XPS for IT Professionals

For the IT professional, Windows Vista enables you to design document workflows that allow you to identify, digitally sign, and manage the access and distribution rights of your documents by using XPS Documents and documents created with 2007 Microsoft Office system applications.

The XPS Document format provides a safe and secure way to store and share an electronic document. The layout of the content is fixed and does not contain any arbitrary code, macros, or scripts. XPS Documents include built-in support for digital signatures and can be protected by using rights management applications that use Windows RMS. These features provide a very stable, secure, and reliable document platform and make XPS Documents ideal for applications that require accurate presentation of the document's contents, adherence to data governance, protection of sensitive information, or long-term document storage.

Windows Vista introduces the XPS Document format and uses it as a document format, a Windows spool file format, and a page description language (PDL) for printers. Microsoft understands that maintaining a high quality print environment in the enterprise is very important to the IT Professional and Windows Vista use of XPS technologies throughout the document life cycle and print path greatly improves print predictability, reliability, fidelity, and performance.

The improvements to printing and documents found in Windows Vista address the following trends.

• A color laser printer that once cost thousands of dollars costs only a few hundred dollars today and offers considerably greater performance. As a result, color is being used more in day-to-day business printing applications.

• Information workers are using increasingly more sophisticated graphic effects, like gradients and transparency, to add more impact to their communications.

• Information workers demand greater color fidelity for more vibrant and life-like images in their office documents.

• Digital printing offers an affordable complement to traditional printing options. Digital printing enables economical, short-run, and on-demand printing. Print shops can also offer short-run printing at affordable prices due to lower job-setup fees and less waste. Enterprises can more easily produce professional, cost-effective printing in-house, and improve response rates with personalized direct-mail marketing communications.

Windows Vista printing and XPS Documents address these requirements for today while providing the ability to support new features and printers in the future.