Technological Developments — More Changes Reshaping the Industry

XPS—A New File Format

The other potentially disruptive technology touted at Graph Expo was XPS, a new file format specification promulgated by Microsoft. “XPS” stands for XML Paper Specification, which is a core printing technology in Microsoft’s new Vista operating system. XPS claims to be a complete XML-based specification for a printer page description language based on a new print path, a color management device-independent and resolution-independent vector-based format, which is an exact representation of printed output and supports printing features such as gradients, transparencies, CMYK color space, named colors, printer calibration and print schemas.