Windows Vista XPS Document / Printer

[alsiladka]

I knew about the XPS Document format from a long time, i had download Windows Vista Product Guide in XPS Format, which was half the size of PDF Format.
I was confused at that time wether MS purposefully configured the PDF file to be double the size of XPS to promote XPS, but was not aware of the way to compare them both.

Just today, in on of my PDF books on Tips and Tweaks for Vista, i saw a tip on using the XPS Document Printer, which can save the pixel replica of any document using the print feature.

I decided to compare PDF and XPS formats by printing some of my PDFs to XPS files.

Guess what, XPS measure up less than half the size of PDF files. And there was no compromise on quality.

MS has a winner over here, according to a common users opinion. I did not test it thoroughly, nor am i well versed with the in and outs of PDF and XPS.
But this was my opinion after a small comparision.

 

[kaustav_geek]

Nice find. However, does this format run on Linux ? XPS ... Is it a VISTA exclusive ??
Hmm....... Need to Google it...

 

[iMav]

yup i like xps but as of now only office 2k7 or vista compatible by default ... it will take some time for it to become a common application on every pc

 

[gxsaurav]

XPS right now sux due to less acceptence. PDF is already a standerd, MS should have supported PDF in there own way, like native PDF support in Vista, something like that.

There is nothing that PDF Lacks which XPS gives, except for WPF & GPU based rendering.

Besides XPS opens in IE 7 in Vista, comon....it's a browser. I prefer a standalone reader application

 

[alsiladka]

XPS is not Vista exclusive, it can also be opened on XP and Windows Server 2003.

Also, it need not be opened in IE7 only, you can download Microsoft XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack, this will install a stand alone XPS viewer.

And just for your info, a 13mb PDF file was saved as a 6 MB XPS document.
And as to that Windows Vista Product guide, PDF was somewhere around 60 65 MB and XPS was somewhere around 30 35 MB.

@gx_saurav
Just because it is less accecpted does not mean it sucks!!! What a strange conclusion.
And about nothing that PDF lacks which XPS gives, how about reducing the filesize in half? I believe that is a good enough accomplishement.

 

[kaustav_geek]

XPS is not Vista exclusive, it can also be opened on XP and Windows Server 2003.

Also, it need not be opened in IE7 only, you can download Microsoft XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack, this will install a stand alone XPS viewer.

And just for your info, a 13mb PDF file was saved as a 6 MB XPS document.
And as to that Windows Vista Product guide, PDF was somewhere around 60 65 MB and XPS was somewhere around 30 35 MB.

@gx_saurav
Just because it is less accecpted does not mean it sucks!!! What a strange conclusion.
And about nothing that PDF lacks which XPS gives, how about reducing the filesize in half? I believe that is a good enough accomplishement.

Agreed... However, its yet to get popularity and wide acceptance. And given the fact that PDF is the reigning king, it'll take considerable time..

To support this, consider the case of mp3. There are a lot of better codecs, which have much better compression to quality ratio... However, mp3s are what are widely used.... I'm sure that you too will have most of your song colection in mp3s... I use .ogg , the file sizes are half of those encoded in mp3 and quality is better...

Conclusion: Something better necessarily doesn't mean wide acceptance and popularity.

 

[Zeeshan Quireshi]

XPS right now sux due to less acceptence. PDF is already a standerd, MS should have supported PDF in there own way, like native PDF support in Vista, something like that.

There is nothing that PDF Lacks which XPS gives, except for WPF & GPU based rendering.

Besides XPS opens in IE 7 in Vista, comon....it's a browser. I prefer a standalone reader application

wel standalone reader is available on MS website , MS gives free XPS creator with reader (in the form of XPS virtual printer) , also XPS takes much much less resources than PDF on my machine .

Adobe reader takes RAM in excess of 50MB even with a simple PDF . whereas XPS viewer takes no bout 5MB here , i've already started usin it in place of PDF .

To support this, consider the case of mp3. There are a lot of better codecs, which have much better compression to quality ratio... However, mp3s are what are widely used.... I'm sure that you too will have most of your song colection in mp3s... I use .ogg , the file sizes are half of those encoded in mp3 and quality is better...

well i'd kinda like to differ from ur point of view , OGG is not better than MP3 in my experience , for example OGG doesn't keey the silence in Files intact while compressing so if you compress a DVD movie n use OGG as Audio compressor then duo to this problem of OGG voice is de-synchronized , how's that if u want to use ny other codec than MP3 use WMA/QuickTime Audio .

 

[kaustav_geek]

Adobe reader takes RAM in excess of 50MB even with a simple PDF . whereas XPS viewer takes no bout 5MB here , i've already started usin it in place of PDF .

Try Foxit Reader...And then observe the RAM usage.

well i'd kinda like to differ from ur point of view , OGG is not better than MP3 in my experience , for example OGG doesn't keey the silence in Files intact while compressing so if you compress a DVD movie n use OGG as Audio compressor then duo to this problem of OGG voice is de-synchronized , how's that if u want to use ny other codec than MP3 use WMA/QuickTime Audio .

I was talking about .ogg for standalone audio files. I haven't tried OGG compression on VOB's audio so I can't comment. Since, OGG isn't proprietary like WMA/Quicktime Audio, you have inherent support for OGG playback in almost all Linux Distros...

 

[Zeeshan Quireshi]

Try Foxit Reader...And then observe the RAM usage.


I was talking about .ogg for standalone audio files. I haven't tried OGG compression on VOB's audio so I can't comment. Since, OGG isn't proprietary like WMA/Quicktime Audio, you have inherent support for OGG playback in almost all Linux Distros...

doesn't matter if you convert to ogg from any source but this problem still persists , i have xperienced this n have also used Soundforge to measure that OGG infact does decreases the playing time of the file by decreasing blank space .

you won't notice this in songs coz there's no video but in movies De-Sync happens duo to different playing time of orig audio source n compressed source.

 

[kaustav_geek]

doesn't matter if you convert to ogg from any source but this problem still persists , i have xperienced this n have also used Soundforge to measure that OGG infact does decreases the playing time of the file by decreasing blank space .

you won't notice this in songs coz there's no video but in movies De-Sync happens duo to different playing time of orig audio source n compressed source.

If a problem exists, who's forcing you to use it ? And I never talked about using the OGG audio container for Movies, did I ? I have always mentioned about myself using them only for standalone audio files, thats a song file for you.

 

[alsiladka]

Guys, this topic is for XPS and PDF. Pleasae shift your discussion about ogg somewhere else.

About your case that mp3 rules over other formats, it is because of MP3 players. But you dont necessarily, or mostly view pdf files outsite your computer do you? Maybe your cell phones, rarely. For that MS would soon come with a viewer i guess.

Still, i believe XPS to take over PDF soon enough.

 

[gxsaurav]

Oh..k, I downloaded the XPS essential pack & got the viewer. It is eating 54MB here for opening a 2.5 MB file.

The viewer is made in Pure WPF , good

*img510.imageshack.us/img510/7254/readerrg0.th.jpg

Switching to thumbnail view crashes it. XPS came late actully, broadband is all over these days & despite of the size advantage it won't matter much while downloading. PDF is there & people know what PDF is. SO now if XPS has to win content publishers have to provide there content in PDF & XPS both formats, with this the user will see that XPS is small in size. See the size is the only advantage XPS has right now, cos everything else & much more is provided by PDF already.

 

[goobimama]

Anyone who uses Adobe Acrobat Reader for PDF documents cannot consider himself a geek...

As for XPS, it might just push Adobe to 'improve' their monopolised PDF format... cause until now there was no competition.

 

[gxsaurav]

I use Adobe Reader 8 because

1) It is the only version of Adobe reader after v4 which is fast

2) Supports more features then Foxit

3) I don't have lack of HD space or RAM

 

[kaustav_geek]

I use Adobe Reader 8 because

1) It is the only version of Adobe reader after v4 which is fast

2) Supports more features then Foxit

3) I don't have lack of HD space or RAM

Sir, abundance of RAM and HDD space doesn't necessarily mean that you will always use an app which is resource hungry when a more light app is already there for use...

Agreed that Foxit has fewer features, but for those like me, who just use a PDF reader for what it should be used for... Reading PDFs..its a nice way of getting things done in a light and fast way.. No offense intended... Pardon me in case any inflicted.....