This article dealt with the XPS structure of a word document according to the Office Open XML format and XPS. The docx file extension provides an easy route to get at the constituent parts of the document in conformity with the specification. In order to work with the constituent parts it will be necessary to use the application programming interface provided by Microsoft [Microsoft® Windows® Software Development Kit (SDK) for Beta 2 of Windows Vista and WinFX Runtime Components] which can be used on both platforms, Windows XP SP2 as well as Windows Vista. The article also described saving the office 2007 formats to XPS files and applications that can modify the files. This backward compatibility will be a boon to zillions of word documents whose contents can now be kept in a more portable format.

Although XPS is welcomed by the Microsoft customers, it has also attracted criticism for some of it shortcomings. Since Microsoft has positioned XPS as an alternative to PDF by strategically providing a utility that can compare the two format in-situ, a lot of discussion will center on Microsoft and Adobe and will get stronger as Vista gets a wider audience.