WebGrabber Release Notes 2013.2.0.15094
WebGrabber 2013 R2 Build 2013.2.0.15094
This article contains the software release notes for ActivePDF WebGrabber 2013 R2 (build 2013.2.0.15094). This release includes bug fixes.
- Software Requirements
- Hardware Requirements
- Known Bugs
- Bug Fixes
- Additional Solutions
- Installation and Getting Started
- API Reference
Software Requirements
The following software is required to successfully use WebGrabber.
- Windows Server® 2008 (32- or 64-bit edition) OR
- Windows Server® 2008 R2 OR
- Windows Server® 2012 OR
- Windows Server® 2012 R2
- Microsoft® .NET Framework is required to use WebGrabber's .NET component
(.NET 3.5 for the API, .NET 4.0 for the service — if it is not detected, it will be installed automatically)
Important! If using Windows Server 2012 or above, and using the Internet Explorer engine for conversions, follow the instructions in the Installation section of these release notes before installing WebGrabber.
Note: If ActivePDF Server is installed on the same machine, please download and also install the latest released version of ActivePDF Server.
Hardware Requirements
The minimum hardware requirements for WebGrabber are:
- 350 MB of RAM
- 175 MB of hard disk space (for application)
Known Bugs
When a bug is fixed, it is moved to the Bug Fixes table.
Note: Even if a workaround exists, the bug may be fixed in a later release.
Bug | Known Issue | Workaround |
|---|---|---|
| 340 | COM: Remote conversion using a large input string or a large file will occasionally timeout. | The problem is intermittent; for a workaround, please retry the conversion. |
| 1296 | Dotted line does not display as expected after conversion. | Use the Internet Explorer engine for this file. |
| 1313 | After conversion, the first and second pages have different spacing at the top of their pages. | Adjust the HTML code for body style:
|
| 2449 | File specific: Native engine: WebGrabber is not able to convert this large file. | Use the Internet Explorer engine for this file. |
| 2545 | File specific: When using the Native engine the output PDF has extra horizontal lines. | If the border is moved to inside the div the lines display as expected. |
| 2673 | If SetMargins is used, the PDF links converted from hyperlinks are misaligned in the output PDF. | No workaround available. |
| 3128 | Native engine: Form fields are missing borders in the output PDF. | Use the Internet Explorer engine. |
| 3133 | File specific: Native engine: the text at page break is cut off, and becomes more pronounced when SetMargins is used. | Use the Internet Explorer engine. |
| 3134 | Native engine: When using PreserveTextBoxes set to True or False, Japanese characters inside text areas appear garbled in the output PDF (even when using Unicode). | PreserveTextBoxes does not currently support Unicode characters. |
| 3142 | Instead of being deleted during conversion, href links that point to destination anchors create links in the output PDF. These links point to the original HTML page. | Remove anchors and corresponding links prior to conversion. This will be resolved in an upcoming release |
| 3419 | Native: COM: When using PreserveTextBoxes set to True or False, the check box, text input, combo box are misaligned in the output PDF. | Use the Internet Explorer engine (the fields will not be editable). |
| 3689 | Native engine: The background color style is not completely filling the content background when applied to the HTML body tag. | Use the Internet Explorer engine. Or Place all content in a one-cell table, and set a 'background-color' property for the table. |
| 3830 | Native engine on a Japanese OS: Japanese characters set using HeaderHTML or FooterHTML do not display as expected in the output PDF. | Use the Internet Explorer engine. |
| 3859 3960 4437 | Native engine: There are slight differences in character spacing and crispness when certain fonts/character combinations are used. | In cases where font fidelity is a high priority, we recommend using the IE engine. |
| 3949 | Native engine: When saving the output PDF to UNC paths (Unified Naming Convention; for example: \\mynetworkshare\myfolder\myfile), a -3007 error (failed to download output from the server) is returned. | Use the Internet Explorer engine. |
| 3956 | Native engine: File specific: Hyperlinks attached to image in the output PDF do not display as expected. | No workaround available. |
| 3976 | Native engine: When using FitToPage and text-align: justify, character spacing is inconsistent in the output PDF. | Use the Internet Explorer engine or turn off FitToPage. |
| 4007 | Internet Explorer engine: If the PaperSize enumerator is set to 0 for a custom page size, the PaperLength and PaperWidth properties cannot be set. | Use the Native engine and its PDFLength and PDFWidth properties as a workaround. |
| 4222 | File specific: Using the SetMargins and FitToPage properties together, the output PDF does not display as expected. Comment: The HTML file has fixed width tables which cause text to be cutoff when using FitToPage and SetMargin. | Instead of applying a width to a table, wrap it in a div and set a width to the div element. Or set margins to 0, 0, 0, 0. |
| 4244 | Native engine: On Windows Server 2008R2 and 2012R2, when setting EmbedFlash = 0 (do not attach Flash file), an error is returned when converting an HTML file that contains Flash. | Set EmbedFlash = 1 (attach Flash file). Or use the Internet Explorer engine. |
| 4258 4268 | Native Engine: When converting a file using the font AGaramondPro-Regular.otf, the output file is created properly, but the font is not listed in the PDF document properties. | Use the Internet Explorer engine. |
| 4269 | Native engine: When using StampBackground set to 1 (place stamp in background) the stamp does not display as expected in the output PDF. | Use the Internet Explorer engine or set StampBackground to 0 (place stamp in foreground). |
| 4345 | Native Engine: When using FitToPage with a hard-coded page size of 11 inches, the output file results in a blank page for each page converted. | Fix: Use IE engine, or set the page size to 10.8 inches, or turn off FitToPage. |
| 4390 | Native engine: Output PDFs are sometimes missing footers. | Use the Internet Explorer engine. |
| 4392 | Internet Explorer engine: If the text in a header or footer includes an apostrophe, neither the header or footer print. | Replace the apostrophe with two sets of double quotes: "'" This displays a single quote in the output. |
| 4414 | Although all settings are set to embed fonts, the HelveticaBold font in the source does not fully embed, and the output PDF displays Arial. | Use the Internet Explorer engine. |
Bug Fixes
Bug | Description | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| 2453 | When an HTML file that included a .PNG image was converted, the text font weight increased to bold. GIF and .JPG images did not have this effect. | This has been resolved, now .PNG images do not increase the text weight. |
| 2467 | File specific: Images were positioned above instead of to the left of text in a cell. | The HTML content used a 100% width attribute in one of the cells which forced the content to wrap when scaled to a PDF page. Resolution is to remove the width attribute or split the text and images into two separate columns. |
| 2544 3131 3414 4518 | Native engine: When PreserveTextboxes is set to False, text in forms do not display. | WebGrabber now adds WinAnsiEncoding to fonts when adding text fields for intelligent PDF options. |
| 2992 | If MediaType = 1 (for Print) was called, the CSS was not retained. | The CSS settings for Media Type 1 (for Print) are now supported by WebGrabber. |
| 3038 | When using SetOutputSecurity or SetOutputSecurity128, the Title and Author metadata was encrypted, causing mixed characters to display instead of the expected metadata. | This issue is resolved, Title and Author metadata now display as expected. |
| 3207 | When installing WebGrabber on Windows 2003 x86 after installing the .NET Framework a reboot is required. After the system reboot the installer needed to be restarted manually. | After reboot, the installation process now restarts automatically. |
| 3467 | File specific: When a header and footer was included, the conversion (with a large size) failed and logged a 255 error (not able to find the file). | This issue is resolved and the file converts to PDF as expected. |
| 3761 | When EmbedFlash was called when converting a URL, the Flash files were not embedded in the output PDF. | WebGrabber now embeds Flash files as expected. |
3783 3784 | Calling security and linearize methods during a conversion resulted in a corrupted output PDF. | Security and linearize methods can now be used successfully in the same conversion. |
| 3823 | File specific: When using the Internet Explorer engine, a URL with Japanese characters returned an error. | The URL now converts as expected. |
| 4006 | Internet Explorer engine: COM: Paper sizes other than 8.5 by 11 inches could not be set. | This issue is resolved and conversions with a paper size selected display as expected. |
| 4061 | File specific: Conversion did not display as expected. | This issue is resolved and the conversion displays as expected. |
| 4343 | Native engine: Calling CreateFromHTMLText with WinAnsiEncoding options selected caused missing text in the output PDF. | This is resolved and conversions display as expected. Note: Type1 and TrueType fonts are the only font types that may use the WinAnsiEncoding option. |
| 4350 | When CurrentUICulture was changed in the Windows OS, an error was returned indicating the data-binding library was not registered. | This issue is resolved. Conversions occur as expected regardless of which culture setting is used. |
| 4609 | File specific: Native engine: When using a table in the footer, the footer text was too small although the table is set to 100%. | This is resolved and the footer now displays as expected in the output PDF. Note: Set the FitToPage property to True before calling the conversion method. |
| 4688 | When installing WebGrabber on Windows Server 2012 (non-R2), the OS did not properly install WebGrabber. There was no prompt to add Internet Explorer Login info and the WebGrabber printer was not created. WebGrabber installs correctly on all other OS, including 2012 R2. | The installer was updated to run a WebGrabber login application during the installation for Windows 8 and 2012 (non-R2). Please see the Installation instructionsbelow. |
Additional Solutions
These occurrences may happen when WebGrabber is working as expected.
Bug | Incident | What to do |
| 3430 | Native: When FitToPage is set to True, data such as radio buttons, text, and dropboxes on the page break are split between Pages 1 and 2 in the output PDF, instead of displaying on either Page 1 or Page 2. | This is by design. FitToPage instructs WebGrabber to force the content into a specified page size, regardless of right margin or page breaks. The workaround is to set FitToPage to False. |
| 3779 | When using the Internet Explorer engine, dynamic Google charts in the source file are missing in the output PDF. | Use the WaitBeforePrinting property to set enough time for the charts to load. Note: If you are converting a local file ("file:///xxxxx") on your computer system, follow these steps to configure Internet Explorer to allow active content to run in local files:
|
| 4436 | When logging in remotely using Internet Explorer 9 or later, conversion attempts fail. | Internet Explorer 9 and later requires the user to be logged in to create files. To be granted file creation permission, reboot the remote machine and log in as the WebGrabber Internet Explorer user. |
Installation and Getting Started
If you are using Windows Server 2012 or above, and will be using the Internet Explorer engine for conversions, follow the steps below to ensure that the WebGrabber user has sufficient permissions for performing conversions.
Before installing WebGrabber on Windows Server 2012 or above:
- Log on to Windows Server( 2012 and above) as Admin user.
- Create a new user account for the WebGrabber user with administrative and remote login privileges.
- Log in, then log out as the as the WebGrabber user.
- Follow the installation instructions (see the link below) and install WebGrabber.
After installing WebGrabber on Windows Server 2012 or above:
Set up WebGrabber to use the Internet Explorer engine:
- Launch the WebGrabber user interface.
- Under the WebGrabber settings, turn on the Enable Internet Explorer Conversions.
- Select Save.
Note: In order to perform conversions with the Internet Explorer engine on Windows Server 2012 or above,
the WebGrabber user with administrative privileges must be logged in (but can be disconnected).
For more installation instructions and general startup information, see the Legacy section for the WebGrabber Installation Guide at:
https://www.activepdf.com/support/documentlinks.
See the Legacy section for the WebGrabber API Reference Guide for information about .NET and COM methods and properties at:
https://www.activepdf.com/support/documentlinks.