On 11/1/2010 3:52 PM, Ken Tzrok wrote:
Dear Xywrites,
This is my first (although probably pnot my last) post on this
list, therefore A few introductory words:
I'm presently working on a philosophical thesis in German which
is my
my mother tongue (sorry for my idiosyncratic English!). After
getting mad at Word
for too many reassons to be listed, I decided to switched to
Latex which produces nice
layouts but prevents from me from concentring on the text
itself.
I then remembered that back in the mid 90s my roomate had this
fantastic little but lightening-fast
Dos-program. When my notebook had been stolen, he let me type my
schoolwork with it and he then
- with a few keystrokes - produced just any desired layout
within seconds!
Years later, my roomate had moved to Canada by then and I was
just frustrated by Word again, remembered that
wonderful little proggie and therefore called him to ask him the
name of the program that I wanted to buy for myself.
He said that he believed it to be discontinued and that he
himself didn't use it anymore, either. He therefore sent me the
original
diskettes of Xy-Write4 which I installed on my old netbook that
fortunately still works . Unfortunately they did not
come with any reference manual. And I had to learn that I was
not patient or smart enough to figure out the necessary
functions myself.
As I am, somehow intuitively, convinced of the program's
qualities and possibilities, I really want to give it a second
try,
though. Therefore, I am happpy to have found this user community
that hopefully will bear with me and a few beginner's questions_
1. Xy uses the ASCII-Code. I write most of my texts in German,
though. "Umlaute" and "scharf S" seem to be
possible. By browisng through this list, I have also figured
there is a (although very laboursome!) way to redefine the
keyboard
(e.g. the exchanged position of the letters "y" and "x").
But apparently there is no way to produce standard German
quotation marks that differ from the American ones ("text")
in that the beginning pair is in low position. I'm aware that
there has been a German version of Xy-write called Euroscript
which
would be the solution . I have asked friends, browsed shops,
tried everything to get hold of it. I'm close to believing it
has vanished from
this planet for good.
2. Can Xywrite, like e.g. Latex in combination with Biblatex, be
set up to cooperate with Bibliography-formats? I'm exclusively
using
the MLA-format and have encountered the name of a program called
"Ibid" on this list. Is it part of the Xywrite-package? If not,
where could I get it from?
3. Although I'm primarily using postscript, I'm wondering if
Xy-write4 be made to work with modern printers that connect to
the USB-slot?
4. Is there any way for the beginner to get hold of handbooks,
other reference material or instructional books for dummies? I
am absolutely not interested in and incapable of programming,
but would like to be able use the most common functions and,
most of all, write, format and print out MLA-style papers in
German.
Thank you very kindly for your patience. All hints and any help
are very appreciated!
Ludwig
I too would be most interested in an answer to question 3 (using Xy4
to print via USB). I do have an adapter with a USB plug on one end
and a parallel plug on the other, which works sometimes, and
sometimes doesn't. But in any case you need a printer with a
parallel plug, and they seem to be rare these days.
Nicholas Clifford
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