It is highly improbable that a printed document resembles
the original seen on a screen or browser. Considering the number of printer
types available on the market this is not an unusual experience. The XPS format
has properties endowed by the underpinning software and standards that make it
escape from the wysinwyg (what you see is not what
you get) dilemma that many face, especially when it comes to printing. This is
the reason that the MS WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) will have an
immediate audience and a large following.
The XPS is an electronic fixed layout format that guarantees
that the printed version is exactly the same as the file version (high
fidelity) preserving the document formatting. This file cannot be modified as
is. There are two ways this file can be generated form a Microsoft Word
document.
Using the Microsoft Document Writer
Open the docx file in Word 2007. Go
and select Print to open the Print window. Accept the
defaults and click OK. Make sure you have selected the Print
to file option as shown in Figure 3 and the Printer
Name as Microsoft Document Printer. Microsoft Document Printer must be
in the Printers folder as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3
Figure 4
Click OK which opens the Print to File
window (not shown) with a default folder to save the document as well as the
default file type, Printer Files (*.prn). Click on
the drop-down and choose All Files(*.*) for the drop
down, Save as Type. For the file name provide a name
and the extension XPS. The file will be saved with this extension to the
specified location. By double clicking the file with XPS extension, the
document may be viewed as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5
Using 2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as
PDF or XPS
In order to use this option, the add-in SaveAsPDFandXPS.exe
must be downloaded from the Microsoft
site. This executable allows converting the eight programs in the Office
2007 suite to both XPS as well as PDF formats. When you download and install
this program, the Word 2007 document shows an extra item for Save As menu item as shown in Figure 6. This functionality
is not available for Word 2003. Of course, you can save Word 2003 in Word 2007
format and use this functionality.
Figure 6
When you click on this hyperlink it opens the window, Publish as PDF or XPS.
Figure 7
The default publish type is PDF, but you can choose to
publish it as a XPS document. After choosing this option if you click on the Publish button, the explorer opens as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8
