Microsoft has released a free download that will enable Office 2007 users to save documents in both Adobe Systems's PDF format and Microsoft's own rival format, XPS.
The add-on works with the different planned versions of Office 2007, which is now in beta testing and expected to be made generally available by the end of the year.
According to the release notes of the download, people can save a document or send an e-mail attachment in PDF or XPS format.
Both formats are designed to keep layout consistent for viewing and printing.
The Save as PDF feature, announced last October, prompted Adobe to threaten to file an antitrust complaint against Microsoft in June.
In response, Microsoft changed its plans and decided to offer the feature as a separate download rather than included within Office 2007.
Microsoft executives have said that Save as PDF was one of the features most requested by its Office customers.
Play video
Kudos to Microsoft in making the pdf option available, but I think we will all have to keep a watchful eye on how this plug in actually works. Given their track record in making poor options for interoperability, it is possible that this plug in could be a broken implemention.
In any case, I will only know when people who use MS products send me documents as a PDF and I view it under Evince/Acroread/xpdf /gpdf.
Harish Pillay
Posted by Harish Pillay on Sunday, September 17 2006 07:57 PM