In last week’s posting, I ended with a question about the implications of integrating XPS documents into workflows. And, although still very early in the game, you can see, by the vast amount of news (and rants and raves), the affect the new format is beginning to have. What has the reception been like so far? One word: Controversial.
Behind The XPS (XML Paper Specification) Format
To get behind all the controversy, I guess you’d have to get behind the format. In brief, the XML Paper Specification describes what is known as an XPS document, a file format for representing electronic paper using an XML-based language. The XML technology used to make XPS documents possible is OOXML (Office Open Extensible Markup Language).
OOXML As An ISO Standard?
OOXML was essentially developed by Microsoft, and produced to be used in conjunction with Microsoft applications. It was submitted to Ecma International back in 2005, where it gained approval from the organization in December 2006. Ecma then submitted it to ISO where it’s currently nearing the end of its evaluation process. It’s the potential standardization of OOXML that has generated the controversy surrounding the XPS document format. And the controversy raises important points when looking at the integration of XPS documents into the PDF industry.
ODF In The News: Things To Consider
If you think there aren’t enough acronyms in the tech world, you can add another one into the alphabet soup that is our digital swimming hole: ODF. As an XML-based format, the OpenDocument Format is already an ISO standard and a well known competitor to Microsoft’s Office suite. It was legislated as the default document format by the state of Massachusetts and implemented state wide just last month. This means a whole constituency would be (and is) using a document format that wasn’t supported by the giant known as Microsoft.
But, after an 8 month project, version 1.0 of an ODF-OOXML translation plug-in was just released last week. The plug-in allows ODF documents to be opened, worked on and saved as ODF within MS Office applications. It was published, not developed, by Microsoft and made available via SourceForge.net. Just one example of how Microsoft is pushing its interoperability campaign, no?
And when it comes to XML, the portability and universality is due to the way in which XML specifically describes only the content of your data. Yet, the Office Open XML used in XPS documents is, at its core, influenced by Microsoft’s tech design; that “limits??? the openness of it. The OOXML is a container format for XML-based markup languages that reference the individual applications of the MS Office suite. No surprise, but when you’re trying to standardize such a thing, it might make it difficult to win end users over.
So just how open such a standardized (MS) format can be has yet to be proven over time. However, with the release of MS Office 2007 and Vista with their XPS functions, the OOXML factor, standardized or not, isn’t going to leave the picture anytime soon.
But, sitting on the sidelines of the heated rivalry between ODF and OOXML, is Adobe, the third party member in this portable document arena. Armed with a long established usership in one hand and an (almost) ISO standard in the other, what competitive battle will it see?
