XPS → PDF rescues a file that someone printed to Microsoft XPS Document Writer: the pages are redrawn as PDF with the fonts the XPS already carries, so nothing is retyped or reflowed.
From real runs
| Element | Result | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Page size and page count | Kept | A three-page Document Writer print-out stayed three A4 pages at 594.75 × 841.5 pt and a PowerPoint deck saved as XPS stayed three 720 × 540 pt slides. XPS counts in 1/96 inch, which is why its A4 is half a point narrower than the usual 595.28. |
| Fonts | Kept | An XPS package holds its own copies of the fonts it uses. Calibri, Cambria, Segoe UI, Consolas and MS Gothic all came out embedded in the PDFs, so no typeface is swapped and no line wraps differently. |
| Text | Kept | All 8,224 characters of the Go game record, Japanese player names included, could be searched and copied from the PDF, the same count the XPS reported. |
| Lines, shading and charts | Kept | Table rules, grey row bands and the Ghostscript colour-wheel test page stay vector drawings, so they remain sharp when you zoom or print. |
| Photos and icons | Kept | The JPEG photo inside a Word-made XPS was copied into the PDF unchanged, 3,200 bytes in and 3,200 out; a PNG icon kept its transparency as a separate mask. |
| Web links | Kept | The link in the Tika test document still opens its web address in the PDF. A plain XPS-to-PDF rebuild drops links, so our image engine copies them across page by page. |
| Title and author | Kept | When the package has a core-properties part, as Office's Save as XPS writes, its title and author become the PDF's document properties. Document Writer print-outs usually have none to copy. |
| Arabic and other right-to-left text | Changed | Arabic lines look right on the page, but copying them yields Arabic presentation-form characters (U+FExx), which some search boxes and translation tools do not match against normal Arabic. |
| Print settings and thumbnail | Lost | The PrintTicket files Windows adds (tray, duplex, copies) and the package thumbnail are ignored; the PDF holds the pages only. |
A three-page Document Writer print-out stayed three A4 pages at 594.75 × 841.5 pt and a PowerPoint deck saved as XPS stayed three 720 × 540 pt slides. XPS counts in 1/96 inch, which is why its A4 is half a point narrower than the usual 595.28.
An XPS package holds its own copies of the fonts it uses. Calibri, Cambria, Segoe UI, Consolas and MS Gothic all came out embedded in the PDFs, so no typeface is swapped and no line wraps differently.
All 8,224 characters of the Go game record, Japanese player names included, could be searched and copied from the PDF, the same count the XPS reported.
Table rules, grey row bands and the Ghostscript colour-wheel test page stay vector drawings, so they remain sharp when you zoom or print.
The JPEG photo inside a Word-made XPS was copied into the PDF unchanged, 3,200 bytes in and 3,200 out; a PNG icon kept its transparency as a separate mask.
The link in the Tika test document still opens its web address in the PDF. A plain XPS-to-PDF rebuild drops links, so our image engine copies them across page by page.
When the package has a core-properties part, as Office's Save as XPS writes, its title and author become the PDF's document properties. Document Writer print-outs usually have none to copy.
Arabic lines look right on the page, but copying them yields Arabic presentation-form characters (U+FExx), which some search boxes and translation tools do not match against normal Arabic.
The PrintTicket files Windows adds (tray, duplex, copies) and the package thumbnail are ignored; the PDF holds the pages only.
We converted our XPS / OpenXPS sample (74 KB) with Image engine on 2026-10-20. It took 21 ms and produced a 67 KB PDF file, about the same size as the input. The engine raised no warnings.
Input · sample.xps · 74 KB
ZIP with 18 parts
Output · sample.pdf · 67 KB
PDF 1.7, 3 pages, selectable text (Calibri), 0 image objects
MuPDF (mutool)
mutool convert -O compress -o out.pdf document.oxpsReads both .xps and .oxps. With mutool 1.21 the web link in our test file did not survive, and without -O compress the PDF was three times larger than the XPS.
Windows
Open the file in XPS Viewer → Print → Microsoft Print to PDFXPS Viewer is an optional Windows feature that recent installs leave out; printing also flattens links.
The HTTP API and the MCP server run the exact engine this page uses (Image engine); the response carries the same warnings the web converter shows. Check support first with GET /api/v1/pairs?from=xps&to=pdf.
curl -X POST https://filetypeconverters.com/api/v1/convert \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $FTC_API_KEY" \
-F "file=@input.xps" -F "from=xps" -F "to=pdf" \
-F 'options={"width":0}' \
--output output.pdf| Key | Applies to | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| width | Writing PDF | number | 0 |
| height | Writing PDF | number | 0 |
| fit | Writing PDF | contain · cover · fill | contain |
| quality | Writing PDF | number | 90 |
| background | Writing PDF | string | #ffffff |
| stripMetadata | Writing PDF | boolean | true |
OXPS is OpenXPS, the ECMA-388 standard version that Windows 8 and later save by default; .xps is the original Microsoft format from Vista and Windows 7. They use different XML namespaces but describe pages the same way, and both convert here with the same result.
macOS, iOS and Android have no XPS viewer, and Windows stopped installing one by default around 2018. PDF opens on all of them, which is why converting is usually the quickest way to read an XPS someone sent you.
Every real XPS package contains a FixedDocumentSequence part that points to its pages. A .docx, .pptx or .epub renamed to .xps has none, so we stop before converting and say what the file actually is; open it in the matching program instead.
It should not. The XPS already contains its fonts and exact glyph positions, so the PDF reuses them; in our tests every page kept its size, line breaks and table layout.