Following up on the news that Office 12 will directly output documents in PDF format, Mary Jo Foley writes:
[Office program manager Brian] Jones’ disclosure was somewhat surprising, given Microsoft’s announcement earlier this year of plans to incorporate “Metro,” Microsoft’s PDF/PostScript alternative, into Windows Vista. (Microsoft currently is using the XML Paper Specification (XPS) to refer to many of its Metro components.)
And Microsoft’s Metro announcement was seen by industry watchers just one of a growing number of direct shots by Microsoft at Adobe’s PDF/PhotoShop/Illustrator empire.
This is probably going to be the single biggest misconception you read this week. Only trouble is, it’s based on a fundamental misunderstanding. As I posted last April from the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference:
I also got a chance to look more closely at the “Metro” technology. It looks like there will still be room in the world for PDF files. The real impact is to replace the old Enhanced Metafile (EMF) format with a new, smarter native format for printed output. There’s a big overlap with PDF files, but it’s not as direct a competitor as early reports, including mine, might suggest.
Microsoft did a poor job when they initially talked about the Metro technology, leading lots of people to speculate that it was a PDF-killer. A closer look reveals it’s no such thing, but the original flawed description has already spread far and wide.
Update: Read more technical details on the XML Paper Specification (XPS) here. XPS is first and foremost a container specification for application data. It’s true that the XPS Document format is very PDF-like, but I don’t think anyone has any illusions that it will replace PDFs. If you use Office 12, it probably will allow you to edit XPS Documents in the same way that Acrobat (the full product) allows you to edit PDF files, without having to leave Office or buy a separate program.
Ed Bott 
You’re a bit confused about XPS here, probably because Microsoft’s own naming for these technologies has been very confusing. XPS when introduced at WinHEC had two key parts: the packaging format, then referred to as “XPS”, and the fixed page document format, then referred to as “XPS Reach”. The packaging format has since been renamed to Open Container Format in some of the PDC 2005 documentation, and XPS Reach is now being called just XPS.
I could speculate on why Microsoft is trying to distance the packaging format from the document format in their new naming, but that is a subject for another day.
It is XPS Reach that competes with PDF, not the packaging format. It is not just a better print format – if that was the case, it wouldn’t need to support annotations, hyperlinks, DRM, etc. and there wouldn’t be an XPS Document Writer print driver. Those exist only to compete with PDF.
I don’t know about that. The comments I made were drawn directly from the Microsoft summary page on the Windows Vista site (linked above). It could be that that siteis out of date, but I don’t think so. Here’s a quote:
I can’t find any reference to Open Container Format anywhere at Microsoft. There is an updated white paper, dated August 17, 2005, entitled XPS Print Path FAQ. It includes this statement:
That sounds about right to me. Clearly, XPS is much more than just a PDF replacement.
Sorry, got the names a little bit wrong (should have double-checked!): XPS packaging is referred to as “Open Packaging Conventions” in:
Brian Jone’s OFF304 session, slide 8
Gregg Brown’s session, PRS333, slide 4
The latter is by the guy who is in charge of XPS/Metro, so the names should probably be considered official.
Also, you were so busy trying to prove me wrong on the naming that you kinda sidestepped the main point: that regardless of whether or not XPS has uses other than a PDF competitor, many of its features are only there to compete with PDF.
I wasn’t trying to “prove you wrong” about anything. I had never heard the name you posted (or the corrected one) and a Google search turned up nothing. The correct name Googles to an informative page at MS.
At any rate, what I see is an output format that works as a print spooler, a page description language, and a document format. I have no doubt that MS will put some weight behind the document format, but I really see nothing that contradicts my original post.
Thanks for the update, honestly.
Thanks for the reply. I didn’t intend my last comment to come out quite as negative as it must have sounded. Sorry about that. I still don’t buy your argument, but I do so respectfully.
No offense taken, Shebby. And I think there’s plenty of room for disagreement. If I worked at Adobe, I would pronbably be considerably more suspicious, and rightfully so. The high-tech landscape is littered with the the ghosts of companies that underestimated Microsoft’s competitive instincts. It’ll be interesting to see how the format plays out.
It may not be a PDF killer but it will sure come close.
The Jerry Dunietz demo on Channel 9 http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=98057 showed the print stream viewer scaling nicely inside a web browser. Everything you lose on the XML verbosity you will gain on the (nearly) open standard that can be audited and edited without having to cope with Adobe proprietry formats. Embedded Truetype subsetting gets around the old DOC format interchange nightmare and third parties will provide the rest without Microsoft getting accused of anti-competitive practices. A bit of support from the printer manufacturer community and a lot more effort from MS on the named color space issues and it will be at least as good as Adobe.
Speak to Netscape about trying to resist “It came free on my PC”