USA, Canada & Mexico
Compart announces support for XPS and extended PostScript
With XPS, Microsoft has established a new document exchange format that has been implemented in Windows Vista and Office 2007 as an integrated print format and which replaces the graphics sub-system GDI (Graphic Data Interface) in previous Windows versions. It is based on XML, supports additional color spaces and color management, and operates with the same graphic subsystem as Vista, called WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). Because of this it provides a uniform usage of a single format from creation through spooling right up to the output of a document with higher resolution fidelity, and thus eliminates all the various problems previously causing format problems.
Using the Compart XPS input filter, it will for example be possible to prepare documents based on AFP for bulk printing. The filter will be available at the end of 2007. Compart will make an XPS output filter available as soon as manufacturers launch printers capable of printing XPS directly.
A native PostScript implementation will also be available from Compart at the end of 2007. This will optimize the printing of large volumes of business letters, providing a very high rate of throughput which, depending on the type of document, will be in excess of more than 100 pages a second, making it possible, for example, to do very fast printing of PDF or AFP with a printer such as an InfoPrint 5000 using color management optimization.
At the same time, support for the VPS (Variable Print Specification) – an extension to PostScript, conceived to efficiently describe documents with variable content – will be available. The implementation of other PostScript like formats such as PPML will be released at a later date.
