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Re: Quick Question

I'd advise waiting for a more expert answer on your specific question, but
if you are rushed:

XyWrite files are 100% readable by Word without translation, because Xy
files are plain text (ASCII). The person receiving them can go, in Word, to
File/Open then select the Xy file's name and it will open and be readable.
If, on the way, he gets a dialogue box in Word asking him what kind of file
it is, he can select almost any alternative that says "text" or "MS-DOS"
something or other (I can't get the dialogue box to open right now in my
Word97).

Then he can save it as Word .doc file when he is through (or right away,
and re-open the resulting .doc file).

There may be a few problems--anything enclosed in the guillemets (≪....≫)
will come out with funny characters (maybe a registered trademark, for
example) in place of each guillemet. A simple job of change and replace
(either by you before sending it or him, though he risks losing italics and
bolding if he doesn't understand what Xy is saying and how to replace with
Word format). Footnotes can also be a little bit of a problem. They may not
be placed right.

BUT, your text will be there, entirely readable in Word, and it will be
almost self-evident what the formatting should be (unless you are using a
lot of complicated formatting in Xy). And there won't be a lot of garbage
before and after the text either. The text will be intelligible to anybody.

So, you can do some tricks of translation (or search and replace, or use
STRIP.PRN in Xy) but these are just prettifying, and unnecessary if you
need to get him stuff NOW.

I am a translator who has been using XyWrite for almost fifteen
years. Both commercial publishers and university presses are now refusing
to accept disks in XyWrite, which is widely believed to be extinct. An
editor at a New York house that insists on Microsoft Word congratulated me
on being the last known speaker of XyWrite ("Is your mother tongue
Cornish?" he asked)...

I gather however that it is still possible to work in XyWrite and convert
to Word format, either by saving files as Word 5.5 or as RTF. I tried the
first method (copying a test file to a disk) but on trying to open the
file again in Word was told that the application associated with the
selected template could not be started or the application could not use
the selected template.

No doubt I have made some very elementary mistake. Rather than go on
making elementary mistakes (something I am good at doing) I thought I
would be better off seeking expert advice--hence this query. Can anyone
walk me through the procedure?


With thanks in advance etc

Malcolm DeBevoise


Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx