From DWG to XAML (II)

What is XPS

XPS is the abbreviation for XML Paper specification. It was born in the second half of 2006, followed by Windows Vista release and a lot of applications on the Vista platform, Microsoft developed a document to save and view the specification. This specification itself describes the format and the rules that are followed for distributing, archiving, displaying, and processing XPS documents. The most notable feature is that the superscript language used by XPS (Markup Language) is a subset of the XAML used by WPF, so the methods used to display Windows applications can be used in XPS documents.

To promote this format, Microsoft publishes XPS in a royalty-free manner, allowing users to create their own ways to read, write, and display XPS files on specific occasions. The specification itself is issued in a way that is exempt from royalties and is allowed to be distributed freely. If you are interested, you can still download the XPS technical specifications from Microsoft's Web site free of time. This is a 600-page technical document detailing all aspects of XPS, including the organization of XPS files, images/fonts, and copyright management.

Now that we know, like the basic organization of Open XML (Office 2007), the XPS file is actually a zip document that contains the individual files that make up the document, which we can get from here. If you think this sample document is too big, we can try the simplest way.

Open Word 2007

Write a few words, or insert a few pictures

Save As XPS

The XPS Viewer launches and displays the resulting XPS file.

The XPS Viewer is bundled into the operating system from the Vista era. But that's not important, we're not looking at the XPS viewer but the XPS document's internal structure. Now, I've got an XPS sample document here, and if you're interested, you can download and view it yourself.

The organizational structure of XPS