Frequently Asked Questions
What is XPS?
The XML Paper Specification (XPS) provides users and developers with a robust, open and trustworthy format for electronic paper. The XML Paper Specification describes electronic paper in a way that can be read by hardware, read by software, and read by people. XPS documents print better, can be shared easier, are more secure and can be archived with confidence.
See also XML Paper Specification Overview.
How does Document Toolkit work?
Document Toolkit implements a XPS document processor capable of reading and converting XPS XAML to valid Silverlight XAML. Text rendering is based on Glyphs elements. In Silverlight the Glyphs fonts must be embedded in assemblies in order to render properly. The Document Toolkit includes an advanced AssemblyBuilder that embeds fonts as resources in an assembly on-the-fly. Document Toolkit is a 100% client-only XPS viewer for Silverlight, it has not server-side dependencies.
Based on industry-standard design patterns Document Toolkit provides an extensible architecture that allows XPS documents to be loaded from virtually any source.
Why pay for Document Toolkit while there are open source alternatives?
A number of XPS document viewer solutions are available on the internet. Most of them are derived works from the excellent proof-of-concept XPS reader created by David Anson. Initial research on XPS readers for Silverlight by First Floor Software was also based on this proof-of-concept.
The biggest obstacle in implementing an XPS reader for Silverlight is the handling of fonts. Glyphs elements in Silverlight 2 (and 3) require that a font is available as resource in an assembly. The free XPS readers available today either solve this problem by manually placing font resources in an assembly (as is done for instance with the XPS viewer solution by Simon Guest) or by creating font assemblies on the fly using MSBuild on the server. Both solutions lack a 100% client-only solution that works automatically. And that is exactly what Document Toolkit provides, a 100% client-only solution for viewing any XPS document. Apart from a solution for fonts, Document Toolkit offers a whole lot more. Among others:
- Asynchronous IO for all load operations. All document data is loaded on background threads, the UI is never blocked.
- Support for partial loading of XPS documents. No need to load an entire document to be able to view a page. Document Toolkit loads and renders pages efficiently regardless the size of an XPS document.
- Automatic disposal of pages that are no longer needed.
- Document Toolkit implements a variety of transformation techniques in order to render pages correctly.
- Document Toolkit has been tested on hundreds of XPS documents. Document Toolkit is not 100% XPS compliant (due to a number of limitations in the current Silverlight framework), but it gets very close.
- Version 1 is just the beginning. There a lot of features that will be added to future versions of Document Toolkit.
How do I display Office documents?
Document Toolkit does not directly support the various Microsoft Office document types. Office documents, such as Word, Powerpoint, or Excel need to be converted to the XPS file format first. There are various (free) XPS converters on the market today. Microsoft provides the XPS Document Writer printer driver and an Office 2007 Save as XPS plugin to save documents as XPS.
Document Toolkit is fully compatible with Microsoft XPS Document Writer and the Office 2007 Save as XPS plugin.
How do I display PDF documents?
Convert your PDF document by printing it to the Microsoft XPS Document Writer. A PDF to XPS converter may be included in a future version of Document Toolkit. This converter allows you to directly display PDF documents in Silverlight.
Why are the hyperlinks in my document not working?
The XPS format supports both internal and external hyperlinks. Your XPS document probably has no hyperlink targets defined. Some XPS producers, such as Microsoft XPS Writer, remove all hyperlink target information. Workaround: use another XPS producer to create an XPS document that does contain hyperlink information. The Office 2007 Save as XPS plugin does preserve hyperlinks in XPS documents.
What are the system requirements to use Document Toolkit?
Document Toolkit requires Silverlight 2 or Silverlight 3. Customization of UI controls is supported in Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend.
My XPS document that does not render properly
Please contact First Floor Software and if possible include the XPS document in your message.
I have another question
Please contact First Floor Software.
