What’s New in Doconut 26.8.0: .NET Standard 2.1 and Better Document Fidelity
A new Doconut target joins the current SDK family
Doconut 26.8.0 introduces a current-generation package for applications that consume .NET Standard 2.1. It brings the dependency-injection, middleware, asynchronous document-session, plugin, and distributed-publishing model already used by the modern Doconut SDKs to another group of .NET hosts.
The release also improves rendering and conversion across Word, Excel, Visio, PSD, images, and email detection. Teams evaluating the release should look at both sides of the update: the new integration path and the documents their users actually open.
Read the complete Doconut 26.8.0 release notes for the authoritative list of changes.
.NET Standard 2.1 gets the current integration model
The Doconut.NETStandard package now targets netstandard2.1 beginning with version 26.8.0. According to the installation documentation, compatible hosts include .NET Core 3.0 and later, including .NET 5, 6, 7, and 8 applications.
The package contains the core viewer with annotations and advanced search, while Converter and DICOM remain available through their corresponding plugin packages. This gives teams using a compatible host access to the same broad workflow model: register the SDK with dependency injection, serve its resources through middleware, open documents asynchronously, and add optional capabilities according to the application’s requirements and license.
Two sample applications accompany the release. One demonstrates a single-node MVC viewer, while the other shows multiple nodes serving document artifacts from a shared folder. These samples give developers concrete starting points for evaluating the current hosting model.
Version 26.8.0 is a real upgrade boundary
The package identifier remains Doconut.NETStandard, but the version separates two different generations:
| Package version | Library target | Integration generation |
|---|---|---|
| 26.7.0 and earlier | .NET Standard 2.0 | Previous API and hosting model |
| 26.8.0 and later | .NET Standard 2.1 | Current API and hosting model |
There is no compatibility layer between those APIs. Raising the package version changes the target framework and the integration surface, so an existing application should treat the update as a planned migration.
The official .NET Standard 2.1 migration guide maps previous viewer construction, synchronous document opening, resource delivery, licensing, plugins, and web-farm behavior to the current equivalents. Review that guide before changing package references, especially when the application uses custom middleware or multiple serving nodes.
Word pages render more faithfully
Several changes focus on Word documents:
- Field refresh no longer triggers a rendering failure in the reported scenario.
- Character placement better matches the source document.
- Bulleted-list indentation is corrected.
- Word-to-PDF conversion keeps images that could previously be dropped.
- Conversion no longer appends the reported extra blank page.
- SVG output for equations is smaller because it no longer needs to embed the full font glyph set.
These updates are particularly relevant for document portals that handle templates, reports, proposals, or generated business documents. Test field-heavy files, custom fonts, lists, and image-rich pages from your own workflow.
Excel and Visio output gets targeted corrections
For Excel, the viewer fixes a failure involving certain charts or images. The Converter Plugin receives several fidelity corrections for spreadsheet-to-PDF output: pie-chart sizing, text-box line spacing, shape placement, hidden-shape behavior, and embedded-image colors.
Visio rendering also receives focused improvements. Connector lines that were missing can now appear correctly, container header text is positioned properly, and text measurement within grouped shapes reduces clipping and overflow.
A useful regression set should therefore include spreadsheets with charts and positioned objects, plus diagrams with connectors, containers, and grouped elements. Compare the rendered or converted result with the source using the presentation users will see in the deployed application.
PSD and image handling improve
PSD rendering now preserves source brightness more closely, handles the reported complex Liquify smart-filter case, retains layer effects on smart objects, and improves overlay-effect compositing.
The image viewers also include format-specific corrections. The exact scope varies by Doconut build, so use the release notes to match each fix to the package your application deploys. Version 26.8.0 also improves detection around XHTML and binary files that might otherwise be misclassified as email-related content.
A practical 26.8.0 evaluation plan
Treat the release as a small engineering project:
- Confirm that the host can consume the selected Doconut package and target.
- Inventory the current core and plugin package versions.
- If upgrading
Doconut.NETStandard, follow the migration guide rather than changing only the version number. - Build a representative test set covering the document families used in production.
- Compare rendering, conversion, search, annotations, session behavior, and application-specific access controls.
- Validate the single-node or distributed sample closest to the intended deployment.
- Record results before scheduling the production update.
This approach separates verified release improvements from assumptions about how an individual file or deployment will behave.
Evaluate Doconut 26.8.0
Doconut 26.8.0 expands the current SDK architecture to .NET Standard 2.1 and provides a substantial set of document-fidelity fixes. The most useful next step is to test the package with the host, plugins, and file corpus that matter to your application.
Visit the Doconut Viewer SDK overview to review the product family, then download the trial and evaluate version 26.8.0 in an isolated environment before planning an upgrade.