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Adobe Fights Microsoft On .pdf Issue, MS Resorts To XPS

Microsoft and Adobe dispute Portable Document Format (.pdf) standard, resulting to Microsoft betting on XPS.

Microsoft wanted to include Adobe PDF open standards in the next Microsoft Office, but that led to legal battle between the two software producers. Adobe is currently well positioned within the market, but Microsoft's .XPS format could turn out as a valuable competitor.

Adobe Acrobat lets users create PDF files, while the free Acrobat Reader allows for cost-free PDF visualization worldwide.

Microsoft, after failing negotiations with Adobe, had to back down from the promised introduction of the pdf-save option in the Microsoft Office 2007.

Both Microsoft and Adobe fear each other, as both pose risk to the other's business. Microsoft recently announced the Metro PDF-software, as well as its intentions on cutting into Adobe Photoshop's market by delivering its own high-end image editor.

Microsoft's .xps format will probably rival Adobe's .pdf, after canceling plans for integrating the pdf format and its utilization in the Office suit.

A document in XPS Document format (XPS Document) is a paginated representation of electronic paper described in an XML-based format. The XPS Document format is an open, cross-platform document format that allows customers to effortlessly create, share, print, and archive paginated documents.

Windows Vista will provide plenty of support for XPS: XPS Viewer, print driver (generate XPS Documents from any application), a set of APIs (integrate .XPS documents and packages with traditional software and the www, generate XPS Documents from Windows Presentation Foundation applications), plus a new print pipeline with an integrated spool format, a new print driver model and a printer page description language based on XPS Document format.

The XPS Document format provides a safe and secure way to store and share an electronic document. The layout of the content is fixed and does not contain any arbitrary code, macros, or scripts.

Adobe chief executive Bruce Chizen:

"I'll never trivialize Microsoft. They are a $40 billion company with virtually unlimited resources and they are a monopoly."

Microsoft program manager Brian Jones:

"About 8 months ago we announced to our MVPs that we would provide PDF publish support natively in the 2007 Office system ... Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we're going to be able to do the right thing for the customer now ... given that PDF is usually viewed as an open standard and there are other office suites out there that already support PDF output. I don't see us providing functionality that's any different from what others are doing. It looks like Adobe wanted us to charge our customers extra for the Save as PDF capability, which we just aren't willing to do (especially given that other companies already offer it for free). In order to work around this, it looks like we're going to offer it as a free download instead."

Stacy Drake, Microsoft spokesperson:

"(...) we've offered to ship Adobe's Flash and Shockwave software with every copy of Windows Vista. Adobe has long claimed that PDF is an open standard, and dozens of companies, including a number of our competitors, have implemented that standard (...) but the changes we are planning to make are not enough for Adobe.

We are planning to remove 'Save as PDF' from Office and make it available only as a separate download."