Create high quality PDF like documents in Windows Vista
Another cool (hidden) feature of Windows Vista is its in-built support for XPS documents.
XPS (XML Paper Specification) is a device independent and resolution independent, vector based, fixed-document format developed by Microsoft based on XML (XAML to be precise). You can think of XPS as a PDF equivalent with vector support and what that means is that the print quality of XPS documents would be a lot better than the PDF equivalent. If you ask me if this is going to replace the ultra-famous PDF formats…I’m not sure, but for those who need a better print quality than PDF you sure have an alternative in XPS format.
Creating an XPS document is pretty simple in Windows Vista. Follow these simple steps to create your own XPS document,
Step-1:
Launch Notepad (Start >> Type-in “Notepad”) or any other editor of your preference.
Step-2:
Write whatever you like and click on the “File” >> “Print” menu option.
Step-3:
On the “Print” dialog select “Microsoft XPS Document Writer” as the printer and hit the “Print” button. Vista will ask you to save the .XPS file to a location. Give it a name and save the file.
Congratulations! You’ve just created your first XPS document.
XPS Essentials Pack for Windows XP
Window Vista comes with support for XPS documents. The viewer is hosted within IE. If you are using Windows XP you can still make use of XPS documents by downloading .NET Framework 3.0. If you don’t like to view your XPS documents in Internet Explorer you can download the XPS Essentials Pack which includes a standalone XPS Viewer and a XPS Document Writer. The XPS Essentials Pack is available for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista.
Remove XPS
For some reason if you don’t like the XPS capability of Windows Vista and never intend to use it then you can use the Rogosoft XPS Removal Tool. XPS Removal Tool can be used to remove the Microsoft XPS Document Writer (MXDW) print queue and the driver package from Windows Vista. XPS Removal Tool can also uninstall XPS Essentials Pack from Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
I hope this article is useful to you. If you have any questions or comments please let us know in comments.
December 12th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Glad to see someone actually mentioning this rather useful feature. Having said that, I do have my own issues with XPS:
1. PDF is the accepted standard, and unless given a very good reason to do so, I don’t see people changing their work flow to support a new “portable document format.” Other than the fact that it comes with Vista, XPS doesn’t offer any improvements over PDF in my opinion.
2. XPS isn’t really a “portable document format” at all, since its not the accepted standard. Windows XP users can’t support it without installing Office 2007 or downloading the XPS Essentials package you mentioned. Mac and other platforms don’t support it at all.
3. Pretty much everyone has Adobe Reader or knows where to get it. You can’t count on this with XPS as mentioned above.
4. If you want free PDF support, download PDF Creator from SourceForge.
5. These “virtual print drivers” confuse a lot of users. When I upgraded our 300-workstation network at my employer to Office 2003, the support calls came calling in about disappearing print jobs because folks accidently selected the Document Image Writer. The same thing happened with the XPS Document Writer when we upgraded to Office 2007.
6. My final gripe regarding XPS is that Windows supports it through Internet Explorer instead of a separate application. If you have FireFox set as your default browser, you may have a small to moderate headache getting your XPS documents to open automatically in IE.
December 13th, 2008 at 1:59 am
Brian – I agree with most of your points…I don’t think XPS would be a PDF replacement…no way…I always felt that the XPS is another alternative to PDF to create high quality vector based documents. It wouldn’t be easier for XPS to catch up with PDF in terms of adoption.
On your 6th point, you can download XPS Essentials Pack if you’d prefer a standalone application than the default IE Viewer.
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Great article. I found some more information here
December 26th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
sourcearticle.info has a similiar post if anyone’s interested