XyWrite

XyWrite is a word processor for DOS and Windows that has enjoyed a certain level of popularity since the mid 1980s. It has several great virtues:

• Its file format consists of plain text (IBM437, or so-called "extended ASCII") with markup (within guillemets « »), making it a favourite among typesetters who need to convert various formats to LaTeX.

• Written in assembler, and maintained throughout by a single programmer (David Erickson), it runs extremely fast.

• It has a flexible (if somewhat rebarbative) macro programming language (XPL) which, coaxed by user-programmers, has enabled XyWrite to keep pace with many Windows advances (for example, XyWrite can print to USB devices).

• It allows free remapping of the keyboard. Thanks to this, the user can define hundreds of combinations with Ctrl-LeftShift, Ctrl-Alt, Alt-RightShift, etc., and execute complex commands with individual keystrokes.

• Even newer versions do not require use of a mouse; instead, commands can be typed in directly and the hands may remain on the keyboard at all times.

Up to and including version 3.5, what you saw on screen did not look at all like what you got on paper, which was no impediment for the writer (especially in the days of mediocre or slow display of graphics) but may have deterred potential corporate buyers.

Version 3.5 of XyWrite was compact, fast, and polished to near-perfection — but as a word processor, and with no pretensions of letting the user previsualize elegant design. However, the appeal of such spartan software was clearly waning. After an agreement with IBM to create a new GUI version for DOS was canceled by Big Blue, the product was finally released as Signature. Buggy and slow, it repelled most existing users of XyWrite and won no converts. A substantively debugged version came out as XyWrite IV after a lengthy delay. XyWrite for Windows (often called "XyWin") was eventually produced, but failed to capture significant market share. A descendant of XyWrite called Nota Bene is still being actively developed, however, and enjoys some popularity among academics, including many biblical scholars who use Greek and Hebrew characters in their work.

Thanks in large part to the work of users of XyWrite, the program is still very usable with Windows (or MS-DOS, and thus Linux). Even on Pentium and similar hardware, it remains noticeably faster than MS Word or OpenOffice. However, XyWrite is unaware of Windows ANSI or Unicode character sets, while Nota Bene does not support languages (such as Chinese) that require double-byte characters.

See also

• List of word processors
• Comparison of word processors

External links

• Nota Bene (corporate site)
• xyWrite resources by Diane Fischer (concentrating on XyWrite III)
• XyWrite history within Diane Fischer's site
• XyWWWeb by Carl Distefano and Robert Holmgren (concentrating on XyWrite IV)