---
title: "14.4 release notes"
canonical_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/dotnet/release-notes/14-4/"
md_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/dotnet/release-notes/14-4.md"
last_updated: "2026-05-19T01:10:17.056Z"
description: "Lists important changes for Nutrient .NET SDK 14.4"
---

Nutrient.NET SDK 14.4.0 introduces a packaging change for desktop viewers and significant performance improvements in PDF processing workflows.

## Breaking change: WinForms and WPF viewers are now separate packages

Starting with 14.4.0, viewer components are distributed as dedicated NuGet packages.

Use the following packages:

- `GdPicture.API` (core cross-platform processing API)

- `GdPicture` (Windows wrapper package around `GdPicture.API`)

- `GdPicture.WinForms` (WinForms viewer controls)

- `GdPicture.WPF` (WPF viewer controls)

This separation helps reduce package footprint by letting you install only the viewer stack your application uses.

## Impact on existing projects

When upgrading from earlier versions:

- Keep `GdPicture` installed for Windows projects.

- Add `GdPicture.WinForms` if your project uses WinForms viewer controls.

- Add `GdPicture.WPF` if your project uses WPF viewer controls.

Projects that use viewer controls but only reference the base package won’t compile until the corresponding viewer package is added.

## Upgrade steps

1. Update NuGet packages to `14.4.0` or newer.

2. Keep or add `GdPicture`.

3. Add the viewer package for your UI framework.

4. Rebuild the solution.

5. Verify viewer-related screens and workflows.

#### Example: WinForms project

```bash

dotnet add <ProjectName>.csproj package GdPicture.WinForms

```

#### Example: WPF project

```bash

dotnet add <ProjectName>.csproj package GdPicture.WPF

```

## Performance improvements

Compared to 14.3.1, 14.4.0 includes major improvements in several document-generation and extraction workflows. In some contexts, we’ve seen up to a 90 percent speed increase.

Benchmark context:

- BenchmarkDotNet v0.15.8, macOS Tahoe 26.4 (25E246) [Darwin 25.4.0]

- Apple M4 Max, 1 CPU, 16 logical and 16 physical cores

-.NET SDK 10.0.100

- `[Host]           :.NET 10.0.0 (10.0.0, 10.0.25.52411), Arm64 RyuJIT armv8.0-a`

- `GdPicture 14.3.1 :.NET 10.0.0 (10.0.0, 10.0.25.52411), Arm64 RyuJIT armv8.0-a`

- `GdPicture 14.4.0 :.NET 10.0.0 (10.0.0, 10.0.25.52411), Arm64 RyuJIT armv8.0-a`

- `Runtime=.NET 10.0  Server=True  IterationCount=3`

- `LaunchCount=1  WarmupCount=3`

| Method            | Job              | Mean        | Error     | StdDev   | Time change | RatioSD | Allocated  | Memory change   |
| ----------------- | ---------------- | ----------- | --------- | -------- | ----------- | ------- | ---------- | --------------- |
| PDF/A generation  | GdPicture 14.3.1 | 2,346.6 ms  | 191.34 ms | 10.49 ms | baseline    |         | 2092.42 MB | baseline        |
| PDF/A generation  | GdPicture 14.4.0 | 187.9 ms    | 40.95 ms  | 2.24 ms  | 92% faster  | 1.1%    | 278.81 MB  | 87% less memory |
| PDF/UA generation | GdPicture 14.3.1 | 2,277.4 ms  | 178.58 ms | 9.79 ms  | baseline    |         | 2092.42 MB | baseline        |
| PDF/UA generation | GdPicture 14.4.0 | 914.3 ms    | 117.37 ms | 6.43 ms  | 60% faster  | 0.7%    | 1157.08 MB | 45% less memory |
| PDF to Markdown   | GdPicture 14.3.1 | 20,611.3 ms | 726.78 ms | 39.84 ms | baseline    |         | 3152.81 MB | baseline        |
| PDF to Markdown   | GdPicture 14.4.0 | 1,224.8 ms  | 239.26 ms | 13.11 ms | 94% faster  | 0.9%    | 1810.33 MB | 43% less memory |
| PDF Generation    | GdPicture 14.3.1 | 2,289.8 ms  | 96.39 ms  | 5.28 ms  | baseline    |         | 2092.24 MB | baseline        |
| PDF Generation    | GdPicture 14.4.0 | 199.4 ms    | 265.09 ms | 14.53 ms | 91% faster  | 6.3%    | 395.42 MB  | 81% less memory |

You can run the benchmark sample project from our [public benchmark repository](https://github.com/PSPDFKit/awesome-nutrient/tree/master/gdpicture/GdPictureNuGetVersionBenchmark) or download the [benchmark results](https://www.nutrient.io/downloads/benchmark_gdpicture.md).

## Additional improvements in 14.4.0

This release also includes improvements and fixes across Office conversion and document parsing, including:

- Improved rendering of graphic objects, footnotes, and endnotes in Office documents.

- Improved pagination of floating blocks in Office headers and footers.

- Improved field parsing across multiple content runs.

- Improved memory consumption when rendering Excel files.

- Fixes for fake encrypted XLS parsing.

- Fixes for dropdown field parsing in Office documents.

- Fixes related to COM environments.

- Improvements to HTML-to-PDF conversion.

For a complete list of fixes and improvements included in 14.4.0, refer to the [changelog](https://www.nutrient.io/guides/dotnet/changelog.md#14.4.0).
---

## Related pages

- [14 4 2](/guides/dotnet/release-notes/14-4-2.md)
- [14 4 1](/guides/dotnet/release-notes/14-4-1.md)