As an alternative to the PDF, Microsoft introduced an electronic paper format – XPS for creating and sharing documents. The format allows you to save and publish content in an easily viewable form. An XML Specification Paper (XPS) document can be created in any program you can print from, using a XPS Document Writer. The Microsoft XPS Document Writer (MXDW) is a print-to-file driver that enables a Windows application to create XML Paper Specification (XPS) document files. It allows you to create .xps files in any program that has a print option. Once the XPS document is created and saved in XPS format, you cannot edit its contents.
XPS Document writer or viewer, by default, comes installed on Windows Vista and later versions of Windows.
How to Print to the XPS Document Writer
To do so, click on the File menu of a document or a file you want to print to .xps format and then click Print.
A Print dialog box will be visible on your computer screen. From it choose Microsoft XPS Document Writer. Here, I tried this with my Word 2013 file.
Now, to view the document using the XPS Viewer after you print it, click Preferences and then from the 2 tabs visible choose the ‘XPS Documents’ tab.
Next, check the box that says ‘Automatically open XPS documents using the XPS viewer’ if it is unchecked and then click OK.
Click Print to print the document or file.
When requested, enter a file name and browse to the location where you want to save the .xps file. Click Save. Windows will save .xps files in your Documents folder by default.
If you would like to attach a digital signature to an XPS document before you send or share it, you can do so. Attaching a signature helps to identify the creator of the XPS document and prevents anyone from modifying it.
Additionally, you can also choose who can view the document and for how long by applying permissions before sharing the document.
Hope this helps.
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