Issues with shapes and WordArt effects when saving as PDF (Words/Cells)

Aspose.Total Product Family
1

Hello,

We use the Aspose suite extensively in our product to convert Office documents (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) to PDF.

A customer has reported an issue when creating PDFs from sources containing shapes and WordArt effects. I have attached zip with the following files:

shapes_and_effects.zip (149.0 KB)

  • shapes_and_effects.xlsx - original Excel file
  • shapes_and_effects_xlsx_excel.pdf - how Excel renders the PDF (expected result)
  • shapes_and_effects_xlsx_aspose.pdf - how Aspose.Cells renders the PDF
  • shapes_and_effects.docx - original Excel file
  • shapes_and_effects_docx_word.pdf - how Word renders the PDF (expected result)
  • shapes_and_effects_docx_aspose.pdf - how Aspose.Words renders the PDF

The issues I’ve noticed in the Aspose-generated PDFs are:

  • With the scroll shape, the darker/shadowed part of the scroll is not darker/shadowed.
  • With the shadowed text in the text box, the font looks off and the shadow effect is not applied.
  • The text that has no fill or outline, and thus should be practically invisible, is clearly visible.
  • The scroll shape appears to have slightly different dimensions in xlsx_aspose.pdf vs xlsx_excel.pdf.

I have used Aspose.Words 19.8.0 and Aspose.Cells 19.8.0. PDFs were simply created by:

var workbook = new Workbook(@"c:\temp\shapes_and_effects.xlsx");
workbook.Save(@"c:\temp\shapes_and_effects_xlsx_aspose.pdf", Aspose.Cells.SaveFormat.Pdf);

var doc = new Document(@"c:\temp\shapes_and_effects.docx");
doc.Save(@"c:\temp\shapes_and_effects_docx_aspose.pdf", Aspose.Words.SaveFormat.Pdf);

Is this a bug, or perhaps several?

2

@lars.olsson

We have tested the scenario and have managed to reproduce the same issues at our side. For the sake of correction, we have logged these problems in our issue tracking system as follow. You will be notified via this forum thread once these issues are resolved. We apologize for your inconvenience.

The issue ID is CELLSNET-46869.

The issue ID for shadow text issue is WORDSNET-19095 and for invisible text is WORDSNET-19096.

3

The issues you have found earlier (filed as WORDSNET-19096) have been fixed in this Aspose.Words for .NET 19.10 update and this Aspose.Words for Java 19.10 update.

4

@lars.olsson

Please use the latest version of Aspose.Words for .NET 20.6 and let us know how it goes on your side. Please make sure that you have installed the font “Georgia Pro Black” where you convert the document.

If you still face problem, please ZIP and attach the font “Georgia Pro Black” and share the type of platform (X86, X64, AnyCPU) you are using.

5

Hi.

Just wondering if/when CELLSNET-46869 will be fixed. We still have issues when converting from .xslx to .pdf as described above. Today we are using Aspose.[xyz] v. 21.1

Regards

6

@lars.olsson,

Your issue “CELLSNET-46869” is not resolved yet due to its complexity. We will evaluate it further and provide latest updates on it or may share an ETA (if it will take more time).

We are sorry for any inconvenience caused!

7

@lars.olsson,

We are pleased to inform you that your issue “CELLSNET-46869” has been resolved. We will soon provide you the fixed version after performing QA and incorporating other enhancements and fixes.

1 Like
8

The issues you have found earlier (filed as CELLSNET-46869) have been fixed in this update. This message was posted using Bugs notification tool by simon.zhao

9

Hello!,
We still have this issue with shapes problem. It has not been resolved yet.
We have now Aspose.Cells and Aspose.Words version 22.03.0.0 and the problem is still there.
Can you try again in the version 22.03.0.0 has fix this issue?

10

@lars.olsson I cannot reproduce the problem using the latest version of Aspose.Words. Please see the attached output document produced by the latest version of Aspose.Words: out.pdf (17.2 KB)
Though you can notice that font is different than in your MS Word produced PDF, this occurs because Gotham Book is missed on my side and is substituted by Arial font.

11

@lars.olsson,

I did test your scenario/case using latest version Aspose.Cells for .NET v22.3. I found the Shadowed text is rendered fine. See the attached PDF for your reference. But I noticed the invisible shape issue is still there as you mentioned in the first post in the thread:

shapes_and_effects_xlsx_aspose.pdf (48.2 KB)

Other than this I could not find any significant issue. Could you please confirm with details if there are some other issues apart from above mentioned issue? Also, provide your output PDF file by Aspose.Cells for .NET v22.3. We will check your issue soon.

12

shapes_and_effects_from_docx_aspose.zip (336.0 KB)

Between convert from docx or xlsx has become differens outcome. In the zip files is the result i got now from v22.3.

And XLSX-WA-To-PDF is another test and you can see the outcome.

13

can you try with saveOptions code as well?
workbook.Save(stream: pdfStream, saveOptions: GetSaveOptions());
private static PdfSaveOptions GetSaveOptions()
{
return new PdfSaveOptions()
{
Compliance = PdfCompliance.PdfA1a, //Required both by text to speech and archiving requirements.
ExportDocumentStructure = true, //Required by text to speech
EmbedStandardWindowsFonts = true, //Required by archiving
DisplayDocTitle = true, //Title should be exported instead of the generated filename
CalculateFormula = true, //Without this the formulas doesn’t work with our tags
};
}

with saveOptions makes it more worse. And we need to use these option as well.

14

@lars.olsson,

Thanks for sharing new files and further derails.

I did test your older and newer scenarios/test cases and found the problems you highlighted via sample files. To address your issue precisely (as you also provided new test cases) and fully, we decided to log a new ticket with an id “CELLSNET-50712” for it.
Please note, using our latest Aspose.Cells for .NET v22.3, we found some (previous) issues are still there:

  • With the scroll shape, the darker/shadowed part of the scroll is not darker/shadowed.
  • The text that has no fill or outline, and thus should be practically invisible, is clearly visible.

We also found some newer problems regarding shapes using your new Excel file:

  • when rendering Excel file containing shapes to PDFA1a, the shapes are not rendered properly, some text are dispersed or overwritten.

Hopefully we will investigate and look into it the details of the issues soon.

Once we have an update on the logged ticket (“CELLSNET-50712”), we will let you know.

15

@lars.olsson,

This is to inform you that the issue “CELLSNET-50712” has been resolved now. This fix will be included in the next release (Aspose.Cells for .NET v22.4) which is scheduled in the first half of April 2022. You will also be notified when the next version is released.

1 Like
16

The issues you have found earlier (filed as CELLSNET-50712) have been fixed in this update. This message was posted using Bugs notification tool by johnson.shi

1 Like