GreenPrint Software have released version 2 of GreenPrint, their tool to help reduce unnecessary printing.

The Press Release includes the following:

The paper-saving software, which eliminates unwanted pages and reduces printing by 17% or more, has been redesigned from the ground up around Microsoft’s new XPS print path. In addition to improved speed, the new architecture also provides greater waste detection functionality and better output performance.

“We realized pretty quickly after launching Version 1 that in order to get the consistent use necessary to save the average user $100 per year in printing costs, we needed to make GreenPrint much, much faster,” said GreenPrint CTO James Kellerman

More details on www.printgreener.com and a white paper on the GreenPrint blog.

The team at knfbReading Technology have built a book reader targeting assisted reading and study skills for students and based on the XPS format.

Here’s a glimpse:

More details on kReader PC on the knfbReader site.

Global Graphics have released gDoc Fusion and gDoc Creator that provide conversion and editing functionality for working with various file formats, including PDF, XPS and Word OOXML. Details on their site.

NiXPS on OpenXPS, Office 2007 SP2 and Windows 7 XPS Viewer.

Global Graphics now blogging on XPS, PDF and related stuff.

java-axp: 100% Java XPS file reader (old, but had dropped off my radar).

Make sure you UpdateLayout() when using XPS in WPF.

Markware blogging on preflight and data conversion

Nuance OmniPage 17 to ‘Unlock the Green Office’.

The foundation for XPS (OpenXPS), OOXML and a number of other formats is a common ZIP-based container. This container is defined by the Open Packaging Conventions and is standardized in ISO/IEC 29500-2 and ECMA 376-2. (We often refer to Open Packaging Conventions as OPC, or just ‘packaging’.)

Want to learn more? The packaging team are now blogging: you’ll find them at http://blogs.msdn.com/opc/

Zoran has announced enhancements to their IPS DDK 3.0 driver development kit with XPS Print Path support, including support for Windows 7. Details in the press release.

ActivePDF adds support for XPS in activePDF Server 2009. Details in the press release.

In case you’re reading this haven’t already got the Windows 7 RC via MSDN or TechNet, you can now download via the Windows 7 page on microsoft.com.

Enjoy.

First Floor have released version 1.0 of their document toolkit for client-side display of XPS using Silverlight. Details in this blog post.

The documentation is also available online, including details of conformance with the spec, note that TIFF and HD Photo images and ICC color profiles are currently not supported.

Dan just posted details of the Windows HD Imaging Additional Qualifier (AQ) for the Windows 7 logo program. Details and links are on the XPS team blog.

Office service pack 2 is now available – you can read the details pretty much anywhere but a good place to start is the Inside Office blog which has links to the official announcement, blog articles, technical and support information and, yes, the download link.

From the document perspective the big news in SP2 is the inclusion of support for ODF, PDF and XPS (plus the file format convertor API). Tom Robertson provides details on how this fits with our commitment to interoperability in this post while Gray Knowlton digs into the details here and provides a Q&A here.

Enjoy.

Another XPS in Silverlight link. This one is from Simon Guest with details on how he updated David Anson’s sample to work around changes in Silverlight 2. Source code available.

David Rasmussen on using XPS to print to OneNote. There’s also a codeplex project.

After 20 months of hard work, 8 face-to-face meetings (in Japan, Europe and the USA), numerous conference calls and a load of email, TC46, the technical committee working on the standardization of XPS, has published the final draft of the OpenXPS specification – denoted as version 1.6.

As Ecma notes in this post, this draft marks a major milestone for the XPS format, the next step is the decision of the Ecma General Assembly on whether OpenXPS will become an Ecma Standard.

Alongside the final draft, TC46 has published a white paper that provides an overview of the Ecma OpenXPS format. The white paper includes the rationale for OpenXPS, how the format is different from other document formats, details on the features and their benefits provided by the format, and an overview of technical details.

The draft of OpenXPS and the white paper can both be downloaded from the TC46 activities page.

Koen Zwikstra has announced a document toolkit for Silverlight that provides client-side viewing of XPS using Silverlight (2 & 3). 

A preview is also available, you can find it hosted for evaluation purposes at http://firstfloorsoftware.com/liveapps/DocumentToolkit/

Update: here’s a link to the product overview, including FAQ and API documentation.