- Various refinements to the previously experimental Find Images Paginated Geometry method, making it production ready. Most importantly, the Find Images Paginated Geometry method can now be used to verify that retail ads ran when there is no retail Paginated Geometry file feed.
- Added Find-Obit-Name-Or-Description Paginated Geometry method, to verify that obits ran when they’re paginated with InDesign or whatever instead of ClassPag.
- Added optional automatic export of item information (ID, advertiser name, type, page, position, size, etc.) to a Comma-Separated Value (CSV) file, suitable for import into a spreadsheet or e-tearsheets system, when saving a report. For e-tears, this gives it final paginated pages/positions/sizes instead of just dummied ones, and eliminates the need for e-tears to read tens of files (possibly a Paginated Geometry file for each retail page, plus Paginated Geometry files for multiple classified pagination sessions (main classified, legals, obits, etc.)) in a half dozen formats (OUTEXT, SCS Extended Product XML, InLay TSV, and various site/vendor formats). These item CSVs also allow PCAB report content to be searched from a command line.
- Made returning to All Items and Digital Ads lists faster (which was slow for lists with thousands of items).
- Made checking for “P” “=” Subdiscrepancies faster (which was slow for Products with thousands of items).
- Made populating Products list slightly faster.
- Added “Getting item text...” progress window, for cases where getting an item’s text via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) may take a few seconds.
- Added “Making Report...” progress window.
- Added “Item Info” > “IDs” > “>” button to show a parent‘s children.
- Added “All Items” list > “Category” column, “Item Info” dialog > “Category” field, and Category report Additional Field.
- Added “All Items” > “View Dummied PGL” Command. Although similar functionality is offered by “Print Pairs,” and “View Any Page” > “View PGLs,” these have a fair number of disadvantages compared to “View Dummied PGL.”
- Added “All Items” > “Found By Info” Command, to show the number and percent of items that were found by various criteria.
- Added “View Any Page” > “Command Line” Command.
- Added “Preference Groups” > “View Placeholder/Field Reference” and “Command Line” Commands.
- Added “Sites” > “Add Site” and “Delete Site” toolbar icons.
- Increased maximum number of Items and Products.
- Enhanced finding children by phone number, to also handle phone numbers split into two lines.
- Added various “Category,” “Where,” and “ends with” Item Action Conditions.
- Added “Child” Item Action, for making non-child, non-dummied, non-paginated display ads children.
- Added “Publication” > “General” > “Merge Classified Pages” checkbox, to merge classified pages that weren’t dummied (for example, a section done solely in ClassPag), enabling PCAB to still compute page image file names for the extra pages, and a correct advertising percentage (where the total number of pages in the product is needed).
- Added “Publication” > “General” > “Prompt For Sections” checkbox, to prompt the user for a larger number of pages for the last known section, and section names and number of pages for new sections. This is useful when a site doesn’t dummy all pages in Layout (for example, trailing classified pages, or a section that doesn’t contain any advertising), enabling PCAB to still compute page image file names for the extra pages, and a correct advertising percentage (where the total number of pages in the product is needed).
- Corrected Paginated Geometry IDs ordered only as Alternate IDs. This might be useful after recently switching order entry systems, for example, where Alternate ID is the ID in the old order entry system, and some items are still being paginated by their old ID.
- Worked around “Error reading…XML file,” by no longer validating XML files against the SCS Extended Product XML schema. Occasionally, some system (ClassPag, Layout, TownNews TCMS) includes some character (comma, space, etc.) in some element (“ad_number,” “start_page,” etc.) value that is invalid according to the SCS Extended Product XML schema, but this invalid character poses no issues for PCAB, so rather than reject the XML and abort its processing (and possibly the entire PCAB check), it's probably better to continue on with the XML anyway.
- Added 1-minute timeout for very rare hangs getting an item’s text via OCR.
- Fixed issue where PCAB might not compute the page where Obits were dummied, when lowercase, as opposed to the historical uppercase-only, is used in page Group Names.
- Added “Are you sure you want to exit PaperCheckAdBoss?” alert.
- Added Item Action explanatory Note--for example, “New Today copies,” or “Job Board lineage already comes from its individual ads, so exclude shell to prevent double counting.”
- Added real-time Notes mirroring.
- Removed leading and trailing space from “Item Info” > “Text” > “>” Optical Character Recognition text.
- Added “(case insensitive)” instructions to “Item Action” dialog.
PCAB 1.6.20 (February 6, 2026)
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