[cups] Printing to native XPS printers using CUPS

[Gernot Hassenpflug]

Hello,

Issue:
---------
Is there a way to print XPS documents via CUPS?
Extension(s)  :    .oxps, .xps
MIME Type(s):    application/oxps, application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument

Background:
-------------------
On the Ubuntu User forums a user asks for help with a printer that
turns out to be a re-branded Konica Minolta Bizhub 165 or 185:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2297639
The specifications for these devices note that they are "GDI, XPS" capable.
Normally, GDI would make these paperweights for linux users (and
MacOSX if no native driver is provided by the manufacturer).
However, if the printer is natively capable of XPS interpretation,
like PDF/PS/PCL, this I understand makes it at least possible in
theory to print from linux/MacOSX.

Researching the XPS specification entry on Wikipedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_XML_Paper_Specification
it seem Konica Minolta, Canon, Minolta, Toshiba and Xerox produced
native XPS printers.

I searched over several days and it seems that:

1. Since the C550 and C451 in mid-2007, (almost?) all Konica Minolta
Bizhub and Magicolor have native XPS capability.
http://www.i-grafix.com/australia/konica-minolta-to-support-vista-xps-wsd-protocols/

2. Canon does not, as far as I can tell, not sure if they have some
printers with such support (XPS drivers under Windows require the
normal driver installed as well, so presumably the XPS driver is only
accepting the output of the Windows XPS printing path and then passing
its output along to the normal driver).

3. Several of the Xerox phasers have XPS emulation (not sure of
beginning of support and its coverage).

4. I did not check for Toshiba products, or Minolta (separate from
Konica Minolta) products.

Review:
------------
In August 2012 there was discussion on the CUPS User ML regarding
printing to native XPS printers (ghostscript's PDL/XPS engine), or
converting XPS documents to PS or PDF (xps2ps filter) for printers
supporting those formats natively.

I could not find any other information regarding printing XPS
documents directly from linux systems despite searching for quite a
few days.

Idea:
--------
Possibly one could use GhostXPS (gxps), the Ghostscript software for
XPS interpretation/rendering (maybe part of GhostPDL?) at the end of a
filter chain where a PDF (or PS) document is produced. Something like
(I see that Ghostscript 9.18 seems to have integrated the PCL and XPS
interpreters, I cannot find the separate GhostPDL for my Debian
package so I haven't tried this myself):
gxps -sDEVICE=xpswrite -sOutputFile=printfile.xps (or "-o
filename.xps"?) -dNOPAUSE inputfile.pdf

The XPS file could then be sent directly to the printer.

Conceptually are there several complications that need to be taken
into account that make this infeasible in practice?

Regards,
Gernot Hassenpflug