rcbamhl@eutrc3.urc.tue.nl (Marc Heijligers) (03/11/90)
A while ago I posted a comparison between three Wordprocessors. These were FullWrite, Nisus and Word. I compared every Wordprocessor with a layout I use very often. I discussed the problems and the positive sides of the document creation process. I received a lot of mail on that posting. Everyone asked me to post a summary. Because of the great response I will not mention them, but I will merge their opinion in a new story below. Instead of making use of a standard layout, I will mention 'all' shortcomings of the wordprocessors. These results aren't only mine, but also from a lot of people at the University here in Eindhoven (the Netherlands). I also looked for some stuff in old MacUsers and MacWorlds. The versions of software used are: Word 4.0: Also used the book 'Working with Word, version 4' from Kinata and McComb (excellent book!). Nisus 2.0 (demo version): I got some complaint about writing about this one, because it is a demo version. The demo version contains a little manual and a reasonable help file. By the way, he user interface of Nisus is so good, you do not need a user manual! FullWrite Prof. 1.0: Got this one from Technology Works. Discovered some new features. My hardware: Mac Plus with 4 Mb, System 6.0.3 and some INITs OK, here are the results for each: Nisus: Editing is pretty fast in Nisus. Formatting is very fast too, however the lack of paragraph based style-sheets is a cons. If you could only search at those paragraph icons, and replace them with another. You can however change ruler settings relatively (with the command key pressed). Nisus is not WYSIWYG. I cannot see how headers and footers and the body text are placed on the page on a Mac Plus screen. It is hard to place headers and footers at a proper distance of the paper-edges in the page-preview, and it usually becomes a 'print-and-see-method'. Another point is cross-references. If you have a lot of them (which I usually do with technical reports, with more than 50 formulas, 20-30 pictures, 25-35 paragraphs and some important pieces of text), the search menu grows too big. Formatting was an easy job in Nisus. You do not need to enter about hundred of dialog boxes to get something done like in Word. However, the lack of true style sheets (which contain paragraph formatting, like space before, keep with the next paragraph, line spacing, justified, tab setting (for program listings) etc.) force you to be sure of your document-formatting before you start editing. I also discovered some bugs, but I have heard they are working on them. I summarized some points which could make Nisus better. - Style Sheets. Nisus just has no proper style sheets. It is wonderful that you can apply styles to characters, but it is not enough. You have to do too much by hand. Word is better in this field. I have heard that Paragon is working on style sheets, which ought to be better than Word's. It should ship in April (the 1th ??). Is this true?? If Nisus contains better style sheets, I know of a lot of people who would make the final step to Nisus then. Paragon? - Paragraph formatting. Things like space before a paragraph, or paragraph borders make word very strong in it's advanced formatting of docs. I know you can draw borders, but as a style it is a lot easier. - Menus. When you make a new style, a cross-ref or a macro, they appear in the menu. Can you imagine how big menus will grow when you make a thesis where every formula, figure, books etc. are cross-referenced? I think you better put those in another window, in which you can decide which item to put in menus. It is also nice if you could make different classes of cross-references, e.g. for paragraphs, books, formulas, figures etc. In this FullWrite is much better. - References. I also want to do references to books (bibliography), auto-figure numbering, which is dynamically. This means that when I place a figure somewhere else, it's number and it's cross-references change too. The supplied macro is not a serious substitute for auto-numbering. At the University we considered this macro to be a joke of Paragon. - Outlining. I use outlining very much. With outlining I can move pieces of text very fast, I can see the structure of my text fast, and I can find some items fast too. It is also easy to number outlines. So, auto-numbering chapters and paragraphs will become very easy!! - Chaining of files. In word you can separate files in more than one file, and preserve table of contents, page-numbering and indexing. This would especially be good for Nisus, because it is memory based. When you write a thesis, it could become too big to fit in the available memory. - Drawing in Nisus is very nice. No other windows, no screen- updating, and if you want to draw in another window, you just open a clipboard and start drawing. However, for serious drawing (flow charts, electronics) I miss a grid and a rotate very much. I also would like to be able to say on what distance text must be from a picture. I know this can be achieved with a white rectangle, but that is no proper solution. - Smart Quotes. Would be better if I see them when I am editing. I do like macros, but I only like them when I have to do a job which includes a couple of commands you otherwise had to do yourself. For example, I can use them to format my LISP-listings in two columns with the proper fonts, on a landscape view. But not to do some basic editing features like smart-quotes. - WYSIWYG. It is hard to place headers and footers properly. I cannot see the distance of the text to the borders of the page. On a Mac plus your Page Preview is not big enough to observe these items in detail. By the way, if you have ATM installed the Page Preview becomes very very slow. Only FullWrite makes a bit mapped image, and does not use the QuickDraw fonts while building the Page Preview. - Formulas. I use to make my formulas in Expressionist. Word also has a method of inserting formulas and therefore has the ability to search at characters in them, and to replace them. How about the work I have to do to change all a's to alphas in 50 formulas? (cannot be done in Word). It would also be nice if I could find text in the draw layer! That is also true for FullWrite. - Side by side. I know some people use the side-by-side function of Word very much. I do not, but it is a good function to include. - Again. Tjee, I didn't realize at first how much I used the again command of Word. I know you can do it with macros, but it is not worthwhile making a macro if you are doing something 2 or 3 times. Like changing a couple of letters into another font. I also like the ability of FullWrite to command-click on a piece of text to copy the format of it to some selected text. - Fasten the slow menu response. When you assign new command keys menus will become slow. - A go back command like Word. You can go back to the last 4 places where you inserted your cursor by one keystroke. That is a long list, isn't it? But I think when Paragon would include those items, it would be the best Wordprocessor over all other ones.. By the way, the user interface of Nisus is very good. It is so 'open', that a lot of things can be added without loosing control over the program. I also heard that Paragon really listens to its users, and really tries to make their program bugfree. If Nisus contains auto-numbering and style sheets, I certainly would buy it. I also heard about educational discounts. Nisus will cost $99 then. How can you prove you are a student? I am Dutch, so the official papers will be different from the American. FullWrite Professional -SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED. These folks are really good in making their code inefficient. I cannot think of another reason than making stupid decisions in the data-structures of the program. By the way, I don't think it is necessary that FullWrite constantly updates the index, contents etc. I would rather see some speed, and have a command to update all dynamic stuff. At least this could be an option in the program. - No capitals with citations. If I want to refer to a figure at the start of a sentence (like 'See figure -- to ....'), the word 'see' has no capital, and it cannot be achieved. And when I want to name my figure, Figure is impossible too. Why no text box in that dialog box in which I can put my own text? - Citations are only for English purpose. I do English and Dutch writing both. How about text boxes in the Insert Citation dialog box (again), in which you can put your own words. I sometimes need the word 'pagina' instead of 'page'. I handled this stuff with the resource editor, but I must keep two versions of the program on my HD now. - If I refer to pages which I number by chapter (e.g. 1.1 , 1.2 ..., 2.1 , 2.2 , etc.), the citation only refers to the pagenumber. There is no way to include the chapter number. This also regards the index. All items made on x.1 are referred to as page 1 (and cannot be found anymore, unless you search all the chapters). - When you option copy an illustrator picture, and paste it in FullWrite everything is all right, and it prints good. If you open the picture, FullWrite hangs. - Font size must be smaller than 128 points. Why not bigger (like in the advertisement with that huge Q). We want to USE Adobe's Type Manager, not only see it. - An overbar above a gray letter keeps black. Why not gray too? - Would be nice if you could give styles to outlines (like in Word) - In the outline view dialog box you cannot undo a change, you can only cancel. If you are doing multiple changes, you need an undo. And please, make such a dialog box larger. In outline you want to see as much as possible. - Make importing text a lot faster. This is a real shame!! Is this written in Prolog or something? HyperCard (interpreted!!) is faster on this. - Styles could be better implemented. More paragraph based things, like Word does. It would also be very nice if you could set styles for outlines. All my chapters are on level one, all my paragraph titles are on level 2 etc. However, I have to tell the program the same thing to apply styles corresponding with my titles and paragraphs. - Change all is not undo-able. (By the way, why no multiple undos like Nisus has. This is a very good feature). - Find/Replace. It is even slow on a Mac IIX, so the hardware requirements for FullWrite are nonsense. - Adjustable Grid instead of only four measures. - If you index an item in a posted note it does not contain a page-number in the index. This trick can be used nice for bibliographic entries you do not want to refer to in the text. However, if I double click on the index item, I get a dialog box with the option to go to the text where the index is placed. For references in posted notes this doesn't works. - If I place a sidebar above another sidebar which contains a picture, the new sidebar will not be visible. I assume this is a restriction, but it is not mentioned in the manual. The manual is too short. If I want to obtain certain results, the manual almost never helps. It only mentions features, not what you can or cannot do with them. For sidebars it would be nice if you could tell them which one would be in front (send to back/front or something like that) - No way to let a new chapter start on an odd page. - If I turn hyphenation off, FullWrite still hyphenates while finding and replacing!!! - You cannot apply styles to text in figures. If you want to change all your text styles from one font to another, you have to open them all separately. Little time consuming. - Icon bar closes every time after closing a note. Costs a lot of extra needles clicks. As you see, the main problem are citations, and other kind of references. I also don't like the idea that I cannot edit in the index, contents, bibliography etc. Why do I have to use the format the program forces me to? Why is it not like the Mac User interface is meant to be: control at any place at any time on anything? By the way, I could not reach pgold@sybase.com (unknown node), who mentioned there was ashton-tate bbs. It's now free through Compuserve local access phone numbers (at least in the states). If you can get a local access number for Compuserve, you can call it, and when it asks you for the host name, type ATBBS. It used to be not-toll-free, but with CIS, it is. You can get on their FullWrite forum and ask questions and get answers. A little expensive for European users. (In Europe we always have to see those tremendous options in America, and the poor support here. And buying software in Europe is very very expensive. FullWrite costs over $500 dollars here. Nisus about $450, and Word $550. Why is it so expensive if the support is so poor. People on the phone never know where you are talking about, and make you think as if YOU are the one who makes all the errors!) Word: - User Interface. Everyone knows about this one. Disgusting. - The company. MicroSoft is the sort of company who claims their software is bug-free, and know about hundreds of bugs. I always read about problems with Word on the net or in the MacWorld or MacUser. I always discover bugs. But I never hear some comment from MicroSoft. Why don't you listen to your users MicroSoft? We are paying you for that. I also cannot believe that Apple had to make some adaptions in their system software to keep it compatible with Word. I believe Apple doesn't understands what they are writing in the inside Macintosh themselves. And do not sell me that commercial story of: "There are so many Word users, and we do not want to disappoint them". - Word needs: cross-references (with page referencing), and not those midway solutions with mail-merge, auto figure numbering, GREP search, bibliographic references. - Speed. It is like a Ferrari in comparison with the turtle which is called FullWrite, but you can call Nisus a rocket then. Repaginating (automatically) is slow. The Preview Window is slow. Saving is slow. Menus are slow. Etc. Looks as if no word processor is good. But it is not that bad. Look at those DOS or OS2 machines, and you see how lucky we are with the stuff above. I think I can conclude with the following: Word: If you look for a business-class word-processor, which can manage most of the jobs, you must use this one. Not very good for academics. FullWrite: Make it faster and less bulky in it's memory requirements. Also give the user control over ALL the formatting, and include real style sheets. If you have a lot of patience, it offers you the most. For academic use or some DTP only. Nisus: Add style sheets and auto-figure and paragraph numbering (or some way to do calculations with macros. How about variables in macros. Would make it very strong. And how about if .. then .. else, or while .. do .. constructs.) They must not include all the mark sets and macro's in menus. And I think the commercial sector wants to have better mail-merge facilities. If Paragon adds some of this, it will probably become the most favorite Word Processor of the Macintosh community! I have no connection with any of the mentioned companies. What I describe here is my (an some other ones) opinion. The purpose of distributing this article, is to contribute better software. I hope you agree, and make some contributions too. I am convinced it will help! Marc Heijligers rcbamhl@urc.tue.nl