what is xps document

An XPS document is a digital document that uses a fixed document format, which represents a digital document using the XML mark-up language. It is a paginated fixed-layout format that retains the look and feel of electronic documents. XPS is similar to PDF, but it is less popular and has not gained much traction. XPS files can be generated by selecting the “Microsoft XPS Document Writer” as a printer while printing the document. The XPS format consists of XML markup that defines the composition of a document and the visual appearance of each page along with rendering rules for displaying or printing the document. XPS documents are primarily focused on document fidelity, data accuracy, file size, and compression schemes, elements that are important to generating high-quality print output. Interacting with an XPS document is difficult because the format is not easy to handle, and XPS documents can neither be manipulated nor edited easily. XPS files can only be viewed on computer systems that have an XPS Viewer installed.