1.14 release notes

Before attempting to upgrade to Document Engine 1.14, make sure your application runs as expected on your current version. If you’re on version 1.6.1 or later, you can upgrade directly to 1.14. If you’re on an earlier version, follow the step-by-step upgrade path outlined in our upgrade guide.

Highlights

Document Engine 1.14 expands file conversion capabilities with TXT-to-PDF support, adds rendering options for Word document headers/footers and spreadsheet print areas, and introduces Brotli decompression for improved PDF handling.

TXT-to-PDF conversion

Document Engine now supports converting plain text (.txt) files to PDF. This expands the range of file formats that can be processed.

TXT files can be used like any other supported file format in the Build API(opens in a new tab):

{
  "parts": [
    {
      "file": "document.txt"
    }
  ]
}

Half-transparent headers and footers in Word document conversion

This release adds the ability to render headers and footers as half-transparent when converting Word documents to PDF.

You can configure half-transparent header/footer rendering in two ways:

  1. Globally — Set the HALF_TRANSPARENT_HEADER_FOOTER environment variable.
  2. Per request — Use the half_transparent_header_footer parameter in Build API(opens in a new tab) requests.

When both are specified, the API parameter takes precedence over the environment variable.

  • true — Headers and footers are rendered as half-transparent.
  • false (default) — Headers and footers are rendered as opaque.
{
  "parts": [
    {
      "file": "document.docx",
      "half_transparent_header_footer": true
    }
  ]
}

Spreadsheet print area rendering control

This release adds the ability to control whether only the print area or the entire spreadsheet content is rendered during conversion to PDF.

You can configure print area rendering in two ways:

  1. Globally — Set the SPREADSHEET_RENDER_ONLY_PRINT_AREA environment variable.
  • false (default) — Render the entire spreadsheet content.
  • true — Render only the defined print area.
  1. Per request — Use the render_only_print_area parameter in Build API(opens in a new tab) requests.

Adds support for Brotli decompression

Document Engine now supports Brotli(opens in a new tab) decompression, enabling it to open PDFs that use Brotli-compressed content streams.

Breaking changes

This release doesn’t include any breaking changes.

Deprecations

This release doesn’t include any deprecations.

Database migrations

This release contains a migration that modifies the pdfs table to address file size limits.

Previously, byte_size was stored as a Postgres int4, which tops out at ~2 GB. That cap was too low for larger PDFs, so we now store sizes in a new bigint column.

The migration:

  • Adds a new byte_size_big_int column (bigint) for larger file sizes
  • Makes the legacy byte_size column nullable so new rows can rely on byte_size_big_int

Operational note: This is a metadata-only change (no table rewrite). Postgres will take a brief AccessExclusive lock on pdfs while the columns are altered; lock acquisition last typically sub-seconds to a few seconds, and the change completes quickly once the lock is acquired.

Changelog

A full list of changes, along with the issue numbers, is available here.