NiXPS
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Benefit #3: XPS is a reliable format for the future
XPS is developed by Microsoft, but released as an open specification and in the process of being standardized at ECMA.
The format is based on a mixture of tried and tested, open en freely available technologies as XML, ZIP, JPEG …
Information stored in an XPS file can be easily retrieved. And as the document format is described in a clear, open and freely available specification, it is a reliable format to store information in for now, but also to store for the future.
(This article is part of the 'Top 9 Benefits of using XPS for your business'-series)
The format is based on a mixture of tried and tested, open en freely available technologies as XML, ZIP, JPEG …
Information stored in an XPS file can be easily retrieved. And as the document format is described in a clear, open and freely available specification, it is a reliable format to store information in for now, but also to store for the future.
(This article is part of the 'Top 9 Benefits of using XPS for your business'-series)
Labels: top9
¶ 08:00 0 Comments
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Benefit #2: XPS is truly ‘what you see is what you get’
If you send a paper document to someone, you expect him to receive something that has the same content, but also the exact same layout, images, etc… This matters, and it should not be different when sending electronic documents.
Sending native documents around is problematic, as these documents typically contain references to fonts and images that are stored on your computer, but not on your recipient's computer. It is even possible that the software at the recipient’s end, provided he even has the required software, reformats the document to another printer than the one you happen to be using. As a result: a bad experience.
Even PDF, which improved this situation somewhat, is not immune to this problem. PDF does not require fonts to be stored in the document itself for instance. As a result it is not uncommon your nicely designed PDF ends up horribly broken at the customers end.
XPS is engineered from the start to ‘contain everything’. An XPS document MUST contain everything required to correctly render the document faithfully. So no bad experiences, your recipient sees your document exactly as you intended, and without any technical hassle. XPS is truly WYSIWYG.
(This article is part of the 'Top 9 Benefits of using XPS for your business'-series)
Sending native documents around is problematic, as these documents typically contain references to fonts and images that are stored on your computer, but not on your recipient's computer. It is even possible that the software at the recipient’s end, provided he even has the required software, reformats the document to another printer than the one you happen to be using. As a result: a bad experience.
Even PDF, which improved this situation somewhat, is not immune to this problem. PDF does not require fonts to be stored in the document itself for instance. As a result it is not uncommon your nicely designed PDF ends up horribly broken at the customers end.
XPS is engineered from the start to ‘contain everything’. An XPS document MUST contain everything required to correctly render the document faithfully. So no bad experiences, your recipient sees your document exactly as you intended, and without any technical hassle. XPS is truly WYSIWYG.
(This article is part of the 'Top 9 Benefits of using XPS for your business'-series)
Labels: top9
¶ 08:00 0 Comments
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
More XPS info
Adrian Ford published a nice article on his blog about XPS, and more specifically what the philosophy behind the format is, and how this impacts the featureset and future direction of the format.
It's a great read, and I totally agree with the focus of the format on being a true representation of paper, even if this means sacrificing more advanced technological features. It's a good sign Microsoft feels the same way about it. ¶ 08:39 0 Comments
It's a great read, and I totally agree with the focus of the format on being a true representation of paper, even if this means sacrificing more advanced technological features. It's a good sign Microsoft feels the same way about it. ¶ 08:39 0 Comments
Benefit #1: XPS is ideal for sharing and publishing
What makes up a good electronic document format?
We at NiXPS feel that a good electronic document format should be easy and cheap to create, reliable and hassle free and easy and cheap to view.
XPS gives you that; as XPS is built into Windows, it can be generated as easy as it is to print a document. XPS viewers are also built into Windows Vista and are freely available for other platforms, so people can view them. And XPS is a graphically rich format that represents exactly the document as you made it in your authoring application like Word.
As a result you can safely send around XPS documents for document review, but also use XPS as a format to publish documents on the web. The documents will keep the exact layout and formatting you have made them in, and your recipient will enjoy a hassle free experience in using your documents.
(This article is part of the 'Top 9 Benefits of using XPS for your business'-series)
We at NiXPS feel that a good electronic document format should be easy and cheap to create, reliable and hassle free and easy and cheap to view.
XPS gives you that; as XPS is built into Windows, it can be generated as easy as it is to print a document. XPS viewers are also built into Windows Vista and are freely available for other platforms, so people can view them. And XPS is a graphically rich format that represents exactly the document as you made it in your authoring application like Word.
As a result you can safely send around XPS documents for document review, but also use XPS as a format to publish documents on the web. The documents will keep the exact layout and formatting you have made them in, and your recipient will enjoy a hassle free experience in using your documents.
(This article is part of the 'Top 9 Benefits of using XPS for your business'-series)
Labels: top9
¶ 08:00 0 Comments
Monday, July 28, 2008
Top 9 Benefits of using XPS for your business
There is a lot of misunderstanding and lack of knowledge about the XML Paper Specification (XPS) electronic document format.
In my view there are quite a number of tangible benefits to the format, and I'm going to present some of them here more in detail. I've compiled a list of 9, covering opportunities that can be realized on a business, operational and budget level. I'm sure there are more, but 9 is a good start ;-)
I'll start off tomorrow with 'Benefit #1: XPS is ideal for sharing and publishing'.
Enjoy reading them, and feel free to share your thoughts/opinions in the comments. ¶ 17:54 0 Comments
In my view there are quite a number of tangible benefits to the format, and I'm going to present some of them here more in detail. I've compiled a list of 9, covering opportunities that can be realized on a business, operational and budget level. I'm sure there are more, but 9 is a good start ;-)
I'll start off tomorrow with 'Benefit #1: XPS is ideal for sharing and publishing'.
Enjoy reading them, and feel free to share your thoughts/opinions in the comments. ¶ 17:54 0 Comments
Thursday, July 24, 2008
v2.5.1 released on a sunny thursday morning!
As promised: v2.5.1 of all our products are released; this means new downloads for NiXPS View, NiXPS Edit and NiXPS SDK.
This is a bugfix release, with the exception of the x64 support in the SDK, which is new.
Go grab it here.
The changelog can be found here. ¶ 09:56 0 Comments
As promised: v2.5.1 of all our products are released; this means new downloads for NiXPS View, NiXPS Edit and NiXPS SDK.
This is a bugfix release, with the exception of the x64 support in the SDK, which is new.
Go grab it here.
The changelog can be found here. ¶ 09:56 0 Comments
Saturday, July 19, 2008
NiXPS Edit/View v2.5.1 release imminent & Vista x64 SDK support
We received a lot of feedback on our v2.5.0 release by customers and visitors at the Drupa show. As a result, we have been busy the last couple of weeks on ironing out bugs and annoyances.
We have also took the time to do some interop testing with other XPS tools from collegues. This was an interesting experience, and once again it showed that NiXPS Edit being a native XPS editor has a lot of practical advantages opposed to applications that convert XPS to PDF or an internal format for editing. I'm planning to write a seperate blogpost on this subject later this week.
For the v2.5.1 release: we're almost there, expect a brand new, fresh release somewhere this week.
We'll update the SDK to 2.5.1 at the same time, with a novelty due to customer demand: native Vista x64 binaries! ¶ 13:29 0 Comments
We have also took the time to do some interop testing with other XPS tools from collegues. This was an interesting experience, and once again it showed that NiXPS Edit being a native XPS editor has a lot of practical advantages opposed to applications that convert XPS to PDF or an internal format for editing. I'm planning to write a seperate blogpost on this subject later this week.
For the v2.5.1 release: we're almost there, expect a brand new, fresh release somewhere this week.
We'll update the SDK to 2.5.1 at the same time, with a novelty due to customer demand: native Vista x64 binaries! ¶ 13:29 0 Comments
Friday, July 04, 2008
NiXPS SDK v2.5.0 Released
A few weeks after our applications, we are now releasing the v2.5.0 SDK.
This release has all the fixes that were made between the 2.0 and 2.5 application releases. This includes a massive improvement in the conversion to PDF: files are generated faster, and are smaller.
Due to customer demand, we also enhanced our .NET support - the SDK now contains C# glue code which facilitates using the DLL in a C# environment.
The changelog can be found here (SDK specifics are labeled accordingly).
The api documentation is available here.
You can request a trial version with this form.
Pricing information can be found here.
Check it out: this SDK is the most efficient way to add powerful XPS generation, editing and conversion to your applications and services on both Mac and PC. ¶ 17:24 0 Comments
This release has all the fixes that were made between the 2.0 and 2.5 application releases. This includes a massive improvement in the conversion to PDF: files are generated faster, and are smaller.
Due to customer demand, we also enhanced our .NET support - the SDK now contains C# glue code which facilitates using the DLL in a C# environment.
The changelog can be found here (SDK specifics are labeled accordingly).
The api documentation is available here.
You can request a trial version with this form.
Pricing information can be found here.
Check it out: this SDK is the most efficient way to add powerful XPS generation, editing and conversion to your applications and services on both Mac and PC. ¶ 17:24 0 Comments
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Official: XPS a trend at Drupa
... one can debate a long time about what a trend is, but according to WhatTheyThink's Barb Pellow XPS was the #10 trend at the 2008 Drupa show.
I talked about the big XPS presence at the Drupa already, but of course I have a biased opinion ;-)
Nice to see that others noticed this too.
[via Adrian's blog] ¶ 16:02 0 Comments
I talked about the big XPS presence at the Drupa already, but of course I have a biased opinion ;-)
Nice to see that others noticed this too.
[via Adrian's blog] ¶ 16:02 0 Comments
