For the latest release notes and documentation, refer to the on-line documentation at the DaVince Tools web site at http://www.davince.com/docs.
These release notes are divided into the following categories:
July 12, 2003 (2.2.0) New programs: New plus version of DaVince Tools includes file2pdf, DaVince DLL Library and sample programs pdfclock, pdfconv and pdfhello. tiff2pdf and tiffdump: TIFF files with bad data pointers now work. wdavince: New features: Support for both standard and plus versions using separate configurations (switchable via menu option in tools menu), added Keywords field, customizable tools menu now allows sub menus, and tools menu items added to allow editing of converter .ini files and DCF files (using default text editor).
March 2, 2003 - (2.1.2) All converters: Fixed problem with the many to few feature (create 1 PDF file for each folder). wdavince: Windows apps now launch correctly when started from the tools menu. Documentation: Fixed several broken links.
January 6, 2003 - (2.1.1) txt2pdf: Tabs are now expanded to spaces according to the "tabspace" setting. wdavince: Fixed bug that occurred when specifying an invalid DCF filename on the command line.
December 1, 2002 - (2.1.0) All converters: New features: watch folder support, directory convert feature, annotations, verbose setting in DCF files, wildcard support in DCF "File" command. Fixes: registered copies now work in 16 bit shell on Windows NT/2000/XP (command.com). tiff2pdf: New feature: rotate image feature. Fix: corrected memory leak that occurred when reading TIFF files. wdavince: New features: watch folder wizard, directory convert option, tip of the day, settings now automatically saved.
June 23, 2002 - (2.0.3) All converters: fixed another 1 to 1 problem that occurred when an alternate directory was specified for a filename.
June 2, 2002 - (2.0.2) All converters: fixed several problems that occurred when 1 to 1 specified.
February 3, 2002 - (2.0.1) tiff2pdf: Fixed reverse image problem when encountering an image compressed using PackBits and PhotometricInterpretation is set to 1. Fixed memory leak that occurred when converting using the 1 to 1 option. jpeg2pdf: This version corrects an issue where some JPEG files would receive an error during conversion or they would convert without errors but would generate errors in the PDF viewer application.
December 13, 2001 - (2.0.0 Final) All converters: new "_common" profile, used to set default settings for all profiles for a particular converter. tiff2pdf: program now correctly skips over TIFF thumbnails when using archive mode. Tiled TIFF images converted using the archive option now displayed at the correct color.
November 16, 2001 - (2.0.0 Beta 3) wdavince: Added customizable tool menu feature, which can be used for running batch programs or launch other applications (tiffdump and pdfmaze are included in the default menu). jpeg2pdf: CMYK JPEG's now work. All converters: 1 to 1 conversion with a specified output directory now works in command files and wdavince. txt2pdf: Green bar feature now works correctly when converting files 1 to 1.
October 30, 2001 - (2.0.0 Beta 2) New program: wdavince, a Windows application for PDF conversion. Features include support for drag and drop file conversion, saving parameters in command file format, and automatic opening of newly created PDF file. All converters(jpeg2pdf, tiff2pdf and txt2pdf): fixed bug where PDF filename would be incorrect when converting files "1 to 1" and the original data file had a filename extension other than three characters long. All programs: The registration key file can now be stored in the same directory as the executable file in addition to the Windows directory. All "DaVince Tools" files can now be stored in a single directory structure (installation in the Windows directory is no longer required). jpeg2pdf: gray scale JPEG's now work.
August 28, 2001- (2.0.0 Beta 1) All programs: All .ini files can now be stored in the same directory as the executable file. This is an addition to the previous method of locating the .ini files in the Windows directory. If an ini file exists in both directories, the Windows directory takes precedence. As a result, the "INI" directory in the installation has been eliminated and all .ini files have been moved to the "EXE" directory. Refer to the installation instructions for more discussion on this topic. All converters(jpeg2pdf, tiff2pdf and txt2pdf): New command file options: create, echo, info, and param. All command line options can now be specified within the command file. Profile options can now be individually set in the command file. txt2pdf: All font options now take an optional encoding parameter to allow for international character sets. New BarWizard option creates a "green bar" background on the page typically seen in legacy reports. New custom paper size option allows for non-standard paper sizes. New "legacy" wrap mode for FORTRAN and COBOL generated reports. tiff2pdf: Color (indexed, RGB and CMYK) and grayscale images supported (including thumbnails). Compression modes None, and PackBits are now supported. New archive mode option to force recompression of image data.
March 14, 2001- (1.3.0) New program: jpeg2pdf, use to convert JPEG files to PDF. All programs: Fixed memory leak when writing the PDF file. This was most noticeable when creating a large PDF file or creating many PDF's with the "-1" option. Fixed date problem in document info, which occurred in timezones east of GMT, and in timezones where the minute offset from GMT was not zero. Fixed bug in page buffering. It was found to occur in txt2pdf when a single page was slightly greater than 8 KB in size, but it possibly could have occurred in other programs. Fixed a problem where a "deflate" error message could occur when compressing a page. All converters(jpeg2pdf, tiff2pdf and txt2pdf): All converters now support the same command line syntax, allowing, for example, one to one or many to one file conversions. Previously, txt2pdf, lacked many of the command line options that tiff2pdf supported. New command line option "-c" allows for specifying files, directories and .ini profile names from a command file instead of the command line. Bookmark names can be specified in the command file, instead of using the filename as the default bookmark name. Added "BookmarkFilenameExtension" parameter to .ini file. When set to true, bookmarks retain their filename extension, otherwise, the filename extension is dropped when the bookmark is created. For example, a filename of "README.TXT" will appear as "README" when set to false. The default setting is false. Added "OpenAction" parameter to .ini file. This parameter describes how to view the first page of the newly created PDF file when opened. Choices are "Fit" to fit entire page, "FitH" to fit the horizontal width of the page, "FitV" to fit the vertical width of the page, or "None", which defaults to the setting defined in the PDF viewer. The default setting is "None". Pressing Control-C to abort the program now cleans up all temporary files. Fixed bug when specifying both "-1" and "-r" options, converter would not descend into directories 2 levels or more down. txt2pdf only: Added "FileMatch" parameter to .ini file. This parameter allows setting a default file match pattern when specifying a directory. By default, this value is "*.txt,*.bat,*.ini". "Pagetrim" now works with files over 50 pages. tiff2pdf only: Fixed bug in CCITT uncompression (used in creating thumbnails). This bug would erroneously complain about bad data or an unsupported compression mode occasionally. Added "FileMatch" parameter to .ini file. This parameter allows setting a default file match pattern when specifying a directory. By default, this value is "*.tif,*.tiff". Added "DamagedRowCount" parameter to .ini file. This parameter is used when the TIFF file was received from a Group 3 Facsimile device and contains transmission errors. Setting this parameter to a positive number will allow the PDF reader to accept files with damaged rows up to this value. A value of "1" or "2" may be sufficient for most users. This parameter is only used with Group 3 files. Group 4 files are not affected. By default, this value is "0" (no damaged rows allowed).
October 11, 2000- (1.2.0) all program: All program messages now consistently go to stdout, used to redirect output to a log file. All programs now return an error code of 1 when a fatal error occurs, used in batch programs to test the success of the program. tiffdump: Tiff reading routine is now more robust when encountering unknown data types. txt2pdf: Added page trim option to remove blank pages from either the front or back or both. Use "PageTrim=front|back|both|none" in the ini file to enable. tiff2pdf: Tiff reading routine is now more robust when encountering unknown data types. Added transparency option (must be disabled for Acrobat Capture use). Use "Transparency=true" in ini file to enable image transparency (default is false). Group 3/4 images using uncompressed mode no longer crash the program (an error is generated instead, since this is not yet supported). The "-o" option now works with -1 to provide an alternate output directory. Fixed memory leak when -1 was used with many files. Fixed memory leak when thumbnails were generated. Tiled tiff images can now be converted using tiff2pdf. When converting a directory, the program now looks for files ending in ".tiff" in addition to ".tif".
July 5, 2000- (1.1.1) Maintenance release. all programs: a new C++ compiler version is now used, which has increased performance and reduced the overall file size of all programs. tiff2pdf: Fixed problem with "-r" (recursion) option; thumbnails are now generated for certain TIFF files that displayed a thumbnail error in previous release. Fixed problem where certain converted TIFF files generated a "read less image data than expected" error in Acrobat (see the "Problem TIFF files" section in the tiff2pdf documentation for further discussion). txt2pdf: Fixed problem where program aborted when form feeds were at the beginning of a file; bookmarks now point to the correct page; ASCII characters in the 128 to 255 range no longer give an error message.
March 20, 2000 - (1.1.0) Major enhancements made to tiff2pdf and txt2pdf. Enhancements to tiff2pdf include thumbnail, bookmark and one to one Tiff to PDF options. Like txt2pdf, tiff2pdf now has an initialization file for these options, named "tiff2pdf.ini". Enhancments to txt2pdf include customizable header and footer, bookmark and full justification options. Documentation changes reflect new web domain: www.davince.com.
November 5, 1999 - (1.0 B2) now works with Windows NT, environment variable "WINDIR" is now used instead of "WINBOOTDIR" when looking for the Windows directory in order to be compatible with both NT and Windows 9x.
October 28, 1999 - (1.0 B1) initial release
| \EXE | Executable programs and initialization files |
| \DOCS | Documentation in HTML format |
| \SAMPLE | Sample data for use with the executable programs |
| \DLL | Libraries, inlcude files and sample programs utilizing the DaVince DLL Library (Plus version). |
For users upgrading from a previous release: If you have modified your DaVince Tools initialization files in your Windows directory, do not copy over the newer release initialization files, otherwise, you will lose your changes. Make note of the new features in the initialization files and add them to your existing files.
To install DaVince Tools:
Run the self extracting program, davtd.exe, and follow the steps outlined in the program. If you wish to run the programs from a command line instead of the Windows application wdavince, add the following line to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file:
PATH=toolsdirectory\EXE;%PATH%
Where "toolsdirectory" is the location where DaVince Tools was installed on your hard drive.
You can optionally copy the .ini files stored in the "EXE" directory to your Windows directory, although this is no longer a requirement beginning with version 2.0. Placing them in the Windows directory may be useful if you store "DaVince Tools" on a network drive. The .ini files stored in the "EXE" directory will be made available to your network users as a default. If they wish to customize the .ini files, they should copy them to their local Windows directory, which will take precedence over the .ini files on the network drive. Note that each network user is considered a separate user for licensing purposes. You may also wish to use the Windows directory location if you have made extensive changes to the .ini files and wish to use the same .ini files when upgrading to a newer release of "DaVince Tools".
Any "DaVince Tools" application that creates a PDF file will create a temporary file for storage of the page data. This temporary file is created in the directory pointed to by the "TMP" environment variable. If this environment variable does not exist, then the temporary file is created in the current directory (note: the Windows interface program, wdavince.exe, will automatically set this variable to the same string as the "TEMP" environment variable if "TMP" has not been set). Use of this environment variable is strongly suggested in a network environment, where writing the temporary file on a network drive can cause performance degradation. Check to see if "TMP" is defined by typing "SET" at the command prompt and look for a line starting "TMP=…". If not set, you can use the Windows temporary directory by adding the following line in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file:
SET TMP=C:\WINNT\TEMP
This example assumes that your Windows home directory is "C:\WINNT".
When installing DaVince Tools, note that the version of the converters should match the version of the Windows application wdavince. Mixing different versions of the converters with wdavince can cause the converters to behave incorrectly and it is not a recommended configuration. The version of wdavince can be found in the "About DaVince Tools…" option in the help menu. The version of a converter can be found by using the "-?" command line option.
If your mazes generated with pdfmaze print with thick lines in Acrobat, try using the "print as image" option when printing. This problem is not related to the PDF file, but may be your printer driver.
Multi-strip TIFF files converted to PDF using the tiff2pdf program with the "Archive" option disabled may not download from the Internet correctly when using Acrobat as a browser plug-in. The symptom of this problem is the error message "Read less image data than expected" is displayed after downloading the image and various strips may not display correctly. Enabling the "archive" option, or saving the file to the hard drive first and then displaying the file locally corrects this problem.
Abnormal termination of an application that creates a PDF file may not delete the temporary file used for storing page data. You may want to delete these files to free up disk space. These files begin with "TMPS" and reside in the directory pointed to by the TMP environment variable, or reside in the current directory if TMP is not defined. Note that beginning with version 1.3, pressing Control-C to cancel the program within DOS now removes the temporary files.