See also INFO/Changes_2023 for earlier version 3 release logs.

3.027     2025-04-18

  ==== New features

    examples/FontManager.pl
     Add more examples of non-standard fonts, and give more control over
      which get displayed (if available). Note that not all these fonts come
      with a given OS, and those that do almost certainly need their paths 
      updated. "Script" is omitted for this release, as it still needs work on 
      selecting a suitable default script font.

    META.json, META.yml, Makefile.PL, README.md, examples/Column.pl,
      lib/PDF/Builder.pm, version
     Update minimum supported Perl level from 5.26 to 5.28. Also copyright
      dates to 2025.

    README.md, INFO/Prereq_fixes.md (new), MANIFEST, examples/Column.pl
     Move patches needed for some prerequisites (required or optional) to a
      new file INFO/Prereq_fixes.md, to reduce clutter in README.md.

    lib/PDF/Builder.pm, lib/PDF/Builder/Resource/XObject/Image/SVG.pm (new),
      lib/PDF/Builder/Content.pm, Makefile.PL, README.md, INFO/ACKNOWLEDGE.md, 
      tools/optional_update.pl, t/svg.t (new), t/00-all-usable.t, META.yml, 
      tools/2_t-tests.pl, devtools/PDFbuild.pl, MANIFEST, version, 
      examples/SVG.pl (new), examples/resources/SVG/ATS_flow-GIFfilein-
      GPscatter5-MJdisplayNoTag-QRcode.svg (new), examples/README, 
      examples/examples.output, tools/3_examples.pl
     Add code to support via SVGPDF (package by Johan Vromans) SVG images with 
      image_svg() method. In the near future, plans are to add MathJax markup,
      GNUplot interfaces, and enhanced barcode support; all of which make use
      of SVG.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm, lib/PDF/Builder/Docs.pm, 
      lib/PDF/Builder/Content.pm, MANIFEST, README.md, tools/3_examples.pl, 
      examples/Column.pl, examples/Column_lists.pl (new), devtools/PDFbuild.pl
     Rearchitect list (ul and ol) generation to improve appearance and permit
      upgrades to capabilities. Add <_marker> tag to permit overrides of 
      properties of individual <ol> and <ul> markers (e.g., bullet color) at 
      any or all <li>. This non-standard HTML tag can be used explicitly to 
      modify marker properties, and is automatically inserted into the code if 
      not manually given. The new (non-standard) CSS properties and defaults 
      and examples are
        _marker-text (define text to use as marker, rather than default)
          '' (no change) for ol, ul; "=>" instead of a bullet
        _marker-color (change color from default) 
          '' (no change) for ol, ul; "blue' instead of normal text black
        _marker-font (change marker font-family)
          '' (no change) for ol, ZapfDingbats for ul; "sans-serif" for 
          different ol marker font
        _marker-style (change marker font-style, e.g., italic)
          '' (no change) for ol, ul; "italic" to italicize a marker
        _marker-size (change marker font-size)
          '' (no change) for ol, 50% for ul;  "80%" for slightly reduced size
        _marker-weight (change marker font-weight)
          'bold' for ol, ul;  "normal" if don't want bold markers
        _marker-align (left/center/right justify marker text within
          marker_width). 'right' is default
      The defaults are the normal font-family, color, etc. inherited from
      the <ol> or <ul> tag, updated by the usual suspects (style, CSS, etc.),
      and finally overridden by _marker-* properties (inherited and set in the
      usual manner). If you nest lists, you may need to cancel _marker-* 
      properties by setting them to ''. Note that if you set something like the
      "color" property in the <ol> or <ul> tag, it will *also* apply to each
      <li> list item! Instead, set "_marker-color" to affect only markers.
      Split out list examples from Column.pl examples, into Column_lists.pl.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm, examples/Column_lists.pl
     Add "simple" list <_sl>, much like <ul> with 'none' for the 
      list-style-type, that is, a list with no marker.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm, examples/Column_lists.pl
     Support standard HTML attributes <ol type="f"> (1AaIi), <li value="n">,
      <li type="f">. The <li> are useful for changing the count in the middle
      of an ordered list, or overriding the list-style-type for one element.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm, examples/Column_lists.pl
     Add CSS list-style-position property, with support for 'inside' and
      'outside' (default). In addition, extend CSS by allowing N% value, where
      the value is the percentage of marker_width to indent the left edge of
      second, etc. lines of <li> text. This permits a "hanging marker" effect
      without the full "outside" setting (0% = "inside", 100% = "outside").
      Also, an Npt value may be given, which is the indent amount in points
      (0 = "inside", marker_width pts = "outside"). In both cases, results may
      be undesirable if N% is outside the range 0 to 100, or Npt is outside the
      range 0 to marker_width. We recommend that you stay within these limits.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm, examples/Column.pl
     CSS text-align property for left, center, and right added.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm, examples/Column.pl
     Implement HTML extension <_move> tag: "x" attribute = absolute 
      positioning within column and/or "dx" attribute = relative positioning. 
      If $x is undefined, assume is at 0. This can be used to place text at
      desired point(s) on a given line, such as a page title at the left and
      page number at the right of a header or footer.

    lib/PDF/Builder.pm, lib/PDF/Builder/Basic/PDF/File.pm, 
       lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm, lib/PDF/Builder/Content.pm, version, 
       Makefile.PL, tools/optional_update.pl, docs/buildDoc.pl, 
       t/00-all-usable.t, t/tiff.t, t/version.t, tools/2_t-tests.pl
     Fix "require" of external libraries so oddly formatted VERSION numbers 
       don't derail PDF::Builder loading. Builder was blowing up when 
       Image::PNG::Libpng went to version 0.57_01 (development version)
       for a while. Use version->parse("string")->numify() to create a uniform 
       numeric version value for comparison (against a mininum). Also add 
       SVGPDF version. Because of the conflict between the package 'version' 
       and the function 'version()', change the function name to pdf_version().
       Note that minimum levels must be proper integer or real numbers, and
       cannot have any underscores, dashes, or multiple decimal points! To do
       so would require quotes around the value so it is treated as a string.

    examples/020_corefonts 
     Clean up code to permit any of three command lines: (nothing) -- default
      list of all core fonts, (-s) -- 3 sample core fonts, (list of names) --
      specified names (e.g., you need a quick list of what's in Zapf Dingbats
      and Wingdings).

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm
      Minor change to font size upon entry: first it is defaulted to 12pt. The
      next step of overriding that setting with the text object's fontsize has
      been removed, as this often produced unexpected results. Finally, the 
      third step is to use the 'font_size' optional value, if given.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm, examples/Column.pl
     Fold all HTML tags to lower case (to support <P> etc.), detect 
      unsupported or invalid tags and give error message (just once for each, 
      per column() call). Treat unknown tags as <span> tag. In Column.pl,
      A few tags are now upper case (are accepted), and some bogus tags (expect 
      an error message) and bogus CSS entries (ignored) in one sample.

    lib/PDF/Builder/docs/buildDoc.pl
     Add run suggestions and examples for other structures of packages.

    lib/PDF/Builder.pm, docs/buildDoc.pl, lib/PDF/Builder/Docs.pm, 
      lib/PDF/Builder/Resource/UniFont.pm, 
      lib/PDF/Builder/Resource/CIDFont/CJKFont-TrueType.pm,
      lib/PDF/Builder/Resoure/Font/BdFont-CoreFont-Postscript-SynFont.pm,
     Rearrange some of the documentation and update some "Options" lists to
      make looking up font options more straightforward and complete.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content.pm
      Move end/endpath description (POD) to a more appropriate section.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Basic/PDF/File.pm
      If open() for update, check that existing PDF is read/write. Also report
       any error opening a PDF, and die, instead of just returning.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Docs-Outlines-Outline.pm
      Clarify and extend the documentation for creating and maintaining
       outlines (bookmarks), including how to create multilevel (nested)
       bookmarks. Remove '$prev' entry from Outline's constructor, as it
       appears to have never functioned as intended. Instead, use the methods
       insert_before() and insert_after() to place a bookmark within an
       existing list. If you *are* successfully using '$prev', please describe
       how you are using it so I can document it and restore it to the code!
       Note that original Outline problem (#207) remains to be fixed!

    lib/PDF/Builder.pm, lib/PDF/Builder/Resource/XObject/Image/PNG_IPL.pm,
      lib/PDF/Builder/Resource/XObject/Image/TIFF_GT.pm,
      lib/PDF/Builder/Resource/XObject/Image/TIFF/File_GT.pm
     Update Image::PNG::Libpng handling so that SVGPDF library will be able
      to handle inlined PNG images by passing an IO::String "filehandle" from
      File::LoadLines, etc. Also, TIFF (with Graphics::TIFF usage) will now
      accept filehandles (at least, "GLOB" type) as input, and write out a
      temporary file to use. Certain operating systems seem to have trouble
      erasing the temporary file, so temps may build up over time! This area of
      filehandle inputs is still being actively investigated. It appears that
      all image formats except GD (GIF, JPEG, TIFF, TIFF with Graphics::TIFF, 
      PNM, PNG, and PNG with Image::PNG::Libpng) can now be given either a 
      filepath and name, or a Perl filehandle.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content.pm
     Correct placement of content of "object" and in POD elaborate on necessary
      corrections that may be needed.

    (most .pm files) update POD for more consistent appearance, including links
      for major entries and methods.
    docs/buildDoc.pl put NAVIGATION links at the top of the Table of Contents,
      since usually now many more entries are in the TOC. The links themselves
      are still at the bottom of the page.
    devtools/PDFbuild.pl updates found to be needed in 3.026 build.
    devtools/html2php.pl updates found to be needed.
    MANIFEST add INFO/Changes_2023.

  ==== Bug fixes

    lib/PDF/Builder/Basic/PDF/Dict.pm
     Per #221, don't let unblessed objects get through (causes error).

    lib/PDF/Builder/Basic/PDF/Array.pm, examples/ShowFont.pl
     Fix a typo in ShowFont example (#222), and a bug in Array.pm that led to 
      Array's outobjdeep() blowing up if there was no graphics object 
      (page->gfx) defined, but apparently only when dealing with TTF fonts! It 
      has been patched with a workaround, which will do for now, but a 
      permanent fix is a TBD item.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm
     Correct the wrong width being used when Content::Hyphenate_basic::splitWord
      is called from column(). Reported by @CtrlO.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Basic/PDF/File.pm
     Per PDF::API2 commit 308e70f, die (crash) with message instead of
      freezing up if a malformed PDF trailer's Prev keys result in a loop
      or if multiple trailers use the same object ID and generation number.

    README.md, INFO/prereq_fixes.md
     Note on installing on older Macs: see #223 and INFO/prereq_fixes.md for 
      dealing with strange errors with the "convert" utility (ImageMagick). 
      Apparently it was missing the Arial font on some older releases.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content.pm, t/text.t
     The advancewidth() function was not properly counting the space added by
      character space and word space settings, in some cases. This could become
      very apparent in lines with multiple writes, where it wasn't counting
      extra space added after the last character in a write. A note was also
      added to the word space documentation explaining that all spaces between
      words receive the extra word space (not just once per run of spaces), and
      inter-word spaces also receive extra character space (Tc). Thanks to
      @gtnuux for reporting this (#224) and suggesting the fix.

      As a practical matter, advancewidth() now properly returns any extra
      space added to the last character (charspace or wordspace), whereas
      before, it wasn't. This may slightly change the behavior of your program,
      especially if a line was constructed with multiple writes (text calls).
      With single writes, the extra space was hidden by the right margin.

    lib/PDF/Builder.pm, /lib/PDF/Builder/Page.pm
     Per #219, fixes to default_page_boundaries().

    lib/PDF/Builder.pm
     Some PDF Readers (including some releases of Adobe Acrobat Reader) ignore 
      a request for decimal page numbers (and output a page label of "Page m 
      of n") if an explicit Start value isn't given. Default Start value to 1
      (and always explicitly specify to PDF Reader if page labels used).

    lib/PDF/Builder/Basic/PDF/File.pm
     Add newline after 'm n obj' to bring more in conformance with PDF/A
      requirements (ISO 19005-1:2005, Clause: 6.1.8) per #52 and PDF::API2 #82.
      Already had newline before 'endobj'.
      
    lib/PDF/Builder.pm, lib/PDF/Builder/Docs.pm
     Update recommendations that not only should T1 (PS) font and CJK font
      users strongly consider changing over to TTF/OTF fonts, but add that
      "core" fonts (while they will always be supported), are rather limited in 
      their capabilities (especially single-byte encoding only, no UTF-8, 
      limited selection of glyphs, no font embedding) and users should consider 
      changing over to TTF/OTF fonts to get more capabilities.

    lib/PDF/Builder.pm, lib/PDF/Builder/Content.pm, 
      lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm, lib/PDF/Builder/CIDFont.pm
     Fix failed paragraph justification due to word-spacing not being passed
      to text output routine when TTF/OTF fonts are used, per #193.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Basic/PDF/File.pm, devtools/html2php-PDFbuild-PDFversion.pl
     Minor cleanup to get clean perlcritic run.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content.pm, lib/PDF/Builder/Resource/BaseFont.pm,
      lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm
     Per ticket #215 (Johan Vromans), corrected underlining (and also strike-
      through and [future] overline) thickness and positioning to use the 
      correct Units Per Em (usually 1000, but many recent TTF and OTF fonts 
      use 2048 or even higher values).

    lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm
     Avoid top margins if at very beginning of column, and not just for
      <p> paragraphs.

    lib/PDF/Builder.pm, lib/PDF/Builder/Page.pm
     Fix #210 (reported in API2 #75) default_page_size() was failing.

    lib/PDF/Builder/Resource/Font/CoreFont.pm
     Expand on descriptions of standard and Windows core fonts.

    INFO/prereq_fixes.md, lib/PDF/Builder/Content/Text.pm, README.md, 
      examples/Column.pl
     There is a bug in HTML::TreeBuilder prerequisite HTML::Tagset
      (https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=151970), prior to
      version 3.22, where <ins> and <del> tags cause unwanted paragraph breaks
      due to being missing from the list of inline tags. The instructions for
      fixing this in HTML::Tagset are given in INFO/prereq_fixes.md.
      
    README.md, contrib/*, examples/*, tools/*, devtools/PDFbuild.pl, 
      devtools/PDFversion.pl, docs/buildDoc.pl
     Bite the bullet and change "my $LAST_UPDATE" to "our $LAST_UPDATE", and
      remove the build-time edit of all these files. .pm file instances were
      already changed earlier during POD structure updates.

    examples/RMtutorial.pl
     Correct font 'Times' to 'Times-Roman' to avoid warning messages.

(see INFO/Changes_2023 for earlier changes)

Note that INFO/Changes-ver_2 (for changes released for PDF::API2, and 
incorporated into PDF::Builder) is NOT being updated any longer. You may
assume that any change logged for API2 has also been incorporated into
Builder, with any exceptions or differences noted here.