Re: XyWrite / Signature to MS Word Conversion

[nsivin@xxxxxxxx (Nathan Sivin)]

Cliff F:

I have prepared some files using XYD4 and XW4 that I then converted to
WPW6.1 so that I could add Chinese characters. I found that I could
maintain most of the markup by converting within XY to the early
version of WPW that it offers a filter for, and then opening the
latter in WPW. Converting from XY within WPW would not, for instance,
maintain italics.

Whether this will work within XY3, I cannot say. If not, there is a
simple way around it. First, write a macro, a series of replace
instructions, to convert the XY markup in your files to HTML (or
something arbitrary resembling it). The macro would put the file into
expanded mode, and make the changes one at a time. It is not hard to
write a little loop that will change ≪MDIT≫ to , find the next
≪MDNM≫ and change it to , and go on to the next ≪MDIT≫ until
there aren't any more. In v. 4, you don't even need loops if you use
≪MD+IT≫ and ≪MD-IT≫ to mark italic. When your program has
produced a file that has no deltas left in it, you open it in WP, for
which you have written a macro that converts HTML. If you are using
Word, or have a HTML editor for WP, I presume that it will do that
without macros. The few minutes it takes to put together the
conversion macros is well worth while if you have large numbers of
files to convert, or do such conversions regularly.

--
Nathan Sivin
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-3325
(nsivin@xxxxxxxx)