft210.red
New features:

The Options/Configuration dialogue has a new option: Make one log file entry for each output file. The corresponding sub-option in the /LOG command is '1'.
If multiple copies are specified they will be honoured in PDFs. This can be inhibited by specifying copies 1 in the Configuration/Printer dialogue
PCLXL EllipsePath and CharAngle implemented.
Can read PCL images in graphic compression mode 8 (CCITT4).
Status bar panel sizes fit the text better.
Better font matching for PDFs.
Enhanced plugin interface: extended functions for the new scripting plugin.
Restructured the RTXLIN DLL to handle more complex files.
Better handling of embedded fonts in PDFs.

Bug fixes:

the LOGFILE option only worked in the RT.INI file.
It was not possible to define custom paper having a width greater than its height.
could not read PCL XL fonts unless the headers were segmented in a particular way.
In PCL XL the output bin specification was not honoured.
In PCL XL double-byte strings with non-standard widths did not work properly.
If a Truetype font contained no space character the error character was sometimes displayed.
Certain types of clip region prevented text extraction.
Unbound Truetype fonts in exported PDFs could result in a spurious 'Null font' error message.
Field with 'on change' action not actioned on first page

ESCAPEE 8.22 soft210.red
8.22B bug fix: PCL XP arc path and slanted text did not work properly
ESCAPEE 8.19 soft208.red
New features

Improved Intelligent Data Stream interface including:

the ability to base an item on a field and to move its position by moving the field. Fields can be defined and and items can be positioned in relation to field boundaries.
Edit/Edit control file now allows the editing of an IDF control file. When the file is closed and saved the control file is reinterpreted.
The .XML extension has been added to the list of control file extensions.

Added an option "Calculate character widths" to the Text options. This ignores the widths of downloaded characters and recalculates them from the dimensions of the raster. Include a W in the /TEXT option list to get this effect using a command-line option.
There is a Default image resolution in the Input resolution section of the Configuration/Images dialogue. This is used when reading in images such as JPEGs which have no resolution. This resolution can be used for all images by checking the Override option. The corresponding command-line option is /IMAGERES n where n is in dpi and if negative it overrides the resolution in the image, otherwise it is just the default.
If outputting PCL to a printer that doesn't support scaled rasters then the rasters are scaled before being output.
OCRed text in PDFs (stored as transparent data) is ignored to avoid double printing.
When exporting to PCL as a macro the top margin is set to 0 and the cursor is left at 0,0 at the end.

Bug fixes:

The font substitution dialogue could not be used to change the PDF substitute for a resident font.
If a downloaded font was substituted by a resident font then the wrong code table was sometimes used.
When exporting to PCL and converting to an image the image was sometimes output twice.
Filled areas following a white area in HP GL could fail to show.
The WINFONTS.FIF file has been changed so as to use Courier New for Arabic and Hebrew rather than trying to use the supplied Cour.TTF font
User-defined raster patterns with pens other than 0 or 1 did not work quite correctly.
9.19A: planar colour graphics could be positioned wrongly if there was white space stored at the left of the raster.

ESCAPEE 8.18 soft208.red
Support for Intelligent Document Format. This allows page composition by including graphics and pages or parts of pages from PDFs or PCL files (soon Postscript too). The items can be positioned, scaled and rotated as required for such purposes as making booklets or printing 2-up. The IDFIN or ESCAPEE feature code is required for this. The IDF language is still under development at present.
Bug fixes:

Scaling to odd sizes such as 204 x 198 did not work properly for rotated pages.
The Trim option for fields did not work if they were used in a composite field or a file name.

ESCAPEE 8.17 soft208.red
New feature: Page compostion features added to allow a DLL to perform operations such as document composition, page imposition and scaling.
Bug fixes:

ADDTEXT plugin: font file path was truncated to 32 characters and RFF font list was null.
Page numbers broken in version 8.15.
Downloaded Intellifont characters were not skipped properly.
Certain coloured documents did not print in the correct colours on some printers.
Setting the foreground colour did not affect the colours of raster images.
The sequence Push Cursor, Rotate Coordinate, Pop Cursor resulted in incorrect positioning
Bitmapped fonts did not work properly in PDFs if rotated through an angle that was not an exact number of rightangles.

ESCAPEE 8.16 soft207.red
New features

Can handle mixed PCL5 / PCL XL.
Ellipse functions and round-cornered boxes implemented in PCL XL.
Partial implementation of YCCK colour model in PDF reading.
There is an new option: /CAPTURE which is intended for use with the. CAPTUREDTITAN program, which captures print output and directs it to EscapeE. If the /CAPTURE option is specified then EscapeE expects there to be a control file with extension .EEC and the same stem as the main file. This control file gives various pieces of information such as the original document title, a unique numeric ID, and the name of the originating user. These items are used to predefine fields used for LPR output:

the document title defines the job name (equivalent to specifying /LPRJ jobname on the EscapeE command line). It also defines a special {_Title} field.
the user name defines the user parameter (equivalent to specifying /LPRU username on the EscapeE command line).
the ID sets a special {_Id} field.

With the /CAPTURE option the default output file name is set to {_Title}{_Id} so that by default a file whose job name was "My document" and whose ID was 1234 would create a PDF called "My document1234.PDF". Specifying the /TO option will override this default.

Bug fixes:

In PCL XL the search path for the resident font definitions (RESIDENT.FIF) was not always correct.
Rotating the view of the page did not always work.
Field action on back page only did not always work properly.
8.16B: The image border size was wrong unless 600 dpi.
8.16B: If the option /TIFFORIENT p is specified then when exporting landscape pages in TIFF format the rotation is now clockwise rather than anticlockwise.

ESCAPEE 8.15 soft207.red
The following Truetype fonts are now included as standard:

File name
PCL font name
Cour
Courier
Elgo
Letter Gothic
Lyra
CG Univers
RTLP
Lineprinter

New features

Can specify the border width for all four edges when exporting images or PDFs. The Configuration/Images has a field to enter up to four values, separated by commas, being the border widths in the order left, top, right, bottom. The dimensions can be pixels (independent of resolution), inches or centimetres. In the latter two cases the number of pixels varies according to the resolution. If only a single value is given then all the borders are set to that value. If two values are given then the first value is used for left and right margins and the second for top and bottom.
The command line syntax is:

BORDER left,top,right,bottom

where dimensions are assumed to be pixels unless there is a " character in the parameters, when the widths are in inches, or (if no ")
a decimal point, in which case centimetres are assumed. So

BORDER 1,0.5

Would give top and bottom borders of 1 cm and left/right borders of 0.5 cm.
BORDER 1,0.5"

Would give top and bottom borders of 1 inch and left/right borders of 0.5 inches.
The syntax of the /TRIM command line option has been enhanced so that if two values are given they are assumed to be the width and height with dimensions as for /BORDER i.e. default is pixels, a " implies inches otherwise fractions imply centimetres.
Forces fixed pitch characters even if widths vary in a fixed pitch font.
Better handling of rotated text when reading PDFs
Better handling of Truetype fonts containing printable characters below hex 20
Improvements to the handling of PDFs with faulty or non-standard headers.
Better error display when reading PCL XL.
Better support for custom paper sizes.

ESCAPEE 8.14 soft207.red
New features:

Improvements to automatic formdef creation for AFP output.
There is now an entry 0 in the list of Postscript and AFP trays. equivalences, which defines the default to be used if no explicit selection is made.
Better handling of downloaded fonts, improved line drawing and clipping in PCL XL.
Bug fixes:

1-bit high colour images could be scaled to invisibility.
Plotter files were not always recognised.
Re-opening a file after switching to another program could fail.
Image caching did not work well when reading PDFs.
Import of BMP files could fail sometimes.
Changing certain options was ineffective when exporting composite documents.

ESCAPEE 8.13 soft207.red
New Features:

There is a mechanism for shifting the whole page in any desired direction. In the Configuration/Viewing then is a group entitled "Shift page" and within it there are boxes for a left and a downward shift. The units are the
currently selected units. The corresponding command line option is

/SHIFT r,d

where r is a rightward shift and the the downward one (may be omitted). The shifts may be negative if required. The unis for this command are 1/600" unless the numbers are followed by double-quote, in which case they are
in inches e.g. to shift 1 inch right and 2.5 inches up:

/SHIFT 1",-2.5"

When searching for field a tags will be found even if the target string has been output as several separate strings.
When printing a duplex document the default is to print both sides of the current page.
No attempt is made to reset the printer to a standard state since some drivers cannot handle a change to duplex once the document has started.
More RasterOps supported e.g. 34.
Some invalid type 1 fonts which occur in certain PDFs are now tolerated.

Bug fixes:

The page viewing mode was reset to the default for each page of a composite document.
Russian font code conversion problem.
Crash if cancel timed mode whilst processing a file.
8.13A: Small correction to the size of the printable area.
8.13A: Redefined fonts now retained if page state cached, so that going back to a prior page works correctly.
8.13A: AFP automatic formdef only worked if a tray number was defined.

ESCAPEE 8.12 soft206.red
New features:

Internal restructuring to allow composite documents consisting of selected pages of other files.
There is an option in the Fields/Advanced dialogue actiosn to omit the current page from the output.
In the "Configuration/Images/Tiff rotation" section there are two extra options which allow rotation of all pages so that they are rotated to be either portrait or landscape. This is useful for faxing, where pages need to be sent in portrait orientation. The corresponding command line options are /TIFFORIENT p and /TIFFORIENT l. Note that the original TIFF rotation options rotate all pages by a specified amount regardless of their orientation. The new command-line options for these are /TIFFORIENT 1 (90 o) /TIFFORIENT 2 (180 o) etc. but for backward compatibility the old options /TIFFORIENT L etc. can be used (note that these are upper-case, whereas the new conditional rotation options have lower-case p or l).
The special field {_orient} contains the orientation of the page.
Improved PCL XL font matching.
Improved support for certain Raster Ops e.g. 226.

Bug fixes:

Adding fonts to resident library gave problems if a file was being viewed at the time.
Some coloured images could be truncated.
4-bit colour images in PDFs did not work properly.
8.12B: composite documents with subsets from PDF did not work properly.
8.12C: different method of command-line parsing to work with the RedTitan port capture program.

EscapeE 8.11 soft206.red
New features:

Better matching of paper when printing TIFFs.
It is now possible to override the specified paper size.
"Save subset" inhibited when composite documents or header files are involved.
Some improvements when saving a subset of a file e.g. retaining assigned font IDs

Bug fix: illegal symbol set not errored
ESCAPEE 8.10 soft206.red
Fractional scale factors are directly supported, allowing for example TIFFs at 204 dpi x 196 dpi for faxing. Previously this would have required a second scaling operation. Bug fix: Bates page number was always updated even if this was not requested.
ESCAPEE 8.09 soft206.red
The original names of embedded fonts in PDFs are retained for use when creating FDLs. Bug fixes:

plain log file contained only first PDF output file name.
Multiple backspaces are treated more correctly.
File names dropped on a control file are now enclosed in single quotes.
download RFF could be preferred to embedded fonts in a PDF
The Bates page number was always carried on to the next file even if not requested.