Is there any XPS Viewer for Linux?

Question

Hi guys,

 

I am looking for a XPS Viewer for Linux. As per Andy Simonds (http://blogs.msdn.com/andy_simonds/archive/2005/10/31/487487.aspx), MS had plans to build viewer for Linux / MAC etc platforms. Is this plan still ON? Any updates?

 

Many thanks!

 

-Vijay

Answer 1

Hi,

we sell a Mac viewer/editor. You can download a 30-day trial at: http://nixps.com

No linux version (yet), as we're not convinced that a Linux viewer makes a valid business case.

Regards,
Nick.

Answer 2

AMAZING!

 

Microsoft includes XPS printing and viewing capabilities free for Windows XP and Windows Vista yet http://nixps.com is selling a MAC-only version for $300!!!

 

Great job brining such an app out for Mac, but that's a hard price to swallow for something that is free if you can, for example, run a virtual Windows environment on your Mac.

 

MICROSOFT would do well to consider bringing out a Linux XPS viewer and renderer...but I suppose Microsoft doesn't know how to program for Linux?

 

++++++++++++++++++

ATTENTION LINUX PROGRAMMERS, please be advised that XPS is of a higher quality than PDF (more crisp and clear and retains formatting better than PDF).  If I understand this all correctly, Microsoft has published the XPS specs as an open format and they provide details on programming with it.  Are there any bright Linux programmers that can bring XPS printing (rendering) and viewing to Linux?  Due to the higher quality of XPS, getting XPS functionality onto Linux would add some serious competition to Adobe's PDF format and would cause one to seriously reconsider PDF as an archival or distribution format.

Answer 3

 

If you want , you can achieve this goal in an indirect way.

You can develop a software which converts XPS files to PS files by yourself  and then view PS files using GhostView under Linux.

Answer 4

I don't think that there is a problem charging $300 for a Mac version that has been privately developed.  People should be compensated for their time and effort ($300 is less that one days wage where I come from), and we should all remember that the spreading of XPS to other platforms is a good thing, as it makes it more likely that XPS will become recognised as a "standard".

 

The only reason that someone is able to charge $300 for a viewer is because no one else has done it.  XPS is an open standard and as such anyone else could create a viewer and sell it for $250, then $200, then $150, then once there are enough customers to repay the development costs it could become free (in an ideal world).  You never know, Microsoft may even buy the company for $50 million dollars.

 

As for Linux, I would really like to see a Linux viewer.  I agree that it would not be a commercial proposition as Linux users are less likely to want to pay for software to sit on top of a "free" operating system.  Linux is taking off and with great installs such as Ubuntu could be the future for some users.  For me though, it is still a second PC operating system (like Vista), with XP being my main PC.

Answer 5

Today we have released an XPS viewer for Mac & PC for $99.
It's not free, but is is very affordable if you need to view or print XPS files on Mac - take a look at
http://nixps.com.
As for the Linux version; technically we could do this, but we don't feel there is any money to be made there.

Answer 6

Wake-up call...

If Microsoft (or someone) does not make a Linux viewer, then XPS will soon become a dead format.  PDF is available on all platforms.  If XPS is not freely available on all platforms, XPS will go nowhere fast.

Answer 7

Hi,

having a format 'available' on a platfrom, is quite a broad statement.
For an e-doc format like XPS, you might need viewing software, editing software, generating software, etc...

Assuming you are refering to viewing software. There are already quite a few solutions on the market today that allow you to view XPS files on variuos platforms: OneVision Solvero, Okular, XPS Essentails, NiXPS Edit/View, ... Some are even free, and run on linux.

Not bad, considering the format was only just officially released 11/2006.
PDF was introduced in 1993(!).

Regards,
Nick.

Answer 8

 

SANAtech released a capable XPS viewer application supporting many platforms including Linux.

you can download free 60 days trial from:

 

http://www.sana-tech.com/xps.html

Answer 9

The funny thing is there is no default viewer for XPS coming with the installation of windows even though the format is microsoft's own format... And you guys are talking about the standardization of this format but I guess you can't realise that in order to be able to view this file format "even in windows", you need .NET Framework and guess what... this will cost you 70-80mb to download while all you want is to view a 100-200kb size of document...

Anyway, as it's mentioned on a previous comment, just try kde4's default document viewer called "okular"...
It's that simple... and no need to panic

Answer 10

Answering the original question: Okular (part of KDE), recently updated to 0.7. See http://blogs.msdn.com/adrianford/archive/2008/08/01/okular-xps.aspx for a link.

 

Windows Vista _does_ include an XPS viewer.

 

/aiddy

 

Answer 11

It's a shame that this viewer (for Vista) is incredibly buggy and doesn't work at all in many cases.  I'm now searching for another XPS viewer of some sort that will work on any OS.  It's a shame that Microsoft doesn't see the value in releasing a viewer for all of the major OS's (Linux included).  When a user attempts to open an XPS file (a boarding pass in this case) and it doesn't work then it demonstrates to the user that the format is junk.  The only reason for not releasing a working viewer for all platforms is yet another attempt at restricting the use of competing operating systems.  I would personally prefer PDF as XPF doesn't provide me with any perceivable value as an end user.  I could care less about crisper fonts or the like because PDF is satisfactory and is supported on all major OS's.  If anyone has a working XPS viewer for Vista, XP, Linux or MacOS then I'd appreciate a link.  I have all these OS's available to me as a developer.  I just want to print a boarding pass, not write an XPF viewer.

Answer 12

Hi Todd,

There's links to viewers for Mac OS X and Linux in this thread & details of other implementations in the XPS Technology Showcase at

  http://www.microsoft.com/xps

If you're having problems with the viewer in Vista we'd appreciate hearing the details (either on this forum or there's a feedback link at http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/downloads.mspx)

/aiddy

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http://blogs.msdn.com/adrianford

Answer 13

HI there and thx for  thread,

I am atm trying to find a way around using msaccess97 ( yes I know its old ) , and having difficulty.

I too am having no luck reading xps documents even IN vista, as all it does is prompt me to 'save' document which IS already on drive d:,   but was very glad to hear about ocular, given I switched to kde recently over the gnome/mono issues I feel are  extremely uncertain at best. So it sounds like I need to reinstall linux just to verify this works ey ? < oh the irony>

I get that linux is a competitor for MIcrosoft, but why cant we all just get along for petes sake, at least on document formats ?

Competition is causing problems that therebye HURTING regular users sometimes, and if MIcrosoft isnt careful its going to see massive migrations to other Operating Systems.

I bought  Vista albeit cheapy ( $50 on ebay) but honeslty its been a dog on performance and  I refuse to shell out extra cash for the priviledge of running win7, when it SHOULD have been vista to begin with; do microsoft and its developers think people are that stupid or hard up to change ? ;)

I am just sick and tired of things not working, and to think of the irony when I usually say that and im in Linux; my how things change.

thx for listening
invoiceman

Answer 14

I was just looking for a xps viewer on linux after reading this thread and had to reply . To everyone using free or OSS software the Okular software from KDE Desktop will view and print xps files fine. It is also installable on GNOME through the kdegraphics package (Im on F13) check your disto or repositories. To all other guys, dont worry about having to adjust your business model :P

Answer 15

GhostPDL is GPL free open source and includes an XPS interpreter.

It's a command line util that can output to a variety of file formats, printers, and display devices.

It's not extremely well documented or known but if you're familiar with ghostscript (which is well documented), it's essentially the same as that, and is found in the ghostpdl (formerly ghostpcl) package, and is buildable on Windows although they don't supply binaries themselves.

http://www.ghostscript.com/GhostPCL.html

But here are at least one set of windows binaries of the latest version:

http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/ghostpcl.html

(I haven't looked inside those, theres no guarantee they actually include the xps interpreter but it's in the source and is built by default.)

 

Answer 16

Okular works best

http://okular.kde.org

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MYM

Answer 17

Evince now supports XPS as well, so if you want to view XPS files but you don't want to install Okular because of it's truckload of dependencies on KDE, you can use Evince.

 

Website: http://projects.gnome.org/evince/

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[img]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y45/dudeman41465/LinuxRegistration.png[/img]

Answer 18

I don't think that there is a problem charging $300 for a Mac version that has been privately developed.  People should be compensated for their time and effort ($300 is less that one days wage where I come from), and we should all remember that the spreading of XPS to other platforms is a good thing, as it makes it more likely that XPS will become recognised as a "standard".

 

The only reason that someone is able to charge $300 for a viewer is because no one else has done it.  XPS is an open standard and as such anyone else could create a viewer and sell it for $250, then $200, then $150, then once there are enough customers to repay the development costs it could become free (in an ideal world).  You never know, Microsoft may even buy the company for $50 million dollars.

 

As for Linux, I would really like to see a Linux viewer.  I agree that it would not be a commercial proposition as Linux users are less likely to want to pay for software to sit on top of a "free" operating system.  Linux is taking off and with great installs such as Ubuntu could be the future for some users.  For me though, it is still a second PC operating system (like Vista), with XP being my main PC.

perhaps, but we're talking about a VIEWER. such things should be free even if it took you 10 years to develop considering the use cases that the product will be used for

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MickyD | http://mickyd.wordpress.com/ Help others by voting my post as 'Helpful' if you think it is so.

Answer 19

Today we have released an XPS viewer for Mac & PC for $99.
It's not free, but is is very affordable if you need to view or print XPS files on Mac - take a look at
http://nixps.com.
As for the Linux version; technically we could do this, but we don't feel there is any money to be made there.

as i mentioned elsewhere, any XPS or PDF viewer should be FREE considering what they do particularly if you wish them to be a standard across platforms.

PDF did this, XPS did not.

XPS was a failure then and still is today

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MickyD | http://mickyd.wordpress.com/ Help others by voting my post as 'Helpful' if you think it is so.

Answer 20

Hi,

having a format 'available' on a platfrom, is quite a broad statement.
For an e-doc format like XPS, you might need viewing software, editing software, generating software, etc...

Assuming you are refering to viewing software. There are already quite a few solutions on the market today that allow you to view XPS files on variuos platforms: OneVision Solvero, Okular, XPS Essentails, NiXPS Edit/View, ... Some are even free, and run on linux.

Not bad, considering the format was only just officially released 11/2006.
PDF was introduced in 1993(!).

Regards,
Nick.

theres nothing wrong with that statement.  TIFF is available across many many platforms with no need in buying $99 or $300 software just so an end-user or 3rd party can perform a VIEW use case.

PDF did it and so too should XPS; XPS did not which is why it has failed sadly which is a pitty

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MickyD | http://mickyd.wordpress.com/ Help others by voting my post as 'Helpful' if you think it is so.

Answer 21

The funny thing is there is no default viewer for XPS coming with the installation of windows even though the format is microsoft's own format... And you guys are talking about the standardization of this format but I guess you can't realise that in order to be able to view this file format "even in windows", you need .NET Framework and guess what... this will cost you 70-80mb to download while all you want is to view a 100-200kb size of document...

Anyway, as it's mentioned on a previous comment, just try kde4's default document viewer called "okular"...
It's that simple... and no need to panic

it is a part of .net 3, a component of more recent MS OSs such as Vista+.

what is the system requirements and pre-requisites of the kde tool?

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MickyD | http://mickyd.wordpress.com/ Help others by voting my post as 'Helpful' if you think it is so.