1.3 release notes

We’re excited to introduce Nutrient Web SDK 1.3, a release that brings enhancements to document comparison, annotation behavior, accessibility handling, and rendering performance. This version introduces a brand-new AI-powered text comparison feature, along with several improvements that make the SDK more flexible, accessible, and performant across a wide range of use cases. See the changelog for the full list.

AI text comparison

This release introduces AI-powered text comparison, a major enhancement to the SDK’s existing comparison capabilities. By leveraging artificial intelligence, the new feature summarizes document differences, categorizes changes, and enables users to filter by high-level concepts like formatting, rewording, or content additions. Developers can enable AI comparison through a simple configuration using the AI Assistant service. For setup instructions and usage details, refer to the AI text comparison guide.

Smarter annotation tools and UI enhancements

Version 1.3 brings more control over how annotations behave and appear across devices. Developers can now define a custom breakpoint for the annotation toolbar, tailoring the UI to different screen sizes and use cases. Callout annotations are more predictable and stable when zooming, thanks to a unified scaling system that keeps arrow placement consistent.

The text editing experience has also been refined. Font size and font family selections are now correctly saved when editing presets, and underline is now supported as part of the text style configuration. Manual entry of font sizes in Content Editor has also been improved to handle focus behavior more predictably.

We’ve resolved issues that could cause text annotations to become unresponsive when switching between them while in edit mode, and we fixed edge cases where line breaks in multiline callout annotations were removed, causing content to shift or disappear after saving. Additionally, annotations with special characters like angle brackets (<>) now render as expected, and annotation tool states (e.g. selected or disabled) reflect correctly in the UI.

Improved accessibility and metadata handling

Nutrient Web SDK 1.3 brings better support for preserving accessibility-related metadata. PDF/UA tags are now retained when documents are edited, ensuring compliance with accessibility standards. The primary document language is also preserved, allowing assistive technologies to accurately interpret and present content. Alert and confirm dialogs are now properly centered, and focus is automatically directed to dialog buttons, improving keyboard accessibility.

Expanded rendering and scripting capabilities

This release adds support for several advanced features in the PDF JavaScript API, including AFTime_KeystrokeEx, the JavaScript global object, and page-level open and close actions. These additions enable more dynamic, form-driven documents with behavior that closely matches native PDF viewers.

When converting Excel documents, developers can now specify maximum spreadsheet dimensions, and tile size is configurable for rendering optimization. We’ve also introduced a more resilient rendering path for callout and free text annotations to ensure appearance streams fit within annotation bounds.

Loading speeds for Office documents have been improved, and launching Content Editor on pages with dense vector graphics (such as architectural plans) is now more responsive.

Behavioral changes

The GoToAction behavior has changed: It now sets destinations based on page references instead of page indexes. This means links will remain accurate, even if pages are moved or removed in the document editor.

For a complete list of changes, bug fixes, and performance improvements, refer to the changelog. For previous release notes, refer to the Web SDK 1.2 release notes. We appreciate your feedback and contributions as we continue to enhance Nutrient Web SDK.