May 2026 - Product Update

Hello there 👋 Over the past few months, we’ve been working quietly on many improvements across Carbone, and it’s time to share what’s new from the v5.0.8 to the v5.5.0 (latest).

Over the past months, we have focused on:

• Shipping some of the most requested feature
• Building new integrations (can't wait to share!!)
• Giving the best support ever (from humans)

New Features

• Dynamic table column removal (v5.5.0): You can now delete table columns automatically with :drop(col) and :keep(col) (documentation).
• Markdown support (v5.4.5): Markdown files are now supported for conversion, including MD to PDF/DOCX/ODT, available only for On-premise/Docker/AWS.
• Template-level rendering options (v5.4.3 - v5.4.4): Templates can now force timezone, converter, language, hardRefresh, and XLSX number formatting behavior directly inside the template (documentation).
• More import/export formats (v5.3.0): Carbone supports more formats via LibreOffice, including Markdown, SVG, WEBP, Apple Pages, Apple Numbers, and more (List of supported export formats).
• Advanced PDF watermark (v5.3.0): PDFs can now include multiple customizable watermarks with position, rotation, opacity, font, and page-number variables (documentation).
• Array search expressions in formatters 🔥 (v5.2.0): Formatters can now search inside arrays using indexes, current loop position, or equality conditions (Lookup documentation).

𝗛𝗧𝗠𝗟 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀

• Support for the Table Element (v5.0.9, v5.1.4, v5.2.0): HTML tables are now supported in ODT/DOCX/PDF, including table cells, colspan/rowspan, default borders, theme styling, consistent widths, and better rendering in headers/footers (documentation).
• Support for the Heading Elements (v5.2.0, v5.3.0): HTML headings like H1 to H6 can now be rendered with document styles and custom heading themes (documentation).
• Support for all entities and emojis (v5.5.0): The :html formatter now supports numeric entities, Unicode emojis, and more complete entity rendering (documentation).
• Support for page breaks (v5.2.0): Paragraphs can now include page breaks before or after them using inline CSS (documentation).
• Richer Styling support (v5.2.0, v5.4.5): Better handling of hyperlinks around blocks, list items in tables, and inline heading behavior.

𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀

• :appendTemplate: Safer, faster, and now available on Cloud (v5.0.8, v5.4.3, v5.5.0).
• :convCRLF: Better whitespace handling in DOCX files (v5.0.9).
• :formatR: Fixed country translations in binary builds (v5.1.0).
• :aggSum: Improved support for nested loops with array-based data (v5.4.2).
• :transform: Added in unit support for PPTX and ODP files (v5.4.0).

𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗯𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 (𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗢𝗻-𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲, 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗿, 𝗔𝗪𝗦, 𝗔𝘇𝘂𝗿𝗲)

• Simpler configuration vocabulary (v5.4.0): “Stateful/stateless” and “database” wording was simplified into clearer “with/without template management” and “template metadata” terminology.
• Official Multi-tenancy support (v5.0.9): deployments can now isolate templates and data by tenant across all endpoints.
• High-availability template management (v5.4.0): Template metadata management now works better across clusters, Docker containers, and multiple nodes, with synchronization, backups, startup/shutdown safety, and no single point of failure.
• Faster and safer async rendering (v5.5.0): The asynchronous rendering system with webhooks was reworked to reduce race conditions and improve processing speed.
• Improved startup, shutdown, and logs (v5.4.0): Startup logs are clearer, shutdown is faster, peer discovery is more flexible, and Prometheus metrics were improved.
• Cleaner API Behavior (v5.4.0, v5.4.3): Template APIs now return clearer deployment information and stronger validation for template/version IDs and deployment timestamps.

Studio Web Component updates

• New embedded Studio APIs (v5.1.0, v5.1.1): The Web Component now provides clearer methods to open templates by template ID, version ID, data URI, or external URL.
• Clearer embedded Modes (v5.1.0, v5.4.0): Embedded Studio modes were clarified and renamed around “with/without template management,” making integration easier to understand.
• More customization (v5.1.0): Integrators can customize available Carbone API versions, update theme/CSS dynamically, and reset Studio state programmatically.
• Better events for integrators (v5.1.0): Events like template:updated, template:saved, template:deployed, and options:updated were improved to provide cleaner information to host applications.

👉 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀?

• Carbone Cloud API: Ensure you request version '5' of Carbone by setting the header “carbone-version:5”.
• Carbone On-premise: Download the latest binary from the Changelog, replace your existing binary with the new one, and restart the Carbone server (your templates, config, and database remain intact).
• Carbone Docker: First, ensure templates and database are stored on persistent volumes. Pull the latest image: docker pull carbone/carbone-ee:full-5.5.0 . Finally, restart your container
• Carbone On-AWS: Upgrade to the latest version from your AWS dashboard.Don't hesitate to reach out through our live support chat if you have any questions or need assistance. Have a fantastic day! 🍻

For complete upgrade instructions and version-specific migration notes, visit our detailed Upgrade Guide.

If you have any questions or need a hand, just reach out through the live support chat. We’ll be happy to help. Have a great day! 🍻