0005 — Target net10.0 and netstandard2.0

Status: Accepted

Context

The library targeted net8.0 and net10.0. .NET 8 leaves support in November 2026. A large share of the market for PDF generation is enterprise code still on .NET Framework, which only a netstandard2.0 build can serve.

Decision

Ship net10.0 (spans, SIMD, trimming, AOT) and netstandard2.0 (.NET Framework 4.6.2+, Mono, Unity). APIs missing on netstandard2.0 come from Polyfill, a source-only package that compiles internal copies into the assembly, so the shipped packages keep zero runtime dependencies. Every test runs on both net10.0 and net48.

Consequences

• One codebase serves modern and legacy runtimes.
• Hot paths may need #if branches where the modern API is materially faster.
• Default interface members and other runtime-dependent features are off the table in shipped code.