I hope XPS dies quickly, like Envoy did...

Now that Adobe is opening up PDF to be an ISO standard, it’s going to be hard to kill it off. I would not, however, be surprised to see governments and businesses standardize on XPS due to the percieved simplicity of using only Microsoft standards and because the built in DRM system will make it harder for employees to leak documents. I know that people in the military/intelligence fields will love being able to lock down printing and taking screenshots to a single workstation within an entire enterprise without using resorting to trusted Solaris.

Alex, do you believe that PDF should be placed alongside the iPod and the US military superiority as instances where competition is considered harmful?

What I like about XPS/XML/WPF is the end-to-end story based on a unified rendering model, with human-readable markup that actually specifies fonts and typographic features in an editable form. If all XPS does is force competitors to move further beyond the static document model and drives innovation is this space then that’s a good thing, no?

Competition is good. If nothing else it will cause the PDF to be improved in new ways. I think it is a knee-jerk reaction to hope that things from Microsoft die off.

I like XML. What I don’t like is that XPS is as equally proprietary as PDF but there are no current plans to make XPS cross-format; a PDF can be opened on Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, Amiga, etc... an XPS only on Vista or a hugely upgraded (.NET 3.0) XP/Server 2003 machine.

I use MS products but I am against this format. If it forces PDF to get better, great. But I see it mainly as a way for MS to lock people into using their stuff.

“Competition is good.”

Yes and no.

MS, via it’s gigantic market share, can make it’s own de-facto standards. And this is what happens.

It’s usually NOT good for the consumer in the long run, but oh well. That is the way it is.

“I like XML. What I don’t like is that XPS is as equally proprietary as PDF but there are no current plans to make XPS cross-format;”

EXACTLY. MS has a long track record of using ’standard’ formats to them make a completely proprietary MS format.

i played with XPF for a bit, but didn’t like much of the results i was getting. when trying to export an OTF font, i kept getting errors about a VORG table missing, so i was only able to export documents using TTF fonts. But this was all a while ago, so maybe this is just the jumble that time has created inside my head.

I too think competition is good but the best product does not always succeed. Often it has to do with market penetration and what becomes mainstream. Look at early examples, the querty versus the dvorak keyboard. I hope XPS inspires Adobe to further improve the PDF.

Sure there will be people/business who will use XPS for out of the box convenience, and that is fine. PDF isn’t going anywhere, especially if XPS either sees no or limited support on other platforms. The only thing that will replace PDF will be a format anyone can use and is significantly better. I am just not seeing why many people should feel compelled to choose XPS over PDF.

What does Microsoft have to do with competition?

I too think competition is good but the best product does not always succeed. Often it has to do with market penetration and what becomes mainstream. Look at early examples, the querty versus the dvorak keyboard.

Betamax vs VHS

And I’m not about to pick sides in the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD debate either....

We posted some xps samples of the ClearType Collection fonts here a few days back... http://www.microsoft.com/typography/links/news.aspx?NID=5759

I just added a note from Mike regarding the production process. I think what’s interesting in this was Mike’s ability to use a text editor to edit the xaml mark-up to enable OpenType features in the samples. Not exactly easy, but likely a whole lot easier than doing the same thing with a PDF, EPS or InDesign file?

I think it would make more sense to compare XPS to Mars rather than to PDF. Now that I see XPS I must say I would have preferred completely different innovations from MS and Adobe, instead of two version of the same thing ...

(Is it by chance or by design that the latter is named after a god of war? Or is it named after the planet?)  ;-)

WPF was codenamed “Avalon”, so maybe the mythical connection is the right one. If the anti-trust czars try to block Adobe would that be a “Mars Bar” ;-)

Just so long as it wasn’t deep-fried to become the culinary “specialty” of Scotland....

(blech!)

Sii’s comment has sparked my interest.

Is is possible to also look at these samples on a mac? If possible, you could post some screen shots of the samples as well. Any plans to ressurrect IE7 for mac?

Thanks for the information.

>Is is possible to also look at these samples on a mac?

I hear there’s a product called something like ’basic-training’ or ’squaddie-school’ that lets you run Windows on Mac hardware ;-) Seriously I’ll send you some screen captures off-list.

I’ll ask about the Mac side, don’t know to be honest. I think IE Mac is resurection is unlikely, but don’t know. I’ll ask around.

I’m surprised ODF (Open Document Format), a format that was announced with much ado, isn’t really mentioned. XPS, I feel, won’t be a big thing because PDF workflows in print shops and graphic companies have been virtually standardised. It’s a file format that is ubiquitous, and while often (in Government and other instances) there is not even the question of cross-compatibility, the presence of the Mac in the graphic sector does command it. ODF is an open standard for a human- and machine-readable document, which I would truly love.

I too think competition is good but the best product does not always succeed. Often it has to do with market penetration and what becomes mainstream. Look at early examples, the querty versus the dvorak keyboard. I hope XPS inspires Adobe to further improve the PDF.

Well, Adobe’s hearing the hounds on it’s heels. The MARS project will be bringing (a bit) more XML into PDF, but I really hope to see ODF as even an option to export to. Hopefully, we will get a format out of this that is open, crossplaftorm, editable by hand and secure, since I don’t trust propietary DRM either (see cases of Fairplay and current encryption schemes in PDF). But more than often, we will see a pretty good starting position and an iron marketing strategy give Microsoft the upper hand.

for sii>>
Does Microsoft have any plans to develop an XPS reader for linux users (didn’t ms acquire Novell?)

Will there be an XPS reader integrated into mac office?

These fabulous new ClearType fonts will also be sold by Ascender- will there be any differences between the Ascender version and the version bundled with Vista? Last I heard Calibri had over 1000 glyphs and tons of alternates. And WPF fonts too?

Mikey

for sii too...

I’m also very interested to know if XPS will be integrated into mac office and if the ’c’ fonts will ship with mac office too. Is there a plan to ship ’c’ fonts for mac in any shape or form...license them to Apple or Adobe maybe?!!

>Does Microsoft have any plans to develop an XPS reader for linux users

I did Web searches and found MS people talking about Mac and Unix based viewers on their blogs - but have not found an official statement on that yet.

>These fabulous new ClearType fonts will also be sold by Ascender- will there be any differences between the Ascender version and the version bundled with Vista?

Ascender currently has some very narrow rights to the ClearType Collection fonts, and are not “selling them” in the traditional sense. This isn’t very clear from their web site. I’ll talk to them about it.

>I’m also very interested to know if XPS will be integrated into mac office

I saw some blog entries related to that, but again nothing official

>and if the ‘c’ fonts will ship with mac office too.

Obviously that would seem sensible, but sorry nothing official. :-)

>Is there a plan to ship ‘c’ fonts for mac in any shape or form…license them to Apple or Adobe maybe?!!

Sorry I can’t talk about that. But we’re always interested in talking to people about licensing and we’re open to any ideas. An example is this one... http://www.microsoft.com/typography/links/news.aspx?NID=5747

sii,

Meant to say thanks earlier for your patient answers to a barrage of questions...

Can I contact you officially for research purposes?

Sure, simonda@ “you know where”

Cheers, Si

SII>>>> I also thank you too. Microsoft (typographically) is kicking butt!!!

Please keep us posted.

Mikey :-)