RE XYWIN CUSTOMI

[chet.gottfried@xxxxxxxx]

XY-> :    PC Quark xtags--Quark's native text format--
 -> :    is Windows ANSI.

XY-> Chet: In winQXP XTags coding,  evokes the Mac char set,
--an error
 -> condition in my book ;) --turns on the Windows ANSI set.

My apologies, annie, you're quite right. However, in generating
from Win Quark--unless I'm missing a configuration option--
is automatic. Of course, if you're building an xtag file
yourself, you can add whichever you choose, naturally.


XY-> :    If you have any doubts, take a PC Quark-generated
 -> :    xtag document and port it as Windows ANSI into WP
 -> :    for Win 6.1. Quotes, em dashes, etc., come in beautifully.

XY-> Can't. I have no access to WPWin nor do I expect to. If I install a Windows
 -> word processor other than xyWin it will be winWord--to my mind next best to
 -> xyW for publishing. Does that also apply to files exported by Mac QXP?

It doesn't make much difference which windows word processor you
choose. I've just done a few ANSI imports into MS Word4W,
Ami Pro, and even Windows Write. All accept ANSI and the xtags'
file is quite intelligible. I'm afraid that Xywrite is very alone
in its path. (Of course, the options differ: In MSWord, one
chooses "text"; in Ami, 8-bit ANSI (after the choice of
ASCII).

Aside from that, you just do what you say: Use the Mac set and
put
 at the outset. However, since Quark reads the Windows ANSI
set, and translations between Mac and Win Quarks work pretty
well, it seems like unnecessary work. (You'd have to translate
just about all the characters over 128.) And you have to be aware
of the characters that don't translate: Mac doesn't have the
simple fractions.

XY-> :    Your own printer file definitions, which you
 -> :    gave a while ago here, include the Windows ANSI
 -> :    assignments for typographic quotes, not the Mac.

XY-> I don't think so. As I recall, when you tried them they produced--as receiv
 -> by AO--about 50 ascii 30s surrounded by incoherent garbage. They must be us
 -> with a winQuark  call, but it just wasn't worth exploring further if th
 -> way you use XTags suits you. I want XTags coding that doesn't have to be
 -> recast for Mac QXP.

If your numbering sequence for typographic quotes is 146 to
149, you're in the Win ANSI sequence; someone else had the
200s, which is probably Mac (I have the Mac sequence somewhere
around, though).

The XyWrite equivalent (from an xtag file) is also 146 to 149 but
it uses the DOS ASCII set (accented characters here), which is
why the file looks unreadable. A program with sufficient CIs
could switch to the "proper" XyWrite equivalent; but one would
always be bouncing back and forth.

XY-> :    Whether the Windows ANSI set is fortunate or
 -> :    unfortunate, it is the basis for communicating
 -> :    with other Windows programs.

XY-> Leslie's xyWrite files go directly to Mac QXP--a common situation since Mac
 -> still dominate dtp.

XY-> :    I recently convinced a publishing department to switch
 -> :    . . .
 -> :    is a major factor, and XyWrite isn't 100% in accepting
 -> :    Windows ANSI.

XY-> To keep things in persective, I hope that implicit in what I wrote
 -> before--referring to usage by three subscribers (in a total sampling of few
 -> than 80 xyWrite users)--is that I would expect our preferences to be
 -> incidental to a decision like the choice of character set.
   --annie

I gave the example because there are plenty of other uses for
word processors other than DTP preparation, one of which is
editing. I would prefer to take any word processor format, do my
work in XyWrite, and then switch back to the other word
processor. No one need be wiser. However, as long as XyWrite has
problems with ANSI, that is a risky route.

As for the majority of DTP being Mac, that's the present, not
necessarily the future.

Whether people prefer Warp, NextStep, or whatever, if TTG is to
make money via XyWrite in Windows, it would help if it used the
same character set as other Windows programs. And all the major
players are giving ground: Corel abandoned its WFN font format
and has accepted the win.ini fonts section and Ventura, too, has
realigned its character set to match. In a situation where
"suites" and interconnectivity are popular, I don't see where TTG
has much choice if it wants to have something other than a niche
product.

--Chet

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 ? SLMR 2.1a ? Art + write + dtp = chet.gottfried@xxxxxxxx