New XPS Features in Windows 7

re: New XPS Features in Windows 7

RuslanUrban — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:17:01 GMT

XPS Essentials Feature Request

While the intent of the XPS document writer seems to be only "printing" into an XPS file instead of a printer. In my opinion, it is missing lots of functionality that a first-class Windows system citizen should have. Can the driver be extended easily, or, should it be completely re-written if certain functionality should be added by a third party?

Here are a few things that can be added to the XPS Essentials:

XPS Document Writer (printer driver):

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1. Add a optional dialog to assign additional document properties; e.g. specify metadata attributes like author, title, etc., sign the document, secure document with a with password.

2. Use title of the window of the application that initiated printing or title metadata attribute as the default file name for the XPS file, or leave file name blank. I find "*.xps" in the file name annoying to edit at times. The .xps extension is added to the name of the file automatically.

3. Add send option to allow sending the document by e-mail without storing it to the file system.

4. Add ability to queue multiple print jobs into a single XPS file. It is useful when you want to save multiple steps of a wizard, for example saving a log of a an online purchase.

5. Add ability to add watermarks.

XPS Viewer

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1. Add Send option to allow sending the document by e-mail

2. Add ability to append contents of other XPS files.

3. Add ability to delete pages. Sometimes, when you print a web page, a few lines of text are printed on a separate page that is often thrown away. Deleting such pages would reduce the size of the document, which is often very important.

re: New XPS Features in Windows 7

adrian ford — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:59:29 GMT

Thanks for the input - I've passed it on to the team.

"Can the driver be extended easily"

Yes - see http://blogs.msdn.com/adrianford/archive/2008/02/02/generating-xps-automagically.aspx for links to the WDK which includes example code and documentation for building your own 'Save as XPS' driver ontop of the core components provided by Windows.

re: New XPS Features in Windows 7

HLeuze — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:05:40 GMT

Hi,

we are using XPS in our .net app and the biggest problem for us with the current xps version is that there is no way to send output to the microsoft xps document writer and redirect the output to a specific file (print to file). Problem is that there is no way to specify the output filename.

A lot of developers are asking for this feature in the the XPS MSDN forum.

Thanks in advance for some comment about this.

re: New XPS Features in Windows 7

adrian ford — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:18:30 GMT

If you're using WPF in .Net then there's no need to use the document writer, you can serialize direct to XPS and output wherever you want (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa970449.aspx).

If you're using Winforms in .Net than check out the PrinterSettings class in System.Drawing.Printing, specifically PrintToFile and PrintFileName (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.drawing.printing.printersettings(VS.80).aspx)

HTH

re: New XPS Features in Windows 7

Walter — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:53:11 GMT

We have been waiting a long time for an XPS renderer in SQL Reporting Services. In fact we were very disappointed to see that neither SQL 2008 nor SQL 2005 SP3 had one. Hopefully it will support native rendering to XPS in the not too distant future.

In the mean time however, is it possible to use the System.Drawing.Printing to programatically print SSRS output to the Microsoft XPS Document Writer without user intervention? That might give us a great option to use in the mean time.

re: New XPS Features in Windows 7

adrian ford — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:25:33 GMT

Hi Walter, I don't know what plans SQL Reporting Services have, but I can ask...