Conversion Dilemmas - Report

["Michael P. Kube-McDowell" K-Mac@xxxxxxxx]

I appreciate all the suggestions (and especially the offers of direct
intervention!) regarding my problems getting XyWrite files converted
for my British publisher.

I have Word 97, WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows, Ami Pro 3.1, and
WordPro 96 on my system, along with XyWin. It was a marvel to
see how many attempted conversions among them failed utterly.

I tried WP5.1/5.0WPWin (that's the W4W07 filter), WP4.1/4.2
(W4W06), Word 4.0/5.0/5.5 (W4W05), Word for Windows 1..0/2.0
(W4W44), and AmiPro 1.2/2.0 (W4W33). I tried three flavors of
RTF. Not one of them produced an acceptable result on a file that's
hardly more than double-spaced 65-character lines with a running
header. It didn't matter whether I opened them in the target
program, in Quick View Plus or in Magellan. It didn't matter
whether I told the target program what the format was or let it
guess.

I ended up with files that had thousands of pages with one
character per page. I ended up with files that had hundred of pages
with ten characters per page. I ended up with files that had
extraneous spaces every eleventh character. I ended up with files
that had extraneous spaces every _other_ character. I ended up
with files that had the header down the left hand margin, one
character per line, page after page after page.

Renaming RTF files to DOC just gave me raw RTF text--with extra
spaces.

My agent is quite seriously telling me "You have to give up
XyWrite," and I think this time he might be right.

I did not have a chance to try the Word macro that was kindly sent
to me--I hold it in reserve for the next disaster.

The only translation path that worked was for me to save to IBM
RFT:DCA. Those files looked very good in Quick View Plus, save
for page numbering and some slightly off centering of
headers/titles. I e-mailed one to my agent, and he was able to run
it through a program he has called Conversions Plus to produce a
complete and properly formatted Word file (save for all the pages
being numbered zero).

Whew.

What this has made clear to me is that the limitations of XyWrite in
this area (aggravated by the death of Word For Word) cut deeper
the more time passes. It didn't matter much when the publishers
were still behind the curve, barely computerized in their offices
much less production. Paper was king, and XyWrite handled that
just fine. But the publishers have caught up. And the rising line of
their increased expectations has crossed the descending line of
XyWrite's ever-diminishing capacity to satisfy them.

I really do not see an elegant solution--only the one I've been
resisting for some time, namely, change primary word processors.
If there were more and better export options, I could see maybe
using XyWrite as a front end for something else, as a sort of super
macro dialog box I use to capture the keystrokes. But the part in
the middle is just too iffy. The aggravation level is very high, and it's
harder and harder to explain (even to myself) just why I still use
XyWrite.

Could be worse, though. I know a fellow who's still using Sorcim's
EasyWriter II--the word processor I abandoned for XyWrite III+
many years ago. 

Best,

   K-Mac



  ---] Michael Paul McDowell, writing as Michael P. Kube-McDowell
  ---] Author of THE QUIET POOLS and STAR WARS: THE BLACK FLEET CRISIS
  ---] Web Site: http://www.sff.net/people/K-Mac/default.htm
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