Toolbox Add-On Updates & Release Notes

Fixed

• Before this update, Image.Redact() redacted only the base image samples. As a consequence, when an image carried an image mask, the original pixels in the redacted area remained recoverable through the mask stream. With this release, redaction also clears the matching region in the image’s mask stream when present. As a result, the redacted area can no longer be reconstructed from masking resources attached to the same image.
• Before this release, reading a document’s PlainEmbeddedFiles collection (the files attached to a PDF) caused an access violation on certain documents. As a consequence, applications that enumerated embedded files could crash. With this release, the collection is read safely on the affected documents.
• Prior to this update, CheckBox.CheckedExportName returned an empty value for checkboxes created programmatically with CheckBox.Create() after the document was saved and reopened with Toolbox add-on. As a consequence, PDF readers such as Adobe Acrobat displayed a blank export value. With this update, CheckedExportName returns the expected default value Yes after save and reopen.
• Before this update, extracting page content with ContentExtractor and re-appending it with ContentGenerator added an extra layer of graphics-state nesting each time. As a consequence, repeated extract-and-reappend operations pushed the document past the PDF/A nesting limit, and the result could no longer be converted to PDF/A. With this update, ContentExtractor and ContentGenerator no longer add redundant nesting. As a result, repeated extract-and-reappend operations preserve PDF/A convertibility.
• Before this update, opening a malformed PDF containing nested object streams caused unbounded recursion when the affected objects were resolved. As a consequence, the process crashed with a stack overflow on the affected documents. With this release, the loader detects the cycle and reports a clean processing error. As a result, malformed input can no longer crash applications using the Toolbox add-on.

Changed

• HEIF/HEIC codec library dynamically linked

The native library requires the HEIF/HEIC decoding library at load time, even if your application doesn’t use HEIF/HEIC functionality. If the decoding library isn’t found, the native library fails to load. The required binaries are included in the distribution, but ensure your service, container layout, library search paths, and permissions allow the library to be found.

Action: After updating, verify that your deployment loads correctly even if HEIF/HEIC processing is not used.

• JBIG2 decoding update

The JBIG2 decoding implementation has been replaced. JBIG2-encoded images render identically, but error messages related to JBIG2 processing may differ from previous versions.

Action: If you process PDFs with JBIG2-encoded images, consider validating against a representative document set.

• Updated font substitution for missing fonts (including PDF/A)

When PDFs reference fonts that aren’t embedded and are unavailable on the host, the software substitutes fallback fonts. The updated fallback fonts support a larger glyph set and better fitting to original glyph dimensions. Layout should remain stable, but visual appearance differs from both the original font and previous versions.

Action: If exact reproduction is required, install the original font in your environment.

• ZapfDingbats font delivery change

ZapfDingbats is no longer shipped. The fallback font URW++ D050000L.ttf is used instead, but it doesn’t provide full coverage and may differ slightly in appearance.

Action: If exact ZapfDingbats reproduction is required, install the font in your environment.

• Refreshed internal mapping tables

Character mapping tables used for Unicode and glyph mapping have been updated. Changes are primarily additive (new code points) with occasional correctness fixes.

• Java: native library loaded automatically

Before this release, Java applications had to explicitly locate and load the Toolbox add-on native binary using System.load() or System.loadLibrary() before calling any SDK function. With this release, the native binary is loaded automatically at runtime.

The Maven dependency has also been simplified: the platform-specific native artifact classifier is no longer needed.

Action: Remove any System.load() or System.loadLibrary() calls for the Toolbox add-on native library from your code. If you use Maven or Gradle, replace the two-dependency block (main JAR + native artifact) with a single dependency on toolbox. If you manage JARs manually, ensure both toolbox and toolbox-native JARs are on your classpath, and remove any native binaries (.dll, .so, .dylib) you previously placed in your project. Refer to the Java getting started guide for the updated configuration.

• Upgraded libxml2 from version 2.10.3 to 2.15.0. Error messages related to XML processing may differ from previous versions.

Fixed

• Debug-level log messages are written to the file output sink when file logging is configured via PDF_TRACE_OUTPUT or PDFT_LOG_OUTPUT.
• CheckBox.CheckedExportName returned an empty value when the checkbox /Opt entry was empty or invalid. The correct value is returned.
• Fixed an access violation when processing certain documents.
• Before this update, copying a page with DoNotCopyContent set to true caused image resources from the source page to be included in the output document. As a consequence, in workflows that copied a page without its content and then selectively copied content elements, the output file grew significantly with each iteration. With this release, image resources aren’t included when copying a page without its content.
• Before this update, on Linux, PDF dates were computed using the UTC offset of the current time instead of the UTC offset applicable to the date being processed. As a consequence, PDF dates could be off by one hour when the document’s date and the current time fell in different daylight saving time (DST) periods. With this release, the UTC offset is correctly derived from the date being processed.
• Before this update, the JBIG2 decoder placed no limit on memory allocations, which could cause excessive memory consumption when processing PDFs with malformed or unusually large JBIG2-encoded images. With this release, JBIG2 memory allocation is capped at 2 GB.

Added

• Added
  ContentGenerator.TagAsArtifact
  method, which lets you tag all content created after its call as an artifact. For more information, review the API references:
  C
  , Java
  , .NET
  , Python
  .

• Enhanced logging configuration environment variables:

• PDFT_LOG_OUTPUT
  for output control, replacing
  PDF_TRACE_OUTPUT
  . The
  PDF_TRACE_OUTPUT
  also remains supported for backward compatibility.

• PDFT_LOG
  for log level filters. The comma-separated format:
  *:error,libbase:info
  , where

sets the default level.

Changed

• Switched from the zlib to zlib-ng library, significantly improving performance when compressing and decompressing Flate streams by using SIMD instructions.

Fixed

• Gray color space output intent is set correctly.
• Widget annotation appearance generation correctly checks for rich text value (RV) entry instead of rich text style (DS) entry when determining whether to create appearance streams.

Added

• Raw strings of text elements can be exposed as arrays of bytes. As a result, developers who use the Toolbox add-on can work directly with the underlying encoded text data for advanced processing and custom workflows. For more information, review these API references:
  C
  , .NET
  , Java
  , Python
  .
• Introduced a new method for retrieving the resolution of image masks. Find more details in the API references:
  C
  , .NET
  , Java
  , Python
  .

Fixed

• Resolved an issue using an uninitialized variable that could cause unpredictable behavior during PNG processing.
• Fixed a stack buffer overflow when creating annotation appearances.
• Corrected glyph position problems caused by improper handling of adjustment values.
• Ensured the GTS_PDFX output intent is correctly copied into the output document to maintain PDF/X compliance. The GTS_PDFX defines the standardized printing output intent for PDF/X files.
• Fixed an infinite loop that could occur during optimization for specific malformed PDF files.
• Addressed an access violation related to cross-reference (xref) tables, preventing potential crashes.

Added

• Completed basic PDF/Universal Accessibility (PDF/UA) functionality:
  • Enabled reading of existing logical structure through Pdf.Structure API.
  • Added getter and setter methods for logical structure attributes: AltT, ActualT, E, and Lang
  • Extended the API declaring PDF/UA compliance by setting the Marked flag and embedding the pdfuaid in XMP metadata.
  • Added developer guides for accessing and creating logical structure in PDF documents. For more information, review Accessibility section with three guides: Create an accessible PDF from scratch, Add logical structure to an existing PDF, and Read PDF logical structure
  • Added samples for creating accessible PDF/UA with logical structure, reading logical structure from tagged PDF documents, and adding logical structure during PDF remediation.

Changed

• Removed library load and unload messages from Python bindings.
• Replaced misleading ArgumentException with CorruptException for incorrect AF entry in PDF catalog.

Fixed

• Font name decoding for Type0 fonts on Linux and macOS to preserve Unicode characters.
• Malformed import in native_base.py that caused errors in Python bindings.
• Fixed blank pages caused by incorrect indirect color space references in inline images.
• Fixed unexpected termination when processing image dictionaries with an empty /Filter array.
• Fixed text coordinate errors caused by specific usage of q and Q operators.
• Fixed error reporting for non-UTF8 colorant name on Linux and macOS.
• Font name decoding on Linux and macOS to align behavior with Windows.
• Removed stray null terminators from strings returned by the Python interface.

Added

• The Toolbox add-on natively supports Linux ARM64 processor architecture.
• GetResolution method was added to the Image class. For more information, review the API references: C, Java, .NET, Python.
• To support advanced cryptographic processing, the SignatureField class in the PdfTools.Toolbox.Pdf API exposes the raw digital signature blob through a read-only property SignatureContents. This property returns the exact binary value of the /Contents key from the PDF signature dictionary—equivalent to what was previously accessible through Secure.GetSignature in the legacy PDF Toolbox SDK. For more information, review the API references: C, Java, .NET, Python.

Fixed

• Previously, soft mask dimensions were not properly validated when a matte background was present.
• Fixed PDF corruption and blank pages that occurred when cloning documents with certain image color spaces.

Added

• With this release, we are launching a new Python Jupyter notebooks repository demonstrating the core functionality of the Toolbox add-on, including step-by-step examples for key features and use cases.

Fixed

• Previously, a crash occurred when IIS processes terminated, causing the Toolbox add-on DLL to unload without properly releasing its resources. This issue has been resolved, allowing the DLL to safely unload even when shutdown hooks fail to execute as expected.
• Previously, PDFs utilizing Type 3 fonts appeared visually distorted after copying elements using ContentElement.Copy. This bug has been resolved, and the copied elements render correctly.

Added

• Improved support for HEIC files.

Fixed

• Prior to this release, the image conversion functionality was not working in Python. As of this update, the underlying issue is fixed by using aliases for imports when needed. Aliases are also added to some built-in methods from providers to fix inconsistencies.
• Previously, radio buttons were improperly copied to the output documents.
• Previously, under certain circumstances, a regression caused the decryption of encrypted PDFs to fail. The issue is fixed with this release.
• Fixed a bug that caused crashes when handling JPEG images in the Toolbox add-on on 32-bit Windows system.
• Improved handling of faulty PostScript string syntax to ensure correct parsing of ToUnicode maps.
• The Python version of the content addition sample Add data matrix to PDF correctly places the matrix on the page.
• The Python code sample Extract all text from PDF correctly reports page numbers when displaying extracted text to the console.

Added

• The Toolbox add-on natively supports Microsoft Windows ARM64 processor architecture.
• Copy a page without copying its graphical content using the DoNotCopyContent option. This is helpful for content removal workflows that have to fully preserve a page’s metadata, annotations, and widgets.

Fixed

• A bug where the soft mask of an image was lost during copying has been fixed.
• This update fixes an issue where the Toolbox add-on incorrectly handled x-advance information of the text painting operator, leading to wrongly placed glyphs.

Added

• The Pdf.Structure namespace has been added to the Toolbox add-on. You can use the classes and methods in this namespace to add structure information (“tags”) to the generated PDF content for use cases such as PDF accessibility. With this update, you can Tag content created using the ContentGenerator and link the content to the document’s Structure Tree. You can also create custom tags by adding them to the document’s RoleMap.
• As of this update, you can determine whether a font is embedded in a PDF by checking the IsEmbedded property of the Font object.
• Redact a rectangular area of an image using the Redact method of the Image class. This changes the content of the image so that all pixels within the defined rectangle are set to the same color.

Fixed

• With this update, you can set the URI for the LicensingService using the Sdk class of the Toolbox add-on. Before this fix, the default value for the LicensingService was always used.
• Before this update, the Toolbox add-on sometimes could terminate unexpectedly when:
  • Iterating through the Content of a Page.
  • Loading the ExportName of a FieldNode.
    The underlying issues were fixed. As a result, the Toolbox add-on no longer crashes in the described scenarios.

Added

• Image sampling accesses and handles the raw pixel data of an image in a sequential order without altering the resolution. This involves reading or setting the pixel values directly, often in the context of image processing or manipulation at the most detailed level. Get and set image samples using the Toolbox add-on. Review the Image.Samples property in the API documentation for more information.
• As of this update, you can set the URL for the Licensing Service using the Sdk Class of the Toolbox add-on. This URL is used for trial licenses and page-based licenses.