Raw file printing in C++

Question

Hi Team,
I am planning create a print function in my VC++ application. I got sample program of GDI printing code from MSDN and followed the below steps (Working fine).
To begin a print job, call StartDocPrinter.
To begin each page, call StartPagePrinter.
To write data to a page, call WritePrinter.
To end each page, call EndPagePrinter.
Repeat 2, 3, and 4 for as many pages as necessary.
To end the print job, call EndDocPrinter.
But I read some where that XPS printing is better than GDI. I got a link from MSDN shown below
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff728890(v=vs.85).aspx
From this link I couldn't download the sample application which is placed bottom of the page.
Clarification :
1. Which printing technology is good ?(GDI or XPS)
2. If XPS  is good, how can I get the sample code ?(As the download link not working :( )
Regards
Ramesh.

Answer 1

Back in 2005, when I was writing my distributed printing system, I was asking myself the same question. And my answer was, that I'm going to ignore XPS. It's way more complicated and it doensn't provide any benefits. Plus, GDI is such a small interface (it's
old, that's why it's efficient :-) ), that you could write some kind of "adapter" if it's becoming necessairy to change the technology. But I guess this would never happen... (10 years ago they said they will change, until now nothing changed).
... have you ever seen the XPS documentation? ... that's simply insane how large it is. But that's just my opinion...
Rudolf