Google has decided to use XPS Print API in place of GDI Print API in Chromium on Windows for Printing as the company believes the former “provides improved performance and would reduce conversations performed within Chromium during printing”. Today, the Chromium team added a new flag to Canary to enable XPS Printing support in the Chrome browser.
Though Microsoft has improved the Printing API on Windows with XPS in Windows 7 and OpenXPS in Windows 8, it seems as if Chromium still uses EMF-GDI for Printing, which is an old Pre-Windows XP API. Chromium now making the switch to OpenXPS printing on Windows.
Microsoft recommends the developers to consider using XPI document API and XPI Print API for their applications on Windows Vista and later versions of Windows to use higher-performance graphics interfaces that are supported by XPSDrv print drivers.
The GDI Print API provides applications with a device-independent printing interface. Use this interface if the application uses GDI to render text and graphics.
If you write applications for Windows Vista or later versions of Windows, consider using the XPS Document API and the XPS Print API to use the higher-performance graphics interfaces that are supported by XPSDrv print drivers.
Chrome is now changing the Windows printing path to XPS-based API. Redmond software giant notes in a document that “the XPS print path is built open the XPS printer driver model (XPSDrv), which provides several benefits for developers such as “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) printing, improved color support, and significantly improved print performance”.
For Chrome to use XPS Printing API on Windows now
1. Ensure you’re using the latest Chrome Canary 80.0.3975.0 or later
2. Visit chrome://flags/#use-xps-for-printing , select “Enabled” and relaunch the browser.
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