There has been a lot of "XPS vs PDF" noise lately on the blogs. I have recieved a lot of email asking what I think, having held the title "PDF Evangelist" while with AGFA and Enfocus. So - my thoughts - If XPS main thrust was to be a replacement of PDF as an exchangeable digital document file format, one could argue that XPS is irrelevant and unnecessary, as well as point out that Microsoft is too FAR behind PDF deployment wise. However, Microsoft is using this for a spool file and a printer page description language - So Vista will use XPS to print for the three core Microsoft applications (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) thereby eliminating the need for "Adobe anything" when printing to XPS RIPs inside future desktop printer ors network enabled printer. Me, I had always thought this was much less about replacing PDF and more about Microsoft removing Adobe from the document creation and printing equation. As for submitting XPS to a standards body, sorry, but having participated with CGATS, we were more interested in telling a vendor what we needed, and not the least interested in being blind sided by some document that was glad handed to us as the answer to some question we never proposed. Handing XPS to a standards body is like handing Sonny Barger a thong - He won't be interested in it – and it probably won't fit anyway.