With the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft is introducing a new document format named "XML Paper Specification" or XPS. Microsoft describes XPS as follows: "The XML Paper Specification (XPS) describes the format of a new general-purpose document made available by Microsoft to facilitate the easy exchange of documents between applications, platforms and hardware systems... XPS Documents offer a convenient alternative to paper documents for viewing, printing, transferring and archiving" (www.microsoft.com/whdc/XPS/XpsLicense.mspx).

The description looks a lot like what PDF does. The licensing of XPS is also very similar to the way Adobe licensed PDF in order to make it a widely used standard. In this article, we will look at the differences between PDF and XPS and advantages of each format. We will also look at ways to create either one of these formats and end up with some recommendations about which format to use in particular situations.