Changelog: Updates, milestones, roadmap

IronXL Roadmap

IronXL was created to make it easy for developers to read and create XLS, XLSX and CSV files in C# and all other .NET languages.

IronXL is leading the charge to empower developers to edit Excel files in C#, without the need for Office Interop.

Today our team are focused on further advancing IronXL by prioritizing feedback from our developer community

Build releases are happening on a monthly basis, with new functionality making IronXL the preferred choice for many developers.

Long term, we plan to launch IronXL for multiple programming languages. Early stage R&D is in progress for building further MS Office products for Word, PowerPoint, and the further Microsoft Office Suite.

April 2024

IronXL 2024.4.4

Apr 04, 2024

Version 2024.4.4

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2024.4.4

Release Notes:

Fixes a bug where a "shared" formula (the kind that is copied across multiple cells) would be lost when saving a file.
Updates IronSoftware.System.Drawing to version 2024.4.1

March 2024

IronXL 2024.3.20

Mar 11, 2024

Version 2024.3.20

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2024.3.20

Release Notes:

Updates IronSoftware.Common to version 2024.1.7
Updates IronSoftware.System.Drawing to version 2024.3.4
Fixes a bug where license key would not be picked up from web.config file in .NET Framework

February 2024

IronXL 2024.2.25

Jan 29, 2024

Version 2024.2.25

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2024.2.25

Release Notes:

Updates IronSoftware.Common to version 2024.1.2
Fixes a bug with a very slow execution of methods loading data from DataSets (namely LoadWorkSheetsFromDataSet methods)
Performance improvements as a result of the above fix in many other methods that create large numbers of cells
Fixes a bug where any style changes to a cell would cause a cell foreground color to be set to black
IronXL.Cell.Int64Value and IronXL.Cell.Int32Value methods are obsolete and will be removed in the future. Use IronXL.Cell.IntValue and IronXL.Cell.LongValue instead
Adds IronXL.Cells.Comment class to represent cell comments with setters and getters for all comment properties
Adds Comment property to IronXL.Cell class with methods to add and remove comments. The Comment property is null if cell has no comment. Comments are added as invisible by default

January 2024

IronXL 2024.1.21

Dec 29, 2023

Version 2024.1.21

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2024.1.21

Release Notes:

Minor improvements and bug fixes

December 2023

IronXL 2023.12.19

Dec 1, 2023

Version 2023.12.19

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2023.12.19

Release Notes:

Fixes a bug where creating defined names throws exceptions.
Fixes the issues where loading spreadsheets containing a chart sheet throws an error. Note that chart sheets will still not be loaded. Supporting chart sheets is still a feature request.
Adds a feature to convert named tables to DataTables.
Adds support for Data validations:
DataValidations property added to WorkSheet. It contains all data validations in the worksheet and contains methods to add and remove data validations.
All data validations types can be read from spreadsheets.
WholeNumber, Decimal, TextLength, Date, List and FormulaList data validations can be added to WorkSheet.

November 2023

IronXL 2023.11.12

Oct 27, 2023

Version 2023.11.12

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2023.11.12

Release Notes:

IronDrawing is updated to version 2023.11.1
Minor fixes and improvements
IronXL.Logger class is deprecated. Use IronSoftware.Logger instead

October 2023

IronXL v2023.10.8

Oct 05, 2023

Version 2023.10.8

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2023.10.8

Release Notes:

IronDrawing is updated to version 2023.10.2
Added dependency on IronSoftware.Common 2023.10.2
Minor fixes and improvements

September 2023

IronXL v2023.9.29

Sep 19, 2023

Version 2023.9.29

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2023.9.29

Release Notes:

IronDrawing is updated to version 2023.9.2
Stability improvements
Performance improvements up to 25% faster execution time in some cases

August 2023

IronXL v2023.8.19

Jul 31, 2023

Version 2023.8.19

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2023.8.19

Release Notes:

Minor improvements and fixes.
Updates dependencies.

July 2023

IronXL v2023.7.4

July 6, 2023

Version 2023.7.4

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2023.7.4

Release Notes:

Adds the GetMergedRegions method, which is used to retrieve a list of merged regions.
Fixes a bug where the Clear method did not delete all worksheets in the collection.
Fixes a bug where the InsertColumn method skip the last row.
Fixes a bug where the Range.ToDataTable method would stop converting when it encountered an empty row.
Adds RemoveColumn method group to Range, RangeRow, RangeColumn, Worksheet.
InsertColumn method group will now correctly shift the columns out of the way, updating the formulas and moving styles with the cells.
Improves performance time-wise by 20-25% in some cases of bulk data manupulation.
Deprecates the Range.AllRowsInRange and Range.AllColumnsInRange properties, use Range.Rows and Range.Columns instead. This is also true for the WorkSheet, RangeRow and RangeColumn classes.
WorkSheet's internal working range will now correctly update with all changes made to the worksheet
WorkSheet's internal working range will now include the empty columns at the end of the range which hold any styling information.
Fixed numerous bugs in Range.Trim method, including a bug where Trim would not trim empty columns.
Range.RemoveColumn and Range.RemoveRow methods will now ALAWAYS remove the column/row entirely from the sheet, shifting up/to the left the rows/columns located below/to the right of the removed ones, if after the removal the column/row is empty.
Adds Range.Count property, which returns the number of cells in the range without iterating over all cells.
Changes the Range.ColumnCount and Range.RowCount properties to return the number of columns/rows in the range without iterating over all cells.
Improves documentation for Range class and its heirs.
InsertRow and InsertColumn methods will now return the inserted row/column. Same for InsertRows and InsertColumns methods but these will return lists of inserted columns/rows.
Range's address will now be correctly updated when the range is changed (with Trim/Insert/Remove/Subtract methods).
Adds WorkSheet.RangeAddress property with the address of the area in use on the sheet
Updates IronSoftware.System.Drawing to version 2023.7.1

June 2023

IronXL v2023.6.4

May 29, 2023

Version 2023.6.4

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2023.6.4

Release Notes:

Adds SetBorderStyle method, used to set border type and color.
Fixes a bug where "&" in the charts' series breaks the resulting file after save.
Fixes a bug where if an .xlsx (.xlsm, .xltx, etc.) file had an opening and closing br tag in it's internal XML structure - WorkBook.Load method would throw an exception.
Updates IronDrawing dependency to version 2023.6.1.

May 2023

IronXL v2023.5.4

May 1, 2023

Version 2023.5.4

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2023.5.4

Release Notes:

Fixes an issue where license keys would not be retrieved from web.config in some .NET Framework ASP.NET projects
Fixes possible warnings about System.Memory version conflicts

March 2023

IronXL v2023.4.13

Mar 29, 2023

Version 2023.4.13

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2023.4.13

Release Notes:

Adds support for the IronSuite license keys
Fixes issues with license keys stored in .config and .json files not being picked up by IronXL
Adds support for license keys stored in .config and .json files in subfolders of the application

February 2023

IronXL v2023.2.5

Feb 27, 2023

Version 2023.2.5

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2023.2.5

Release Notes:

Agreement to EULA terms is now required before installing the nuget package
Improves intellisense descriptions for Range class
Fixes a bug, where WorkSheet.PhysicalColumnCount property would throw an exception when accessed while no columns exist on the worksheet
Improves intellisense descriptions for Cell.Hyperlink property
Fixes a bug, when setting Cell.Hyperlink property would in some cases detect the wrong hyperlink type
Improves the description of an exception that occurs when AutoSizeRow/AutoSizeColumn methods are used while no fonts are found in the system
Updates dependencies

January 2023

IronXL v2023.1.14

Jan 31, 2023

Version 2023.1.14

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2023.1.14

Release Notes:

Enum used for WorkSheet.InsertImage method is changed to IronXL.Drawing.Images.ImageFormat
Fixes a bug where on different locales charts could become corrupted because of the decimal separator
Performance improvements

December 2022

IronXL v2022.12.11262

Dec 29, 2022

Version 2022.12.11262

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2022.12.11262

Release Notes:

Fixes a bug wherein a Licensing exception is thrown when an application using IronXL is executed with a Visual Studio debugger hooked.
Fixes a bug wherein deleting one of the multiple charts and then adding another chart will throw an exception.
Chart titles will no longer overlay the chart area.

IronXL v2022.12.10926

Dec 8, 2022

Version 2022.12.10926

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2022.12.10926

Release Notes:

Fixes a bug, where WorkBook.ExportToHtml was throwing an exception due to un-indexed colors in the document
Fixes a bug, where getter calls for properties of Range, WorkSheet, RangeRow, RangeColumn, RangeStyle, RangeFont and RangeBorder would unnecessarily create all cells in the range
Fixes a bug, where exception was thrown upon loading .XLSX files with specific WebPublishing settings
Adds WorkSheet.PhysicalColumnCount and WorkSheet.PhysicalRowCount properties, which return the number of rows and columns that are physically present in this worksheet at the moment.
Improves and updates IntelliSense documentation to clarify some of the WorkSheet' and Range' properties and methods
Improves performance when reading any of the Range object's properties, especially in case of large Ranges. This applies to all objects that are inherited from Range (WorkSheet, RangeRow etc.)

November 2022

IronXL v2022.11.10251

Nov 2, 2022

Version 2022.11.10251

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2022.11.10251

Release Notes:

Adds overloads for WorkBook loading methods to accept a password for encrypted XLSX, XLSM and XLTX workbooks. Full list of added overloads:
- TryLoad(string filename, string password, out WorkBook workBook)
- Load(byte[] data, string password)
- Load(Stream stream, string password)
- LoadExcel(byte[] data, string password)
- LoadExcel(Stream file, string password)
- LoadExcel(string filename, string password)
- FromByteArray(byte[] data, string password)
- FromStream(Stream stream, string password)
Adds a method WorkBook.Encrypt(string password) which will write a workbook into a MemoryStream, encrypt it using a password provided as an argument or the one stored in WorkBook.Password property and return resulting encrypted MemoryStream. Only supported for XLSX, XLSM and XLTX types of workbooks.
Adds a method WorkBook.Decrypt(Stream stream, string password) which will decrypt a Stream a password provided as an argument and return resulting decrypted MemoryStream. Only supported for XLSX, XLSM and XLTX types of workbooks.
Fixes a bug where some border styles cause an exception when exporting workbook as HTML
Fixes a bug where InsertRow method would throw an exception, if the row was inserted in the place of the last existing row
Improves precision of AutoSizeRow and AutoSizeColumn methods
Improves performance of InsertRow method by 25%

September 2022

IronXL v2022.9.9454

Sep 29, 2022

Version 2022.9.9454

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2022.9.9454

Release Notes:

Fixes a bug where first created ConditionalFormattingRule wasn't working properly
Fixes a bug where font color wasn't applied by conditional formatting rule
Fixes a bug where duplicate style were created when Cell.FormatString property was changed in .xlsx
Fixes a bug where Range.Row(int) and Range.Column(int) methods could take minutes of time to execute for large ranges
Adds an enumeration IronXL.SortOrder to indicate a direction for sorting where applicable
Adds Range.SortByColumn(string, SortOrder) and Range.SortByColumn(int, SortOrder) methods, that allow sorting a range by a specified column, re-arranging rows of a range being sorted according to specified column's new order
Removes dependency to IronDrawing nuget package and replaces it with IronSoftware.System.Drawing

IronXL v2022.9.8711

Sep 2, 2022

Version 2022.9.8711

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2022.9.8711

Release Notes:

Fixes a problem with a number of methods which were wrongly obfuscated in previous release. List of the methods affected: IronXL.Cells.CellFont.SetColor(Color), IronXL.Cells.CellStyle.SetBackgroundColor(Color), IronXL.Cells.XlsCellBorder.SetColor(Color), IronXL.Cells.XlsCellFont.SetColor(Color), IronXL.Cells.XlsCellStyle.SetBackgroundColor(Color), IronXL.Cells.XlsxCellBorder.SetColor(Color), IronXL.Cells.XlsxCellFont.SetColor(Color), IronXL.Cells.XlsxCellStyle.SetBackgroundColor(Color), IronXL.Ranges.RangeBorder.SetColor(Color), IronXL.Ranges.RangeFont.SetColor(Color), IronXL.Ranges.RangeStyle.SetBackgroundColor(Color), IronXL.Styles.IBorder.SetColor(Color), IronXL.Styles.IFont.SetColor(Color), IronXL.Styles.IStyle.SetBackgroundColor(Color)
Adds a dependency to a IronDrawing nuget package to enable implicit casting from System.Drawing.Color when using methods listed above
Adds a method IronXL.Drawing.Images.Image.ToAnyBitmap() which creates an IronSoftware.Drawing.AnyBitmap object from byte data of The Image object
Updates End User License Agreement terms and conditions
IronXL.dll is now signed

August 2022

IronXL v2022.8.8357

Aug 23, 2022

Version 2022.8.8357

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2022.8.8357

Release Notes:

Adds a feature of encrypting and decrypting ".xlsx", ".xlsm" and ".xltx" files with a password. Use WorkBook.SaveAs(string fileName, string password) method to encrypt the WorkBook with provided password when saving it. Use WorkBook.Load(string filename, string password) method to decrypt file with provided password when loading the workbook. Password can also be specified with following:
- using WorkBook.Password property (workbook will be encrypted on save if this property is not null, and will not be encrypted if it is null)
- using SavingOptions object with SavingOptions.Password property, when calling WorkBook.SaveAs(string fileName, SavingOptions options) method
- using LoadingOptions object with LoadingOptions.Password property, when calling WorkBook.Load(string filename, LoadingOptions options) method

To check if the WorkBook object will be encrypted on save use WorkBook.IsEncrypted boolean property. Encryption can also be turned off by assigning WorkBook.IsEncrypted = false (Note: workbook cannot be encrypted by assigning WorkBook.IsEncrypted = true, this will throw an exception at runtime, asking to instead specify a password).

Setting passwords to a workbook of a type other than ".xlsx", ".xlsm" and ".xltx" will also throw an exception at runtime alerting user that the workbook could not be encrypted

Adds support for .NET 6.0
Removes dependency on System.Common.Drawing
Removes support for .NET Framework 4.5. Minimum supported .NET Framework version is now 4.6.2
Breaking change: WorkBook.SaveAs(string filename, string listDelimiter) method was renamed to WorkBook.SaveAsWithCustomDelimiter(string filename, string listDelimiter) to remove ambiguity between SaveAs(string filename, string listDelimiter) and SaveAs(string fileName, string password) methods
Breaking change: IronXL.Drawing.Images.IImage.ToBitmap() method is removed, as System.Common.Drawing is no longer supported.
Breaking change: IronXL.Drawing.Images.IImage.ToImage() method now returns a SixLabors.ImageSharp.Image object used as a replacement for removed System.Common.Drawing objects.
Fixes a bug where a background color set to a cell or a range in XLSX workbook didn't render in Excel.
Fixes a bug where Thai language locale throwed license exception
Fixes a bug where each time a new cell was assigned a DateTime value in XLSX workbook a new cell style was created for each cell, overflowing the style table and breaking the resulting file if the number of cells was > 64000.
Improves speed of creating large amounts of cells with a DateTime value and format. For example, creating a workbook with 80K DateTime value and format cells on a single worksheet used to take 25 seconds, and now takes less then 0.8 seconds (actual performance will depend on the environment the code is executed in).

July 2022

IronXL v2022.7.7362

Jul 13, 2022

Version 2022.7.7362

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2022.7.7362

Release Notes:

Adds a way to change the string value of a cell without automatically formatting the cell: this is achieved through StringValue property of a Cell.
Adds AutoSizeRow method to Row and WorkSheet, which changes the height of a row to fit the contents
Adds AutoSizeColumn method to Column and WorkSheet, which changes the width of a row to fit the contents
Fixes a bug, where an exception was thrown, when a border was added or changed
Fixes a bug, where an exception was thrown, when a cell value was changed to a formula that depends on a single cell, for example "=A1"
Fixes a bug, where a string similar to something like "12-720" was parsed as a date in a year 720, when added to a cell. Excel doesn't support dates that predate year 1900. Strings like this are no longer parsed as dates. However, strings that could be parsed as a valid date after 1900 will still be parsed as a date. For example "12-1956". Use StringValue property to bypass this parse.
Fixes a bug, where an existing workbook is loaded, changed and saved: cells could lose original formatting when their contents were changed. This is no longer the case.

June 2022

IronXL v2022.6.6825

Jun 23, 2022

Version 2022.6.6825

Features & Upgrades

https://www.nuget.org/packages/IronXL.Excel/2022.6.6825

Release Notes:

Adds a new IronXL.Formatting.ConditionType
Old IronXL.Formatting.Enums.ConditionType is obsolete
Adds support for Format as Table styles
Fixes a bug where files containing pivot tables were loaded through IronXL then saved and resulting files come out corrupted
Fixes a bug where a range was copied and pasted, workbook is saved and resulting file comes out corrupted
Fixes a bug where a file containing specific chart types was loaded then saved and resulting file comes out corrupted
Fixes a bug where a file containing .bmp images was loaded, but .bmp images could not be reached through code
Fixes a bug where a workbook is created containing an arbitrarily large number of used cells, then saved and resulting file comes out corrupted
Fixes some other rare bugs that occasionally might result in a corrupted file
Fixes a where any style changed applied to a range of cells took exorbitant amount of time. Style changes include changes of fonts (height, boldness, etc.), vertical alignment, horizontal alignment, etc.
Improves overall stability of resulting files, both created using IronXL and imported and edited by IronXL files
Greatly improves performance, generating a file with 10000 used cells used to take up 1.5 minutes, now takes only 20 seconds (will vary depending on operations performed on a cell by your code)