Conversion to/from MS Word

[Eric Van Tassel 101233.342@xxxxxxxx]

I need some advice -- those who don't care about the background can skip to
the third paragraph below.

Like many of us in this group, I find that my writing and editing needs are
substantially met by a mix of XyDOS 4 (preferable for speed, memory
capacity, and clarity of display in draft mode) and XyWin (preferable for
Windows printing and not a lot else), and I become dissatisfied only when I
have to deal with the outside world.

I've been collaborating for several years with a nearly computer-illiterate
colleague who uses MS Word (for Mac, I think); since his role has been to
create and mine mainly to edit, we've done OK communicating mainly by fax
(WinFax 4.0 character recognition is adequate to give me the textual pith
of his writing, and everything to do with formatting etc. has been between
me and the publisher).

Using XyDOS (4.017) and XyWin (4.12) and MS Word 6.0a, I've found that if I
use "Save As" to convert a file from XyWin to MS Word, I lose a great many
formatting features (I won't itemize what features don't get carried over
unless our gurus ask for details). Now, in XyWin I've only just begun to
explore using "Styles", and it occurs to me that MS Word has something very
similar. Do XyWin Styles survive the conversion process better than
individual aspects of formatting? Should I create a library of Styles in
XyWin and a library of identically named and identically formatted Styles
in MS Word, and use only those Styles to create a XyWin file for export to
MS Word? (Creating two compatible sets of styles is a big enough job --
especially at the MS Word end, since Mr Gates and his gnomes have been so
:-( "helpful" -- that I shrink from undertaking it unless I think it's
likely to work.)

Any advice will be welcomed.

Cheers
Eric Van Tassel