Architecture News

Add Clarity and Context to PDF Files

May 22, 2025
Annotations enable users to highlight key sections, provide comments, or suggest edits to PDF documents, ensuring feedback is as clear as possible.

PDF annotation capabilities in PDF components provide powerful tools for users to interact with and enhance digital documents. These features are essential across industries where document review, feedback, and collaboration are critical, such as legal, education, engineering, and publishing. By integrating annotation support, developers enable users to mark up content visually, add commentary, and highlight important information, all without altering the underlying document content. Annotations are typically stored separately from the base file data, ensuring document integrity while allowing flexible interaction.

Common features include:

  • Free Text annotations allow users to insert editable text anywhere on the page, useful for adding clarifications or context.
  • Freehand Draw (Ink Annotations) let users sketch directly onto the page for informal notes or diagrammatic feedback.
  • Highlight Text annotations help draw attention to key passages by applying a translucent overlay.
  • Lines annotations provide a precise way to mark connections or callouts, often used in technical reviews.
  • Rectangles annotations offer a clean method to emphasize or outline specific areas of interest.
  • Stamp annotations enable users to apply predefined or custom graphical markers, such as approval seals or confidentiality warnings.
  • Sticky Note annotations allow users to attach small pop-up comments to any part of the document for easy reference.
  • Strikethrough annotations visually indicate content that may need deletion or reconsideration.
  • Underline Text annotations subtly emphasize text without obscuring it.

For an in-depth analysis of features and price, visit our .NET PDF components comparison.

Explore .NET PDF Annotation Features

Access Live Chart Data Through JavaScript APIs

May 22, 2025
React chart controls can retrieve up-to-date data on demand by integrating with custom JavaScript APIs for dynamic visual displays.

JavaScript API as a data source in React JavaScript Charts refers to the use of custom JavaScript functions or services that fetch and supply data dynamically to chart components at runtime, rather than relying on static datasets. This approach enables charts to reflect real-time data changes, support asynchronous operations, and integrate with external APIs or internal services. It is particularly useful for applications that require up-to-date information, such as dashboards, monitoring tools, or analytics platforms. The key advantage is enhanced flexibility and responsiveness, allowing developers to handle complex data flows, perform live updates, and tailor chart behavior based on interactive or conditional logic.

Several React Chart Controls offer support for using JavaScript API as a data source including:

  • Highcharts Core lets you populate charts with live data through JavaScript APIs, enabling dynamic updates and real-time visualization scenarios.
  • DevExtreme Chart (part of DevExtreme Complete by DevExpress) allows you to bind chart components to JavaScript API-driven data sources.
  • LightningChart JS facilitates high-speed rendering of data streamed from JavaScript APIs, ideal for intensive, real-time analytical dashboards.
  • ZingChart supports flexible data injection via JavaScript APIs, making it easy to refresh charts dynamically based on changing external datasets.

For an in-depth analysis of features and price, visit our comparison of React Chart Controls.

Compare React Chart Controls

Optimize Screen Space with Dockable Toolbars

May 22, 2025
Actipro WPF Bars v25.1 adds Visual Studio–style dockable toolbars with multi-line stacking, floating capability and toggleable visibility.

Actipro Bars for WPF is a UI component library that equips developers with the tools to build advanced ribbons, toolbars, and menus within their WPF applications. It offers an "Office-like" ribbon experience with customization options, supports MVVM design patterns, and includes a rich set of controls specifically designed for use within these elements, allowing for a cohesive and user-friendly interface.

The Actipro Bars for WPF v25.1 update introduces Visual Studio-style dockable toolbars that can be positioned on any edge of a host control or detached and moved to secondary monitors. This provides a highly adaptable workspace layout that users can configure to fit their preferences. Developers gain fine control over docking behavior, floating, stacking, and visibility settings through exposed properties, allowing for a dynamic and customizable interface without requiring complex custom coding.

To see a full list of what's new in v25.1, see our release notes.

Actipro Bars for WPF is licensed per developer and is available as a Perpetual license with 1 year support and maintenance. See our Actipro Bars for WPF licensing page for full details.

Actipro Bars for WPF is available in the following products:

Explore Powerful AI-driven Features in your JavaScript Spreadsheets

May 22, 2025
SpreadJS 18.1 includes a developer preview of AI Features for Natural Language and Smart Analysis.

SpreadJS by MESCIUS is a high-performance JavaScript spreadsheet component designed to integrate Excel-like functionality into web applications. It allows developers to deliver robust spreadsheet experiences within their applications, complete with features like data import/export, complex formulas, conditional formatting, and extensive customization options. SpreadJS caters to a wide range of use cases, from financial modeling and data analysis to project management and interactive dashboards, ultimately allowing developers to build feature-rich and user-friendly web applications. SpreadJS 18.1 includes a Developer Preview of powerful AI-driven features designed to transform how users interact with JavaScript spreadsheets.

In this blog post, SpreadJS Product Manager Chris Bannon takes you through each of these AI features, shows you how to use them, and highlights the value they can bring to your JavaScript applications. The SpreadJS AI Add-on preview includes the following capabilities:

  • Formula generation and explanation using natural language
  • PivotTable generation based on descriptive input
  • AI worksheet functions for text processing and translation

Read the full blog to get started exploring the benefits available in adding AI into your JavaScript spreadsheets.

SpreadJS is licensed per developer and includes 1 Year Maintenance (major and minor version releases and unlimited support phone calls). SpreadJS requires an Annual or Perpetual Deployment License. The optional Add-ons are available at an additional cost, and require a SpreadJS license. See our SpreadJS licensing page for full details.

For more information, visit our SpreadJS product page.

Extend PDF Capabilities in .NET 9 Apps

May 22, 2025
PDF Xpansion SDK 17.1.3 unlocks advanced PDF processing in modern apps by utilizing the performance enhancements of .NET 9.

The PDF Xpansion SDK from Soft Xpansion is a powerful development toolkit for integrating advanced PDF and electronic document processing into desktop, server, and mobile applications. It supports creating, editing, converting, displaying, and printing PDF files, along with handling related formats like XPS and OpenXPS. The SDK complies with ISO PDF standards and offers robust features for digital signatures, form processing, text extraction, and document security. It also includes specialized capabilities for e-invoicing, supporting formats such as ZUGFeRD and Factur-X, and provides PDF viewer functionality for seamless document display. This makes it an ideal solution for automating document workflows and ensuring regulatory compliance in enterprise environments.

The PDF Xpansion SDK 17.1.3 update introduces official support for both .NET 8 and the latest .NET 9, enabling developers to integrate advanced PDF functionality into modern applications while taking full advantage of the newest runtime optimizations and language enhancements. This ensures higher performance, improved scalability, and stronger security for document processing solutions. With support for .NET 9, development teams can leverage cutting-edge features such as improved Just-In-Time (JIT) and native Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) compilation, resulting in faster application startup times and reduced memory consumption. This update helps future-proof projects and supports the latest trends in application development.

PDF Xpansion SDK products are licensed per company location where developers use the SDKs. Optional Add-Ons are available which require ownership of SDK site licenses. Maintenance Subscription is available providing product updates (error corrections) and support services. See the product license pages for full details:

Learn more about PDF Xpansion SDK on our product pages: