too many words by laura lemay

metro

OK, this is easily the dumbest idea I’ve heard all week. (of course its only tuesday)

Microsoft officials told WinHEC attendees that Metro is a “new fixed document format built on top of XML” that Microsoft will make available royalty-free. Microsoft is releasing publicly the specification for Metro on Monday, officials said.

According to information from Microsoft partner Global Graphics, Metro “is an open format that allows users to share, print and archive paginated-layout documents and used in document workflows.”

“As a Page Description Language (PDL), ‘Metro’ will offer significantly improved screen-to-print fidelity to meet knowledge worker demand for documents rich in graphics content as well as the high fidelity needs of the digital imaging marketplace,” according to a Global Graphics press release.

Mishra said that printers with Metro “interpreters” and/or those which are Metro-enabled will be able to best print Metro-based documents and photos.

You know, I was just the other day thinking that as a knowledge worker, PostScript wasn’t fulfilling all my document workflow needs. And that what I really needed was a Microsoft version of PostScript. Based on XML. Yeah. That’s what I need. That’ll really solve all the lingering icky problems that I’ve always had with PostScript, such as….um….

Hey, I wonder if it’ll be reverse-polish XML.