The “Save as” option produced produced output similar to the results from PowerPoint.

XPS Document using “Save As XPS”

Checking the “Scale to fit paper” option in the print dialog correctly fit the slide onto the page and resolved the rendition issues.

For software developers offering XPS output solutions, the results show that it is critical to test their implementations with different types of files under different printing conditions to ensure the best quality results.

Jon stated that Software Imaging offers three XPS-related solutions: Sorcerer, PrintMagic XPS, and the Component Driver Architecture (CDA). The Sorcerer/CDA driver development tools provide the fastest route to handle XPS for printers that already have Windows drivers. Sorcerer is specifically designed to assist customers with raster based printers and to create Vista XPSDrv drivers using their existing printer drivers. CDA on the other hand permits customers with a PDL (e.g. PCL/XL) or PostScript to convert from XPS to their PDL Devices. The driver toolkit is designed to achieve the most reliable XPS output with existing on-board PCL XL or PostScript controllers, as well as also supporting on board XPS controllers. The driver developer can therefore easily support existing PDLs and their new XPS controller from the same toolkit. This is a critical point given, as Jon pointed out, that “more emphasis to date has been placed on offering XPS controllers. While these are important, printer manufacturers today are more in need of tools to quickly implement XPSDrv drivers into their driver sets.”

In addition to Sorcerer and CDA, PrintMagic XPS provides customers with a rendering solution for XPS documents. Jon explained that one of the advantages of using PrintMagic XPS is that customers can use the product to quickly support XPS without changing their existing RIP technology. The renderer itself fully supports some of the unique features of the XPS format, such as the HD Photo format and WCS color profiles.

Jon discussed his opinions about the direction of XPS in the market. XPS adoption will mostly occur first as Vista becomes more prevalent in the mass market, since XPS and tools such as the XPS viewer are free. The volume of XPS documents produced by consumers will be relatively small especially for print. Corporate takeup of XPS will follow approximately 12-18 months after this period. While the corporate market currently utilizes PDF and Acrobat, the fact that XPS is “in the box” will make it an interesting alternative for file sharing and archiving. As corporate adoption increases, printers will start seeing jobs coming to them in XPS format and will require solutions for handling the new format. With regards to PDF, XPS may initially be a threat mainly with regards to document archiving.

Jon indicated that the other segments for XPS include the prosumer digital printing and engineering/technical drawing markets. Prosumers will find that XPS in combination with HD Photo produces higher quality color output than achieved using traditional file formats such as TIFF or JPEG with the Windows GDI driver. Secondly, Autodesk, a leading provider of 3D CAD and engineering design software, developed a conversion file format, DWFx, which is compatible with the Windows XPS viewer.

With regards to XPS adoption, Kevin pointed out that XPS native printer solutions are here today as seen by the introductions from Fuji-Xerox, Konica Minolta and Toshiba. The strategy appears to be on offering this XPS capability on the color devices first. He anticipates that consumer inkjet devices with XPS capability will be available in the Q4-07/Q1-08 timeframe. Kevin also sees large format printers adopting XPS in order to work with Microsoft’s HD Photo format (JPEG XR). This new image format provides higher dynamic range and improved color fidelity, which is a key feature for photographic and point-of-sale display applications.

With IPS-XPS, Zoran appears to be taking advantage of their expertise in embedded PDLs for XPS. Kevin indicated that IPS XPS was designed initially as an embedded solution that consumes XPS documents with disk and memory constraints and utilizes the format’s streaming capability. Moreover, the source code for IPS-XPS was developed so that it could also be implemented as a host-based solution and includes this additional functionality. Kevin stated that “this provides consistent output results for manufacturers offering different printers with either host based or embedded solutions.” Manufacturers appear to find host based/embedded flexibility an attractive feature given that Zoran has succeeded in obtaining 10 design wins from 8 companies.

Kevin commented on the trends he sees in the XPS technology market. It appears that the adoption of XPS is not only dependent on the number of computers running Vista, but also on applications supporting Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Kevin points out that we are currently seeing many customers using applications that are “XPS Aware” such as Office 2007. XPS Aware applications are designed for the GDI print path but provide the capability for generating XPS documents. As new applications come to the market using the WPF, customers will be able to take full advantage of XPS using the new print path incorporated in the WPF architecture. Kevin mentioned that it will be interesting to see how Silverlight, a web-based subset of WPF, will increase awareness of XPS.

With regards to XPS Land at Graph Expo, Kevin stated that during the show “every RIP manufacturer had XPS on their radar screen.” He also mentioned that he spoke to several attendees from service bureaus who are now receiving XPS jobs. Kevin indicated that “people are not only aware of XPS, but are actively working to find solutions for this new file format.”

He further highlights that XPS will probably be very important for document based environments (offices, etc); a development Adobe is taking seriously too, considering their work on the development of MARS. In his view, the printing industry is different, as this industry has invested for several years in setting up workflows based on Adobe products. The breakthrough of XPS in this industry will follow upon its adoption by the print buyers, who are delivering files to the printing companies.

Finally Peter provides a summary of the XPS Land event at Graph Expo in Chicago, being one of first events showcasing XPS products. His closing statement is that the last word on XPS has not been said and many developments will follow.

Many thanks to Ton Oosterwijk of Beacon COI for his assistance in translating the article.

At first this sounded like a great thing. Instead of dealing with XPS, one could read the file into Acrobat convert it to PDF. Given some of the current disadvantages of the MS XPS viewer (e.g. memory management of large files, and limited comment capabilities), using Acrobat also seemed to be a good one-app. solution for looking at both XPS and PDF documents.

However after some initial testing, several points are worth noting when converting XPS document in Acrobat compared to working with the XPS Viewer from Microsoft:

• Overall the XPS document displayed in Acrobat appeared to produce equivalent results to the XPS viewer for rendering text, gradient fills in 8 bit rgb (called sRGB in XPS terminology), and clipping masks. Results using an opacity mask were slightly different between the two viewers, but acceptable.
• Acrobat 8 supported XPS documents containing JPG, PNG, and TIF images. However it does not appear to convert and display Microsoft’s HD Photo format.
• Vectors created with a solid color line stroke and a transparent fill also appeared to be incorrectly handled in Acrobat 8.

Note differences in the stroke with the vector containing a transparent fill from Acrobat 8 (left) and the MS XPS Viewer.

Seeing these differences demonstrates the pitfalls of converting documents. Secondly, the need for XPS viewers with Acrobat features and accurate rendering capabilities will be critical as users and companies adopt XPS for document archiving and printing.

The first XPS Land showcase event provided a great deal of buzz at Graph Expo 2007. Attendees were able to see a complete XPS workflow from page layout to print using pages from the Show Daily. The showcase received great press coverage with three pages from the Show Daily each day and numerous collateral articles being published.

Specific highlights included Quark Express 7.0 publishing the Show Daily pages in XPS format, Global Graphics debuting the first RIP with XPS native support, QualityLogic demonstrating XPREF, the first preflight solution for XPS, Konica Minolta printing with their bizhub c550 native XPS printing system, Xerox showing their WorkCenter 7345 printing and scan-to-XPS solution, Xitron ripping XPS documents on their PRISM system, Screen demonstrating their LeafThough XPS reader, Pagemark Technology highlighting their XPS host and embedded RIP and renderer, Software Imaging showing their PrintMagic XPS renderer and XPS print driver solutions, and Zoran demonstrating their IPS XPS embedded and host-based RIP solutions for XPS.

Bruce Harrison and John Ingraham, co-founders of XPSLand and XPSReview, stated “XPS Land provides attendees, previously unaware of XPS, with valuable information about this new disruptive technology. Our aim for XPS Land is that when people come to the showcase they will see not only new software, but a technology at work.” Commentators agreed that XPS Land fulfilled these objectives.