Version lifecycle

Versions

Here are the available Carbone versions:

• Carbone v5: Currently in beta. Some features are ready for production, but please contact us before using it in production environments.
• Carbone v4: Highly recommended for production use, especially with the latest prerelease features activated.
• Carbone v3: Maintained but not recommended for new projects.
• Carbone v2: Not supported. Please avoid using this version.

We work hard to ensure backward compatibility through 5000+ automated tests of the Carbone templating language. However, even though we are AI-powered humans, bugs can still happen.

Therefore, we strongly recommend thoroughly testing your reports when migrating from one version to another. In most cases, generated PDFs may look slightly different due to improvements in our external document converters (LibreOffice, OnlyOffice), which support more DOCX and ODT features.

If you encounter any regressions, please contact us. We’re here to help 👋.

Pre-release features

Some upcoming features are delivered in advance within the stable version.

Here are the current pre-release tags for Carbone v4:

• {o.preReleaseFeatureIn=4022011} This tag means: "Enable all pre-release features added up to v4.22.11". It includes all other pre-release tags
• {o.preReleaseFeatureIn=4022008}
• {o.preReleaseFeatureIn=4015000}
• {o.preReleaseFeatureIn=4009000}

To activate all upcoming features, add the tag {o.preReleaseFeatureIn=4022011} in the template's comment properties. These features will be activated by default in the next major release (v5, v6, etc.). Please take a look at the changelog to see related features.

• In Microsoft Office for Windows: Follow this video
• In LibreOffice on Mac or Windows : File -> Properties
• In Microsoft Office for Mac / Linux : File -> Properties

You can also activate it via API or in the configuration.

Feature delivery lifecycle

We typically follow these steps for each new feature or fix:

1. A customer requests a new feature or reports a needed fix through our chat.
2. The feature or fix is delivered in the staging.x.x Cloud environment, initially for testing with selected clients.
3. It then becomes available in version V.x.x.x for everyone (cloud, on-premises, public release notes, etc.).
4. Sometimes, new features are deactivated and must be activated with optional flags in the template or via API. These features will be activated by default in the next major release (v5, v6, etc.). This approach minimizes the risk of impacting other features and reduces time-to-market.

How much time is needed to add a feature (for Advanced subscription)?

• Urgent bugs are usually fixed within 24 hours.
• Simple features are delivered in about 10 days.
• Complex features require more time and may need further analysis.

Our record is 1 hour from the moment the client reports the issue to its deployment in production 💪.