Release Notes
Features & Improvements:
- Added setting that updates UX to allow dual window UX.
- Fixed an issue where export action could not be triggered if any of the documents was not ready.
- Fixed splitting of surrogate pairs in delIns cleanup.
- Fixed handling of list marker change events in pptx speaker notes.
- Fixed layout misalignment in colourised document transformation.
- Fixed numbering mismatch with w:vanish paragraphs when compareHiddenText=false.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed an issue where a watermark could appear on PDF outputs.
Features & Improvements:
- Improved placement of changed text around deleted paragraphs.
- Added support for comparing SmartTag content.
- Draftable now starts in the user’s last non-maximized window size.
- New setting to open the comparison viewer in a new tab (rather than the same tab).
- Fixed several “unable to compare” errors related to:
- Move detection overlaps.
- Malformed SVG content.
- Mismatched block- vs run-level
sdtmarkers. - Preprocessing of textbox content within a Table of Contents.
- Fixed an issue with sync scrolling in Side-by-Side comparisons when using threaded runners.
Bugfixes:
- Prevented crashes when comparing text input vs text file.
Features & Improvements:Administrator Features
- Added the option for organizations to include an organization-level GUID in telemetry for admin usage reporting.
- Enforced logging of new settings to telemetry (when organization telemetry is enabled).
- Fixed errors caused by images in the new Outlook.
- Resolved occasional filename UI collisions in redline viewer outputs.
- Updated the update dialog to avoid cut-off text.
- Prevented poor layouts stemming from interactions with table column changes.
- Ensured results open in the source tab rather than the most recent Draftable window.
- Fixed preprocessing failure when an invalid output type was selected.
Features & Improvements:
- Added telemetry events for window size changes.
- You can now reduce the Draftable window to one quarter of the screen.
- Admin profile locks now also cover Excel and PowerPoint settings.
- New option to display the Draftable UI in additional languages.
- Fixed an issue where selections couldn’t be cleared in Text Decoration settings.
- The original file type is now logged in compare execution telemetry.
- Side-by-side algorithm parameters now reach the text alignment stage correctly.
- Improved parsing of names containing “&” in the Word Add-in.
- Text normalization now tolerates invalid code points.
- Draftable now remembers your preferred default window size after resizing.
- Detaching a tab no longer breaks the original window.
Hotfix:
- Resolved an issue in the Draftable Word Add-in that caused unexpected template prompts to appear when using Word.
Hotfix:
- DD-2604: Redirect Draftable subscription link to the current URL.
Improvements & Features:
- Added a setting to enable extra CEF logging for diagnostics
- Restored the ability to resize the app down to the original minimum window size (pre-25.8.0)
- [Word Add-in] “Compare with Latest” no longer appears for local documents
- Improved email generation to avoid Outlook-related issues
- Fixed the Excel Add-in archive not extracting properly
- [Telemetry] Now logs the source of files added to the app
- Resolved the inability to resize the window while on the Comparison tab
- Prevented unintended modifications to
Normal.dotmunless explicitly requested
Features & Improvements:
- Tabbed UI: Redesigned the app to use tabs instead of multiple windows
- Unified window: Merged the Launcher and Viewer into a single window
- Viewer UX: Remember the expanded/collapsed state of the Summary panel when switching view types
- Diagnostics: Setting to enable extra logging from CEF
- Compare quality: Reduce false positives where mixed numbering is interpreted as text
- Wrap long lines when converting TXT to PDF for comparison
- Handle
LISTNUMfields with invalid levels - Workaround for ZIP corruption caused by empty XML parts (DD-2454).
- Word Add-in: Avoid hang when the source document is completely empty
Improvements & Features:
- Resolved pipe-handling issues affecting MSI installs.
- Viewer: added “Re-run Compare” command, allowing users to relaunch a comparison directly from the results window (intended to be used with filters)
- Cleans cached values in header/footer numbering fields for more accurate numbering
- Compare window now opens in maximised state by default
Features & Improvements:
- [Word Add-in] Context menu actions no longer modify the
Normal.dotmtemplate. - Introduced a keyboard shortcut to quickly navigate to the next change in comparison results.
- Fixed issue preventing export logs from generating.
- Resolved unresponsive behaviour in the “Export Error Logs” feature.
Improvements & Features:
- [Outlook Add-in] Added support for 1-Click Compare directly on email attachments.
- Improved case-sensitive comparison with better handling of
<w:caps>styles.
- Updated tooltip behaviour for the system tray icon.
- Fixed serialization logic for nested complex field instructions in documents.
Improvements & Features:
- Embedded version information into ADML and ADMX templates.
- [Word Add-in] Added command to load all open Word files into Draftable.
- Retained user signature when generating emails via the Outlook integration.
- Added configuration to limit the number of runner processes for performance stability.
- Enabled support for OneDrive file handling in Word Add-in even without SharePoint integration.
Improvements & Features:
- [Outlook Add-in]
- Introduced token exchange for silent login.
- Improved internal communication between the Outlook Add-in and the main app.
- Fixed issues where email logs were not being generated properly.
- Fixed issues with 1-Click and Bulk Compare producing invalid Side-by-Side outputs.
- Fixed an issue in the Group Policy template.
Improvements & Features:
- [Word Add-in] Added “Compare with Latest” option.
- Administrators can now define custom tags for the change list.
- Prevented follow-up requests from failing after an invalid background request.
- Fixed bug where certain Burmese script characters were converted to newlines.
- Resolved app freezes during update processes.
- Fixed issues with output filenames for files sharing the same name.
Bugfixes:
- Various fixes to group policy
Improvements & Features:
- Improved handling of shared drive file loading to prevent resource errors.
- Group temporary files by comparison for easier troubleshooting.
- Removed the “One or more documents are in an older format” warning.
- [SharePoint] Updated One Click command to use the new architecture.
- Right-hand menu in viewer is now sticky between sessions (e.g. change list state persists).
- Enhanced clarity in the 1-Click Compare error dialog.
- New setting to ignore differences between curly and straight apostrophes and quotation marks.
- Admin-installed Office Add-ins are now visible in Settings.
- Admins can now create custom tags for the change list.
- Improved handling of
numPicBulletdefinitions usingmc:AlternateContent. - Fixed false positive paragraph changes caused by bookmark tags in tables.
- PDF icon now properly displays when PDF files are compared.
- Corrected pagination issues in SharePoint API responses.
- Resolved system verification errors related to the “Microsoft Windows: Context menu” feature.
Improvements & Features:
- Ignored footer changes in “Changes Pages Only” mode.
- Added PDF compatibility toggle.
- Introduced a markup schema option to highlight changed text.
- Improved comparison accuracy for Text Boxes.
- 1-Click Compare now respects setting to auto-select the two most recent versions.
- Enhanced robustness of HTTP listener for initial support of Redline in Outlook.
- Fixed export bug where HTML was generated despite DOCX being selected.
- Corrected failures in report generation involving moved text within text boxes.
- Fixed missing file extensions in ZIP exports.
- Now handles
footnoteColumnsattribute in section properties. - Resolved issues with native Office compare.
- Disabled changes display when “Compare Textboxes” is turned off.
- Fixed indentation flattening in PDF compatibility mode.
- Prevented incorrect inheritance of paragraph properties in deleted content.
- Fixed comparison errors due to table issues in certain documents.
- Fixed comparison failures for documents with comments.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed orphaned comments in document outputs.
- Removed invalid XML characters when converting from TXT to DOCX.
Improvements & Features:
- Automatically convert XLSEL to XLSX when loading from the Excel Add-in; now also supported in Side-by-Side view.
- Enhanced section column with shorthand notation and parent sections in clause view.
- Multiple comparisons can now be emailed at once.
- Improved filename handling and enforced naming conventions.
- Added “remember my choice” option for next actions in admin-defined profiles.
- Improved comparison of footnote numbering.
- Treated soft hyphens as zero-weight characters in comparisons.
- Updated tooltip wording in General Settings.
- Resolved file loading issues.
- Adjusted fixed-height row layout for revised tables.
- Improved text alignment logic in numbering detection.
- Resolved clause generation crashes.
- Ignored quotation mark-only changes in comparisons.
- Fixed numbering ID alignment for consistency.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed file naming recognition for Redline in Word when launched from the Word Add-in.
- Resolved document comparison failure bugs.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed issue where Office Add-ins were not properly installed by the MSI installer.
Improvements & Features:
- Added a certificate verification option for Office Add-ins.
- Extended SharePoint site search to return more than 25 results.
- Cleaned up help article links in the action pane and ribbon UI.
- [Epona] Added support for drag and drop from the Outlook extension.
- 1-Click Compare now supports setting a default “save to” location.
- Improved filename truncation logic for OneDrive, NetDocuments, and viewer displays.
- Improved performance on single-core machines by optimizing change list generation.
- Fixed app-blocking issue when iManage files are selected from recent files.
- Resolved problem where customized OCR settings were not applied.
- Improved handling of DOCX style changes in Aspose engine.
- Upgraded Aspose.Words to version 24.10.
- Fixed failure to load the Changes Report when Summary Page is included in Redline.
- Resolved mismatch between displayed name and actual filename for Outlook attachments.
- Fixed PDF generation error when footnotes/endnotes comparison was disabled.
- Addressed lingering password prompt during comparison after entering correct credentials.
- Fixed issue where password-protected files wouldn’t open during Bulk Compare.
Improvements & Features:
- 1-Click compare improvements: Allow users to set specific ‘save to’ location default for 1-Click Compare
- Addressed an issue where the refresh function was interfering with the comparison process.
Bugfixes:
- Fixed a signing issue for the MSI installer introduced in version 24.10.0.
Improvements & Features:
- Startup Notifications Setting: Added a new setting and Group Policy option to disable Windows startup notifications for a smoother launch experience.
- Application Exit Option: Users can now exit the application conveniently from the file menu.
- Version Information Sync: Ensures that the Windows system always has the latest Draftable version information.
- Resolved issues with change list loading errors and file handling during comparisons.
- Fixed various errors affecting the generation and display of comparison reports and document metadata.
- Improved the handling of settings when reloading file comparison definitions.
Bug Fixes:
- Windows Shell extension not installed for Per-User installer.
New Features & Improvements:
- Option added to default to the last saved location when saving locally.
- Local files are now reloaded before comparison if the file content changes.
- Users can mark off changes in the change list.
- Bulk actions are now available for status tags in the change list.
- File Obfuscator failed to obfuscate files.
Bug Fixes:
- False negative on the first page header.
- Compare error on handling complex fields.
- Inserted signature not showing up on the change list.
- Password-protected XLSX documents are not detected properly.
- Removed suffix (.docx) from appending twice on renamed files when copying to the clipboard.
- File Obfuscator tool now asks for two files.
- Include names of compared files in the changes report.
- Added option to save output to the last save location.
Bug Fixes:
- Resolved issue where certain settings were not showing in the general tab.
New Features & Improvements:
- Improved table column matching.
- Tracked settings configured by Group Policy in the telemetry.
- Table comparison error resolved.
- False negatives for deleted comments in comparisons fixed.
Bug Fixes:
- Conversion engine setting changes are now logged to telemetry.
- Resolved UI issue where the Change List was not loading properly.
Bug Fixes:
- Corrected several false positives and wrong descriptions of changes in the change list.
New Features & Improvements:
- Added NGEN support to reduce memory consumption on multi-user systems.
- Start automatically with Windows is not working.
- Updated the File Open to remember the last used location.
- Incorrect numbering changes resolved.
New Features & Improvements:
- Renamed comparison options.
- Certain changes are now excluded when all elements are disabled in comparison options.
- Resolved issues with changes made to Word settings after using Draftable.
New Features & Improvements:
- Administrators can now lock certain profile settings when creating new profiles.
- Implemented registry and Group Policy support for 1-Click Compare, including options to control 1-Click export settings.
- Fixed issue where chromium logs would appear next to the selected document.
- Filename trimming corrected.
- Resolved cutoff issue with tables during comparison.
- Fixed compare error with bullets and numbering disabled.
New Features & Improvements:
- Updated insertion colors in Side-by-Side exports from green to blue.
- Improved error message when no valid 1-Click action is defined.
- Resolved issues with next actions for 1-Click Compare not appearing properly.
- Fixed font issues affecting highlight boxes.
New Features & Improvements:
- Added missing Group Policy templates.
New Features & Improvements:
- Introduced 1-Click Compare.
- Added next action menu to Side-By-Side comparisons.
- Filename output now works correctly without a summary page.
- Various issues with dotm template prompts in Word Add-In resolved.
New Features & Improvements:
- Filenames are now correctly trimmed for custom filename output.
Bug Fixes:
- The application now properly informs users when a comparison fails.
New Features & Improvements:
- Small UI improvements made to the side by side viewer.
New Features & Improvements:
- Enhanced interactions with the Word API.
- Telemetry now passes the ComparisonID to the viewer.
- The ribbon menu is now expanded by default.
- Added a colon to automated emails for comparison outputs.
- Speed improvements for DOCX comparisons, with an average performance boost of 6.5%.
- Side-by-Side users can now turn off moves in the settings.
- Fixed the “key not present in the dictionary” error in TryGetNumbering.
- Resolved issues with the legacy theme not being supported for Side-by-Side comparisons.
Improvements:
- Enhanced the installation process for Add-ins.
Improvements:
- Fixed an issue where input files were not filled when the app was triggered without running.
Bug Fix:
- Fixed an error when comparing documents with hidden text.
Bug Fix:
- Resolved an issue where text inputs could not be compared.
New Features & Improvements:
- Fixed the startup option to ensure proper behavior on Windows startup.
- Bookmarks are now encoded as the same character.
- Extended support for UNC file paths.
- Font size threshold setting is now visible to standard users.
New Features & Improvements:
- Custom output filename structure now available.
- Fixed error parsing DOCX indentation values.
- Resolved issue where the file area would stay in spin/load mode when closing the multiple file selector without files.
Improvements:
- Small improvement to a previous bug fix, making it more efficient.
Bug Fixes:
- Resolved a conflict between Microsoft Edge WebView2 and Chromium that caused issues.
New Features & Improvements:
- Compare output now shows ‘hidden’ text as a change.
- Users can now drag and drop text directly into the box without clicking the “input text” button.
- Introduced a silent launch option that prevents the New Compare window from showing on startup.
- Added the ability to compare text from Word.
- Users can now collapse the ‘next actions’ menu on the right side of the viewer.
- The default ‘save to’ location in the Windows file browser is now the same as the comparison input file location.
- Updated the Squirrel installer to reflect an app size estimate of 2GB.
- Display the installed version of add-ins in the settings.
- Fixed error when exporting Side-by-Side comparisons for certain documents.
- Allowed scrolling for System Verification results to avoid UI cutoff.
- Resolved issues with exporting Tracked Changes from Side-by-Side comparisons.
- Fixed error handling numbering issues in DOCX comparisons.
- Resolved conversion issues with .doc files to PDF where files could not be found.
New Features & Improvements:
- Enabled drag-and-drop text directly into the comparison input box.
- The default ‘save to’ location in Windows file browser is now the same as the input file location.
- Added support for footnotes and endnotes in the change list.
- Added support for other run content in the Change List.
- Stopped using Office apps from the main process to avoid errors.
- Fixed issues with exporting Side-by-Side comparisons for certain documents.
- Allowed scrolling for System Verification results to avoid UI cutoff.
- Small refactor of temporary file management.
- Fixed issue where errors during Side-by-Side export for email caused app freezes.
Bug Fixes:
- Improved sequential processing of PowerPoint operations.
- Stopped using Office apps from the main process to avoid errors.
Bug Fixes:
- Export logs option now works after system verification.
- Incorrect timestamps in the summary page resolved.
- Fixed UI issues for long profile names in the settings menu.
- Fixed linking Sentry reports with the license.
- Resolved incorrect filename issues for files dragged and dropped from Outlook email attachments.
- Alert during application auto-start added.
- Addressed long profile name cutting off the comparison type in the launcher.
- Fixed privacy disclaimer window cutting off text.
- Tooltip for Draftable Desktop activation dialog no longer appears on top of other windows.
- Resolved application exit issues with Squirrel AbandonedMutexException.
- Added “Side by Side as Tracked Changes” as a new comparison type.
- Disabled the “Compare Version(s)” button in the web extension when list versioning is not supported.
- Aspose is now available via the general settings tab (not set as the default).
- Group Policy support added to disable the desktop shortcut.
- Updated viewer to version 3.6.20.
- Group Policy added to enable/disable Draftable launching upon startup.
- Warn users before the app restarts after an update.
New Features & Improvements:
- GDPR Compliance:
- Sanitized error reporting data captured in Sentry.
- Sanitized telemetry data.
- Draftable Engine used for PDF to DOCX conversions.
- AutoCompare fixed when running from CLI.
- Document version changes now detected after clicking “Compare.”
- Fixed header bug in comparison.
New Features & Improvements:
- New Comparison window automatically launched after product activation.
- Multiple file selection now available in Windows file browser.
- Fixed PDF file load timing out on network drives.
- Updated image hash not to use MD5.
New Features & Improvements:
- Added support for a third-party library for DOCX to PDF rendering, available in the “Preview Features” tab.
- New Comparison window automatically launches after product activation.
- Support for loading password-protected Office documents added.
- Added a Preview Features tab in settings, accessible via SHIFT + F12.
New Features:
- Option to keep input files after a comparison is complete.
- Group Policy introduced to guide users to contact internal IT for support instead of Draftable Support.
- Improvements in handling Structured Document Tags.
- Fixed header/footer false negatives in comparisons.
- Resolved issue where Word conversion would break due to error overriding Word settings.
New Features:
- Users can now select input files from a list of recent documents.
- Default insertion color changed from “Blue” to “Dark Blue.”
- Fixed issue with the Word Add-In not working for file paths containing ”&”.
- Resolved issues where the author name in the new comparison window would change when switching comparison types.
- Improved error handling when closing Word documents.
- Fixed issue where the Compare Result window would get stuck on a spinner when loading output PDFs.
- The Word Add-In now displays a warning when attempting to compare an unsaved file.
- Fixed app freeze caused by an exception during export.
- Resolved an error when running Side-by-Side comparisons for DOCX files, ensuring PDF copies of the original document are created at the correct stage.
- Addressed false error timeouts when loading files.
- Output filenames are no longer truncated, with the limit extended from 30 to 70 characters.
- Profile picker no longer displays for non-legal users.
New Features & Improvements:
- Improved validation of the Comparison Type on the Compare Selector window.
- Fixed leaking Word instances.
- Fixed patch version for MSI installers.
- Resolved issue with Draftable opening Word files when running comparisons.
New Features & Improvements:
- Fixed leaking Word instances.
Improvements:
- Users can now set content and style changes for Side-by-Side comparisons.
Bug Fixes:
- Group Policy fix applied.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed issue where disabling the PDF warning in Office was not working in certain scenarios.
New Features:
- Progress bar introduced to indicate loading status during comparisons.
- Open link features now supported from the Viewer.
- Error dialogs now include an option to export and send logs.
- User Desktop settings are now included when exporting logs.
- The Viewer now logs custom errors, which are sent to Sentry for troubleshooting.
Bug Fixes:
- Resolved issue where the app would encounter an error when Office was not installed.
Bug Fixes & Improvements:
- Cleaned up Word integration for better diagnostics and future issue resolution.
- Extended the app log to include Sentry and telemetry configuration details.
- Updated error logs to record the current time zone from Windows during startup.
- Fixed
NullReferenceExceptionin the Draftable.CompareTool.Updater.WindowsUtils. - Moved PDF generation steps to the progress window for better task execution.
- Introduced double underline and strikethrough options for markup styling.
New Features & Improvements:
- Relaxed memory limit on Draftable for enhanced performance.
Bug Fixes:
- Improved handling of
TargetInvocationExceptionfrom the Word API. - Resolved issue where using a simple/default Normal.dotm template triggered Word Macros warnings, by removing all templates before comparison.
New Features & Improvements:
- Optimized handling of the
DisableConvertPdfWarningsetting to prevent unnecessary changes when already correctly configured. - Created the Word Options key automatically if missing.
- Help articles are now linked to issues found by the diagnostic tool.
- Fixed an issue where the settings window would become unresponsive when opened for the first time.
- Improved performance of the CompareSelector window by reducing lag after closing a comparison.
- Various algorithm improvements and cleanups.
New Features & Improvements:
- Updated viewer to latest viewer version.
- Fixed an issue with the onboarding statistics step not being readable.
- Addressed issues with Word’s
Normal.dotmpopup warning during comparisons.
New Features & Improvements:
- Introduced a new diagnostic tool to help resolve common support issues.
- MSI installers now support versioning.
- Added links to relevant knowledge base articles for better in-app guidance.
- Viewer ribbon is now maximized by default for better usability.
- Fixed various smaller bugs and issues with the comparison dialog.
Bug Fixes:
- Resolved issue preventing the creation of
Draftable.dotm.
New Features & Improvements:
- Enhanced comparison progress dialog to show steps more clearly.
- Updated the viewer to new version.
- Fixed an issue causing unknown errors when running Side-by-Side comparisons with one PDF and one Word document.
- Resolved
AccessViolationExceptionwhen trying to override Word settings.
New Features & Improvements:
- Added the display of steps in the comparison progress dialog to enhance the visibility of the process.
- Improved the handling of document loading, addressing one of the most common bugs reported by support.
- Implemented a potential fix for running comparisons when the system language differs from the application language.
- Telemetry improvements made based on recent reviews.
Bug Fixes:
- Resolved text input bugs for smoother operation.
New Features & Improvements:
- Managed Word options to avoid default Microsoft pop-ups during comparisons.
New Features & Improvements:
- Small backend bug fixes applied.
New Features:
- Extended the Draftable Group Policy template to allow setting auto-updates on/off for per-user and per-user MSI.
- Resolved issues with algorithm and comments handling.
Bug Fixes:
- Resolved issue where Headers and Footers were not visible in Side-by-Side comparisons for users with a standard license.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed the Move From and Move To decoration for improved comparison readability.
New Features & Improvements:
- Introduced a new compare progress dialog with a spinner for better visibility of ongoing comparisons.
- Gracefully handle and dispose of in-progress comparison cancellations.
- Extended markup customization options, with a feature flag to ignore moves.
- Default markup settings now align with Microsoft Word’s style.
- Users can now save their preference for opening or saving tracked changes output.
- Implemented new techniques for faster performance.
- Avoided using the Microsoft Word for preprocessing to improve efficiency.
- Fixed the issue where files were removed after a comparison was cancelled.
- Several algorithm bug fixes for smoother performance.
Bug Fixes:
- Resolved issue where it was not possible to save a document to from the streamline view panel.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed issue preventing users from selecting files.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed issue where the Compare Selector was visible before users accepted the Terms & Conditions during a fresh installation.
New Features & Improvements:
- Fixed an issue where some fonts (primarily Asia-based fonts) were not loaded correctly.
- Resolved an issue where long file names would expand the control instead of wrapping.
- Kept the launcher open after a comparison is created for better workflow continuity.
- Introduced spinners in buttons for actions that take time to complete.
- License key is now visible in the settings window.
- Added an option for users to switch between word-level or character-level comparison.
- Telemetry improvements: grouped actions related to specific comparisons and created comparison IDs after file drop, keeping them consistent until the comparison is triggered.
- Prepopulated the email body when emailing comparison outputs.
- Shipped language-specific fonts with the desktop application for better compatibility.
- Upgraded to new Viewer for better handling of long lists of changes and improved font handling for different languages.