My second task with my first company was to automate the ‘paste up’ of our classified ads in the magazine. So, the task at hand was to take XyWrite word processing format and convert it to something the typesetter could understand. Of course things like kerning made that very difficult, but all I needed to do was get close. And thanks to the genius developers of XyWrite all of its inner workings were exposed, easily manipulated, with a highly programmable interface (a snub to that other software company with a history of horrible products). All I had to do was develop an organizing algorithm and insert a few ‘spacer’ advertisements and that job was in the rear view mirror.