On line guide/help

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Version history

Current version : 1.0.12 - 05 Oct. 2026

Ver. 1.0.12 - 05 Oct. 2026

• Requirements: PHP 8.1 or later (the library already used PHP 8.1 functions)
• New data providers that read the data without a database: DataProviderArray (PHP array), DataProviderCSV, DataProviderJSON and DataProviderXML (files). The data files can be changed without touching the code; all of them support master / detail sections. See the Data providers page
• 2D barcodes: QR code, DataMatrix and PDF417 with the <barcode> element, new color and backcolor attributes. See the Barcode page
• Sections with columns (columns and column_width attributes): sheets of labels or badges with a single section. See the Section page
• Charts: new axisformat attribute, the format mask of the axis labels (by default the labels use the number format variables), and showaxis attribute; the auto scale is rounded to a round step and shared by all the measures; single bar chart axislinestyle, tickscount and title with the vertical orientation; gauge chart axisfont; pie chart totalfont, total printed inside the ring; legend boxsize, labelheight, titleheight, itemmargin, padding, showvalues and format attributes. See the Bar chart and Legend pages
• Charts: an empty value in a data element is a missing value (no point in the line chart), the value 0 is now drawn. See the Datalist page
• Fixed the bar chart axis labels drifting from the bars (barmargin without barsize), the bars ignoring minvalue, the chart titles printed too far from the chart and the pie chart total overflowing the ring
• Fixed the line chart with the Composer autoloader: the error Class "AlienProject\PDFReport\ChartStyleType" not found stopped any template with a <linechart> element (the enum is now in its own file ChartStyleType.php)
• Fixed the text fit modes Auto and Resize: a word wider than the box (eg. a single character in a very narrow box) was not printed. See the Text fit page
• Fixed the placeholders with value 0, printed as an empty string, and the printif conditions with an empty side (eg. {row.flag}=1 when the field is empty). See the Conditional printing page
• Fixed {PAGECOUNT}: it is now the total number of pages of the document, eg. "Page {PAGEINDEX} of {PAGECOUNT}". See the System variables page
• Fixed a nested section inside a section without data provider: the rows that did not fit in the first page were lost, they now continue on the following pages. See the Section page

Ver. 1.0.11 - 29 Sep. 2026

• Breaking change: the <output> element is now honored (it was ignored and the PDF was always sent inline to the browser). Templates with <dest>F</dest> that expect to see the PDF in the browser must use <dest>I</dest> (or <dest>FI</dest>). See the Generate output page
• Behavior change: a section whose data query returns no rows is no longer printed. See the Section page
• BuildReport() returns the PDF document when the destination is S (string) or E (base64 email attachment)
• Fixed the limit of 500 data rows per report
• Fixed elements and settings being ignored: <opacity>, <textfit>, custom page size in <page>, gauge chart legend
• Fixed rectangle corner radius, barcode settings inherited by the following barcodes, default fill style color, KPI chart errors and border, line/area chart without <symbolstyle>, chart legend colors
• Charts: placeholders supported in values, segments and titles; new "format" attribute for gauge and KPI charts; new "showtotal", "totallabel" and "format" attributes for the pie chart total
• An invalid XML template raises an exception with the line, column and reason of the error
• Known issue: {PAGECOUNT} returns the current page number (fixed in 1.0.12)

Ver. 1.0.10 - 13 Aug. 2026

• Fixed "textfit" attribute (and "TextFit" default element) being ignored: every box always used the default "Auto" mode (the attribute had never taken effect since it was introduced in 1.0.5)

Ver. 1.0.9 - 13 Jul. 2026

• Fixed a bug where the barcode element did not handle the border attribute (a black border was always displayed)

Ver. 1.0.8 - 01 Jul. 2026

• Fixed an issue in the installer package related to the TextFit.php file (a missing enumeration that the autoloader was unable to load). *** IMPORTANT ***

Ver. 1.0.7 - 01 Jul. 2026

• Added new attribute "printif" for conditional printing of the following elements:
• line
• box / text
• rectangle / rect
• circle
• image
• barcode
• piechart
• singlebarchart
• barchart
• linechart
• gaugechart
• kpichart
• page

Ver. 1.0.6 - 24 Jun. 2026

• Bug fix for image tag not supporting dynamic image set via variable
• Fixed automatic image processing (previously limited to PNG format only)
• Minor fix and updates

Ver. 1.0.5 - 27 Nov. 2025

• Added new attribute "textfit" to box element. Possible values:
• None : Use text as it is (no truncate, no resize)
• Auto (default) : Truncate text if too large. If text truncate fails, resize text (scales down font if text is too large)
• Truncate : Truncate text if too large
• Resize : Scales down font if text is too large
• Added new attribute "format" to box element (custom text format)
• Added new elements:
• TextFit (sets the default text fitting mode, used when the "textfit" attribute is not set on the box element)
• Measure (define chart measures)
• Fix for Box element (handled UTF8 multibyte text)
• Added a new attribute "showvalues" (yes/no) to barchart element
• Added a new attribute "format" to measure element (float, integer, currency, %, ..)
• Added new method SetFormatCallback to call a custom callback function for values formatting
• Minor fix for bar chart and line/area chart
• Added more flexibility in defining the print area, using the (x1,y1)+(x2,y2) or (x,y)+(width,height) attributes, on the following elements:
• Box
• Line
• Rectangle
• Barcode
• Image
• PieChart
• GaugeChart
• KpiChart
• SingleBarChart
• BarChart
• LineChart (AreaChart)
• Legend
• Added support for multiple measures in a bar chart (side-by-side bars)
• The linear gradient fill style can now have either horizontal (default) or vertical direction

Ver. 1.0.4 - 15 Nov. 2025

• Added rotateangle (0° - 360°) attribute to box element to rotate box around angle x1,y1
• Added new graphic elements
• Bar chart (vertical/horizontal)
• Line/area chart

Ver. 1.0.3 - 08 Oct. 2025

• Updated/fix Updated/fix Doctrine data provider class (for Symfony framework)
• Updated/fix Updated/fix Eloquent data provider class (for Laravel framework)
• Set the TCPDF library is in the global namespace (fix for Symfony framework)

Ver. 1.0.2 - 04 Oct. 2025

• Renamed all application classes to make them 100% compatible with the PSR-4 autoloader standard in Linux environment in addition to the Windows environment (already supported)

Ver. 1.0.1 - Sep. 2025

• Minor fix and updates

Ver. 1.0.0 - Aug. 2025

• First release
• Standard items included:
• Page
• Line
• Box/text
• Rectangle
• Circle
• Barcode
• Image
• Formatting elements included:
• Page settings
• Line style
• Font
• Fill style
• Color opacity level
• Graphic elements included:
• Single bar chart
• Pie/Donunt chart
• Gauge chart
• KPI chart
• Charts sub-components:
• Legend
• Segment list
• Data providers included:
• PDO
• MySqli
• Eloquent ORM (Laravel framework)
• Doctrine ORM (Symfony framework)
• Other items
• Comments
• Section
• Content
• Output