Re: XyIII+ in WinXP

[Mark Garvey mark.garvey@xxxxxxxx]

Well, I'll take your word for that. But having been in book publishing
for nigh on twenty years, I have to say it's been nigh on fifteen of
those since anyone /I/ know has worked with Xywrite. I'll be the first
to admit that I don't know the full extent of its capabilities, though I
was once a dab hand with XPL and in 1995 wrote a boatload of lovely
programs to parse and massage text files from the typesetter as the
first step in creating the first searchable Writer's Market, which I
used to be the editor of.
In my world today--Thomson corporation, academic and retail
publishing--Word is the coin of the realm. None of our writers or
editors works in anything else. It's a pain, but it's the realistic
choice. We work with scads of authors and scads of layout artists, and
the path is Word to Quark (or Indesign, etc.) and on to the printer.
Were any authors or editors in that path to insist on turning in
something other than Word docs, using our Word templates and styles, we
simply wouldn't acccomodate them. We have to move too fast, and for
better or worse, Word is what everyone has, and it does the job.
If other publishers are making wide use of Xywrite, I'd be surpised to
hear it. I would be cheered--because Xywrite is wonderful--but surprised.
My interest in getting Xywrite going on my laptop is purely for my own
freelance writing, but I fully expect that when I turn work in, it will
be run through Word before I send it out the door.

I am glad to have it back, though.

MG

flash wrote:
> Mark,
>
> ≪Xy hold-outs stubbornly holding on...≫
>
> Not so. Have you been following the parallel mails from Poirier,
> Brownlow, and co.? Professional writers, editors, indexers--people who
> deliver camera-ready copy--appreciate Xy because it offers a level of
> control over text few other programs can name any more, much less
> deliver. It's not stubbornness; it's professionalism. MS-Word is for
> secretaries; entirely adequate for business correspondence, but not for
> publishing. "Desk-top publishing" degraded the industry; publishers and
> editors who used to know better forgot what camera-ready copy was and
> started accepting slapdash (MS-Word-generated) copy.