The Open XML Paper Specification or OXPS file extension is very similar to Adobe’s PDF file format. The basic purpose of this file format is to define and store the compressed content and structure of a document that can contain both images and text. These files are a document format that preserves document fidelity and structure, ensuring that your documents look exactly the same on any device.
Like the XPS document format used in earlier versions of Microsoft Windows, such as Windows 7, OXPS documents are compressed and can only be opened by a reader created specifically for this file format. These files contain XML markup that tells readers or viewers of the relevant files what the document looks like and what content it contains. Incorporate fonts, images, graphics, and digital signatures into the document itself. This makes the OXPS file extension a great alternative to the Adobe PDF file format for official documentation that needs to be kept in a secure format that displays the same on any device or operating system.
Until Windows 7, Microsoft used the XML paper specification that they developed and introduced in 2006. In 2009, the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) or simply Ecma as it is known today, standardized and adopted the format as OpenXPS with some modifications. Then, with the release of Windows 8, Microsoft replaced its old document format with the new standard OpenXPS format.
The OXPS file extension is not as common as the older paper specification, but one can easily convert OpenXPS files to the older format for sharing with greater compatibility. The compressed images and graphics stored in these files can be viewed by opening them with any ZIP viewer, or alternatively, the entire document can be viewed in the Windows XPS viewer. Since you can save these files from within Windows through Wordpad, this extension is ideal for students and people who don’t have access to Microsoft’s productivity suite or Adobe’s PDF creation utilities.
A key difference between the Microsoft and Adobe formats is the fact that OpenXPS supports high-definition photos and multi-layered TIFF images, while the Portable Document Format does not. This makes the older format much better for sharper, higher resolution printing. OpenXPS is also better at full file compression. These qualities actually make the Microsoft format better, but since it’s not as commonly used as the Adobe format, it pretty much equates the two.
