XPS files can be seen as Microsoft’s alternative to Adobe’s PDF, except that XPS uses XML where PDF uses PostScript. Dolphin Futures XPS Viewer allows you to view XPS files in the same way that Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) lets you read a PDF file. Moreover, this viewer comes also with page flip capabilities, enabling you to read your XPS files in a more convenient way.
XPS Viewer is a free standalone tool, similar to what Adobe’s Reader represents for PDF files. If you compare both tools, though, you will miss some of the interesting reading and navigation features present in the Adobe’s product. However, if all you need is a clean, independent, and functional utility to read your XPS files, this is a serious alternative to consider. You can read your XPS documents using two different views – the Scroll View, and the Flip Book View. The former fits the width of the page to the viewer, forcing you to scroll up and down to read the document. The latter is a more stylish way of reading, but I would not recommend it for small screens. This Flip Book View shows you two pages at a time, allowing you to move to the previous or to the next page by dragging the corner of the page in question with your mouse. To navigate in a non-sequential fashion through the document, you can either go to a specific page (by keying in the page number) or search for a certain word or phrase within the text.
The trial you are allowed to download from Dolphin Futures includes some extra functionality for you to try, such as the possibility of converting your XLS files into full PDF documents or into some of the most popular image file formats (such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, GIF, and WMP). This conversion capability, though, requires you to buy a license to work properly. The fee is not that high, and the conversion process produces excellent results, though it is important to know that the resulting PDF file will be an image-based, non-searchable document.
