We thank you for your continued support and for sharing your document processing needs and requirements with us. If you’d like to discuss this roadmap in greater detail or share a business use case that our Office File API product does not address, feel free to send your feedback using the survey below or submit a Support Center ticket. We’ll be happy to follow up.
Important Changes
.NET Framework 4.6.2 and .NET 8 Support
Our development plans are aligned with Microsoft's .NET Life Cycle and as such, we'll be ending .NET 7 (ended in May 2024) and .NET 6 support (will end November 2024) with our next major update (v24.2).
The minimal .NET Framework supported target will be v4.6.2, as it is the lowest framework version supported by Microsoft.
And finally, the oldest supported version of the Visual Studio IDE will be 2019 (our surveys indicate that 2019 and 2022 are used by the vast majority of our customers).
Please refer to the following announcement to learn more about this global change .NET — .NET 8 and .NET Framework 4.6.2 Are Minimally Supported Target Frameworks for DevExpress Libraries in v24.2..
.NET 9 Support
We will support .NET 9 across our product line for v24.2 and v24.1 released after November 2024.
GDI+ (Libgdiplus) — End Of Support on Non-Windows systems
As you might already know, GDI+ (System.Drawing library) APIs have been marked for use in Windows-only environments (starting with .NET 7).
Based on plans to shift to .NET 8 this year and the release of our cross-platform SkiaSharp-based engine last year, we will refactor our source code to remove all method calls related to GDI+ for non Windows-based environments (libgdiplus).
Support Skia for Windows Environment and Prepare to Deprecate the AzureCompatibility Property
Multiple DevExpress products (specifically Reporting, Dashboards, and Office File API) ship with printing and export functionality for restricted environments such as Microsoft Azure, wherein certain GDI/GDI+ calls related to metafiles and font objects are unavailable. The AzureCompatibility.Enable property managed this capability.
With v23.2, we ended support for functionality offered by this property toggle for non-Windows environments and in our next major update (v24.2) we will continue in this direction. To achieve this, we will support Skia for non-visual Office File API libraries in Windows-based environments as well. Once complete we'll be ready to phase out the AzureCompatibility toggle.
This decision will help us focus development and maintenance efforts in a single direction and allow customers to use the DevExpress Office File API in cloud/restricted environments: the Skia-based Cross-Platform Graphics Engine.
New AI-Powered Enhancements
We will integrate AI-Powered features into our WinForms and WPF Rich Text and Spreadsheet components. These enhancements will enable users to quickly grasp the core insights of their documents with Generative AI summaries and make documents accessible in your preferred language with AI-powered translations. In addition, we plan to add the capability to describe images in Office documents using the AI-Powered APIs.
To access these features, you will need to bring your own Microsoft Azure Open AI API key or use local open-source models powered by Ollama and Onnx Runtime.
Spreadsheet Document API and Spreadsheet UI Controls for WinForms and WPF
Dynamic Array Formulas
Dynamic arrays are a modern and powerful way to work with formulas in Excel documents. Unlike regular array formula, which return a single value for each cell with formula, dynamic array functions return a dynamic array of values. And, this array of values automatically spills into neighboring cells. This functionality offers many advantages, inluding new widely-adopted functions (XLOOKUP, XMATCH, Sort, etc.). Moreover, the dynamic array behavior has become native for all existing Excel functions.
In v24.2, we plan to enhance the formula calculation engine and integrate the dynamic array behavior into our Spreadsheet-processing tools. This functionality will include:
- Dynamic array calculations in formulas and Spill Range behavior.
- New formula error type (#SPILL!).
- Spill range reference (# symbol).
- Implicit intersection operator (@ symbol) to return a single formula value instead of an array.
Embed Images in Cells
Modern Microsoft Excel versions support a new mode to locate images in a worksheet - "Place in Cell" (available from the Insert->Picture menu). This mode gives you the capability to embed an image directly in a cell instead of placing it over the worksheet content.
In the next release v24.2, our Spreadsheet Document API library and desktop Spreadsheet controls will support the "Place in Cell" image placement mode. This functionality will allow you to import documents with images embedded in worksheet cells and save these documents to the supported Excel formats without the content loss. The embedded cell images will be correctly displayed when you preview workbooks in the desktop Spreadsheet editors, print them or export them to the PDF format. Additionally, we'll offer new APIs to manage images embedded in cells from your code.
PDF Document API and PDF Viewer for WinForms
Accessibility Enhancemens
We continue to enhance the accessibility support for desktop document viewers. In the next release cycle, we will introduce screen reader support for WinForms PDF Viewer. With this functionality, you will be able to read the contents in Accessible PDF documents (based on their tagged structure).
Signature Validation Enhancements
In the next release, we'll enhance the PDF Signature Validation APIs. This will include:
- APIs to verify the certificate revocation based on Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) responses.
- APIs to verify the certificate revocation based on Certificate Revocation List (CRL).
- APIs to validate Long Term Validation (LTV) signatures.
- APIs to validate Document Level Timestamps.
Export PDF Documents to SVG
With the next update v24.2, we will finalize the "SVG Export" task for Office File API libraries. We'll extend the existing image export APIs for the PDF Document Processor library to convert PDF file pages to SVG images. This will allow you to generate vector document previews from PDF files in both Windows and non-Windows environments.
Image Extraction API
To improve user experience when extracting PDF contents and analyzing the document structure, we plan to enhance the image extraction APIs for the PDF Document API library. With the new APIs, you will be able to obtain additional information about the PDF page images and determine the image size and location on a page.
Word Processing Document API and Rich Text Editors for WinForms and WPF
Page Borders
With the next update, our Word-processing components will support Page Borders within Word documents. You will be able to import and save documents with page borders to supported Word formats without content loss. The page borders will be properly displayed when you preview the document, print it, or export it to the PDF format. The APIs to manage page borders in code will be also available.
Small Caps Formatting Support
In v24.2, our Word processing tools will support the Small Caps character formatting. The Small Caps formatting will be applied, when you preview the document in the visual control, print it, or export it to the PDF format. We will implement the API setting to manage the Small Caps formatting in code and also, enhance the Font dialog for desktop Rich Text Editors to apply this formatting from the User Interface.
Barcode Generation API
New Barcode Types — Aztec & Micro QR Code
We will introduce the ability to generate two new barcode types: Aztec and Micro QR Code.
Aztec barcodes provide a compact and efficient way to encode a large amount of data without requiring a quiet zone, making them ideal for space-constrained documents.
Micro QR Codes offer a smaller alternative to traditional QR Codes, suitable for scenarios where space is limited and only small amounts of data need encoding.
Your Feedback Matters
Please help us refine our 2024 Roadmap. Once we receive your feedback and analyze results, we may update our roadmap as necessary. We thank you in advance for your assistance. Should you have any questions or concerns, feel free to create a DevExpress Support Center ticket.
v24.1 - What's New
If you have yet to review the features/capabilities introduced in our most recent major update, please visit the following webpage and let us know what you think of this release by responding to our online survey: Explore Our Newest Features (v24.1).