adcscafh@csunb.csun.edu (Jerald Josephs) (01/15/91)
We have a need to convert a file written with the XYRITE word processor to either ascii or, better yet, the WordPerfect file format. We have never heard of XYRITE, apparantly it is a rather old IBM product... Has anyone out here heard of this word processor? Where can I get a copy? It would make a master's student's thesis a bit more accessible...she want's to write a book... Thanks, Jerald Josephs Data+Imagination, Van Nuys, Calif. adcscafh@csunb.csun.edu
timur@seas.gwu.edu (The Time Traveler) (01/15/91)
In article <1991Jan14.213301.9993@csun.edu> adcscafh@csunb.csun.edu (Jerald Josephs) writes: > > We have a need to convert a file written with the XYRITE >word processor to either ascii or, better yet, the WordPerfect >file format. We have never heard of XYRITE, apparantly it is >a rather old IBM product... > > Has anyone out here heard of this word processor? > Where can I get a copy? > If you're talking about XyWrite, then you're talking about a product that is very much alive and well. XyWrite produces ASCII files to begin with, although there are embedded commands. The commands are surrounded by chevrons, so they are easy to remove with an search/replace function that supports variable-length wildcards. The only other problem is that there are no carriage returns in a paragraph. I have XyWrite. If you want, I can convert the text for you. -- ----------------------------------------------------------- The Time Traveler This space for rent. a.k.a. Timur Tabi Internet: timur@seas.gwu.edu Bitnet: HE891C@GWUVM
teexdwu@ioe.lon.ac.uk (DOMINIK WUJASTYK) (01/15/91)
In article <1991Jan14.213301.9993@csun.edu> adcscafh@csunb.csun.edu (Jerald Josephs) writes: > > We have a need to convert a file written with the XYRITE >word processor to either ascii or, better yet, the WordPerfect >file format. We have never heard of XYRITE, apparantly it is >a rather old IBM product... > > Has anyone out here heard of this word processor? > Where can I get a copy? I assume you mean XyWrite, by XyQuest Inc. This is very far from being an "old IBM product". It is widely recognized as being one of the fastest and most capable word processors available today. It is related to the ATEX typesetting system which is widely used for newspaper typesetting. Subsidiary rights to XyWrite were sold to a New York company some time ago, Dragonfly Software, who made some modifications to XyWrite and marketed it under the name Nota Bene. In this incarnation it is generally considered the most advanced word processor for academic use, and especially for those with multilingual needs. More recently, rumour has it that IBM will phase out the dinosaur DisplaWrite (ghastly program: I had to use it for a long time) and has bought rights to XyWrite, which it intends to promote as it's main WP package. XyWrite has the "cleanest" file format of any word processor I know. If you don't use any underlining, etc., then the format is just plain ASCII. Formatting codes are just character strings bracketted within guillemots (ASCII 174 and 175). So "begin underlining mode" is <<MDUL>>, and so on. All commercial file conversion programs have XyWrite on their menus, so you can convert from XyWrite to and from anything easily. Programs like Ventura read XyWrite format. There's no problem. There's even a public domain WordPerfect to XyWrite translator knocking around somewhere. XyWrite is available from XYQUEST Inc. 44 Manning Road Billerica, MA 01821 (508) 671-0888 > > It would make a master's student's thesis a bit more > accessible...she want's to write a book... If your student is doing a book, then STAY WITH XyWRITE! It is a far superior tool for writing a book than WordPerfect. It has drivers for all the printers you want, PostScript for typesetting, and there is even a Compugraphic Cora driver available from XyQuest. Dominik