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> Currently, there is no viable alternative if you want the pros but not the cons

I remember OpenXPS being much easier to work with. That might be due to cultural rather than structural differences, mind - fewer applications generate OpenXPS, so there's fewer applications to generate them in their own special snowflake ways.

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This is the first time I heard of it. When I search for it I only find the Wikipedia article and 99 links to how to convert it to pdf.

The problem with this is that from an average person perspective it doesn't have the pros. There is no built-in or first-party app that can open this format on Mac and Linux. More than 99% of the users only want to read or print it. It's hard to convince them to use an alternative format when it's way more difficult to do the only thing they want to do.

It's a Windows-thing, since W7, IIRC. It's ok now, but it has been buggy for years, and yes, who eats xps-files, so better it is, but it's not more useful.

It was too late and probably too attached to Microsoft to succeed. It is still used as the spool file format for modern printer drivers on Windows.

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