Enhancements from the Previous Release

The following features have been added with this version of the product.

The performance of workbook.fromJson() method has been enhanced when the JSON file contains multiple styles.
Users can now import and export spreadsheets that contain macros. While these will not be executed, the macros will now be preserved when saving.
The support for loading and saving SpreadJS JSON files with shapes have been added.
Users can now set rich text format in the cells by applying different styles to the textual information entered in the cell.
While working with custom named styles, users can now modify an existing style and add it to the Styles collection.
Users can now export Excel files with vertical text to PDF.
Now, users can insert any background image to the worksheet including their organization logo, custom watermark or a wallpaper of their choice without any issues.
PDFBox can now be installed automatically for all versions of Eclipse Maven plugin.
Extensive support for the new Date Time API that has been introduced recently with JDK 8 has been provided.
The pivot table has been enhanced in order to support the date field group in Excel 2016.
Some overloads have been added for Open and Save methods to avoid passing file format.

Resolved Issues

The following issues have been resolved since the last release.

The Workbook.calculate() method now evaluates the cell values correctly.
While saving an Excel file to open XML format, the logical value of the cell is now calculated without any errors.
Opening the stream returned by HttpServletRequest.getInputStream() method no longer throws an exception.
Saving an Excel file to a PDF file while the used font is null, no longer throws the NullPointer exception.
Loading SSJSON file with null values no longer throws an exception.
While saving an Excel file to PDF, the merged range in a table now renders appropriately without any issues.
Loading SSJSON file now renders the hidden rows correctly while saving an Excel file to PDF.