XyWrite / Signature to MS Word Conversion

["Cliff Featherstone" cliff@xxxxxxxx]

'ello

I am trying to convert five hundred or so XyWrite (three-point-something as
well as XyWin) and Signature (the "original" version -- the manuals talk
about IBM) documents into MS Word 7 (the Win 95 version) format. I would,
ideally, like to retain as much of the original layout and formatting
information as possible.

I have not been enormously successful in this endeavour. The only thing
which "works as advertised" is the save-as-text-then-import option. This
is the least practical from my perspective. I have installed an animal
called Quick View Plus which seems to do it a little better.

A few months ago I ran a conversion with Signature, using the W4W filters
supplied with the product. Twelve hours later the whole network ground to
a halt and I was left with a full network drive containing a half-gigabyte
of garbage in temporary files.

Does anyone have any useful practical advice on this? Please bear in mind
that, global village notwithstanding, I am sitting at the southern tip of
the dark continent (Africa) which often makes it difficult, time-consuming
and impractical to acquire obscure software if it is not available on the
web.

Finally, an apology to the loyal, ardent and committed XyWriters for having
the audacity to make this request in this forum. In my defence I can only
offer this virual bumper sticker: "XyWrite. Great Product. If only it
worked."


Cliff Featherstone
   Web and Data Master at World Equity Network
   the name behind WEN and DataShare
   Tel: +27-11-706-7114  Fax: +27-11-706-5833
   www: http://www.hot.com/wen/
   e-mail: wen@xxxxxxxx
   Mail: Box 98195 Sloane Park 2152 South Africa
  Cliff Direct: Tel +27-11-788-4562  Fax: +27-11-788-0828
   Mobile (GSM Cellular) +27-82-893-6731
   e-mail: cliff@xxxxxxxx
   Mail: Box 98553 Bryanston 2152 South Africa