ben@tasis.utas.oz (Ben Lian) (04/01/89)
Does anyone know anything about NISUS, "The Amazing Word Processor for
the Macintosh", from Paragon Concepts? How does it compare with MS Word
3.02?
-- bl
P.S. Latest vicious rumour about a Word 4.0 release says April! :-)
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Benjamin Y H Lian ACSnet: ben@tasis.utas.oz
Dept. of EE & CS ARPA : ben%tasis.utas.oz.au@uunet.uu.net
University of Tasmania BITnet: munnari!tasis.utas.oz!ben@
GPO Box 252C uunet.uu.net (I think)
Hobart, Tasmania 7001 UUCP : {enea,hplabs,mcvax,uunet,ukc}!
A U S T R A L I A munnari!tasis.utas.oz!ben
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- PhD? Vafan pratar du om?!svc@well.UUCP (Leonard Rosenthol) (04/03/89)
In article <882@tasis.utas.oz>, ben@tasis.utas.oz (Ben Lian) writes: > Does anyone know anything about NISUS, "The Amazing Word Processor for > the Macintosh", from Paragon Concepts? How does it compare with MS Word > 3.02? > Let me start by saying that I think Word (all versions) should be shot and put out to pasture...With that in mind. If you need a WORD processor, and not a page layout package - then get Nisus! Nisus was designed for the user who needs tools to edit words, and is not so concerned with pagelayout capabilities. This is not to say that it does not have them (it does do multiColums, text wraparound of graphics, built-in Draw package, etc.) but it's strengths lie in text processing. With tools like unlimited Undo's, multiple editable clipboards, full GREP/Regular Expression search/replace, Macros, and more it makes editing documents a breeze! It also features many standard functions such as Indexing, Table of Contents, Glossary (very powerful ones), style sheets (needs some work here), etc. I do however want to say a few things about the interface and the adhereance to the Mac Interface Guidelines. As applications go, they did a pretty good job - but it is not perfect. They doa a few things which are not standard and may confuse some users, but compared to Word... Anyway, Nisus is my current WP recommendation for those who need to process words and not layout pages. Disclaimer: This is my opinion and no one elses! -- +--------------------------------------------------+ Leonard Rosenthol | GEnie : MACgician Lazerware, inc. | MacNet: MACgician UUCP: svc@well.UUCP | ALink : D0025
kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) (04/04/89)
In article <882@tasis.utas.oz> ben@tasis.utas.oz (Ben Lian) writes:
<Does anyone know anything about NISUS, "The Amazing Word Processor for
<the Macintosh", from Paragon Concepts? How does it compare with MS Word
<3.02?
The reviews I've seen (here?) basically point out that it is superior for
manipulating words, especially doing search/replace. But Word is superior
for final layout of pages. For example, I beleive I read that NISUS does
not have headers and footers yet.
<P.S. Latest vicious rumour about a Word 4.0 release says April! :-)
That's cutting it pretty close since it's already April and we don't
even have upgrade notices (bills) in our hands yet.
Shirley Kehrdrc@claris.com (Dennis Cohen) (04/05/89)
In article <90377@felix.UUCP> kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) writes: > > The reviews I've seen (here?) basically point out that it is superior for > manipulating words, especially doing search/replace. But Word is superior > for final layout of pages. For example, I beleive I read that NISUS does > not have headers and footers yet. > Just as a point of information, NISUS has headers, footers, indexing, and TOC generation. What it doesn't have yet is footnoting. -- Dennis Cohen Claris Corp. ------------ Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed above are _MINE_!
mjohnson@Apple.COM (Mark B. Johnson) (04/06/89)
In article <9495@claris.com> drc@claris.com (Dennis Cohen) writes: >In article <90377@felix.UUCP> kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) writes: >> >> The reviews I've seen (here?) basically point out that it is superior for >> manipulating words, especially doing search/replace. But Word is superior >> for final layout of pages. For example, I beleive I read that NISUS does >> not have headers and footers yet. >> > >Just as a point of information, NISUS has headers, footers, indexing, and >TOC generation. What it doesn't have yet is footnoting. > But it can't read MS Word quick-save files nor can it save to MacWrite (although it can get around the latter by copying into the clipboard)... Mark B. Johnson AppleLink: mjohnson Developer Technical Support domain: mjohnson@Apple.com Apple Computer, Inc. UUCP: {amdahl,decwrl,sun,unisoft}!apple!mjohnson "You gave your life to become the person you are right now. Was it worth it?" - Richard Bach, _One_
bmug@garnet.berkeley.edu (BMUG) (04/06/89)
In article <28430@apple.Apple.COM> mjohnson@Apple.COM (Mark B. Johnson) writes: (stuff deleted) > >But it can't read MS Word quick-save files nor can it save to MacWrite (although >it can get around the latter by copying into the clipboard)... > But it *can* read MS Word files which aren't quick-saved (both directly and through RTF). As a test, I converted an 80-page Word doc to see how well it worked, and what blew me away was the incredible speed at which it opened the file. Needless to say, the formatting was perfectly intact. I'm hoping to finish a longish discussion of Nisus for the next issue of the BMUG Newsletter, and I expect the review will mostly complimentary. Nisus does lack a few things, but for people looking for some of the power of UNIX character-based editors which heretofore has been missing from Mac word-processing programs, Nisus has a lot to offer. Usual disclaimers apply... John Heckendorn /\ BMUG ARPA: bmug@garnet.berkeley.EDU A__A 1442A Walnut St., #62 BITNET: bmug@ucbgarnet |()| Berkeley, CA 94709 | | (415) 549-2684 | |
jmunkki@kampi.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) (04/06/89)
In article <90377@felix.UUCP> kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) writes: >In article <882@tasis.utas.oz> ben@tasis.utas.oz (Ben Lian) writes: ><Does anyone know anything about NISUS, "The Amazing Word Processor for ><the Macintosh", from Paragon Concepts? How does it compare with MS Word ><3.02? > > The reviews I've seen (here?) basically point out that it is superior for > manipulating words, especially doing search/replace. But Word is superior > for final layout of pages. For example, I beleive I read that NISUS does > not have headers and footers yet. Nisus does have headers and footers. Only two really important features seem to be missing: 1) Hyphenation. There's no way to soft hyphenate or even automatically hyphenate text. This might not be a problem with English text, but it certainly is with Finnish. 2) Footnotes. You might be able to do this with pictures, but it would be nicer to have real footnotes. I'd also like to have a grid when I'm drawing. The FullWrite grid is pretty awful, but at least I have some way of aligning my lines & boxes. In some ways Nisus is superior to both Word and FullWrite, but I guess FullWrite is better, if you have a Mac II & at least 2 MB RAM. I hope they get the bugs out of FullWrite. Nisus seems to be pretty stable, but it does have a few "features" (changing from inches to centimeters doesn't immediately update the rulers!) _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._ | Juri Munkki jmunkki@hut.fi jmunkki@fingate.bitnet I Want Ne | | Helsinki University of Technology Computing Centre My Own XT | ^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
sagen@nucthy.physics.orst.edu (Milt Sagen) (04/07/89)
In article <22684@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> bmug@garnet.berkeley.edu (BMUG) writes: > >But it *can* read MS Word files which aren't quick-saved (both directly >and through RTF). As a test, I converted an 80-page Word doc to see >how well it worked, and what blew me away was the incredible speed at >which it opened the file. Needless to say, the formatting was perfectly >intact. I have had problems with it when the original word document had multiple columns, although the problem was not in reading the document, it did that just (although it took a longer period of time than usual). The problem, however, manifests itself when the Nisus copy is instructed to use multiple columns (Nisus did not keep the Word columns, which I believe the manual says it wont keep). Once the number of columns was selected the program never came back after it began to reformat the document. I do like this program; I use it now for my word processing chores instead of Word, in fact after receiving Nisus I took Word off my hard disk. However, I also believe this program is more of a final beta than it is a final release. Take the page preview as an example: This part of the program just doesn't seem finished, and on a Mac+ with a 9" screen, the preview page is not all that useful except to set margins, etc.. Milt Sagen Internet: sagen@nucthy.physics.orst.edu Department of Physics Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331 Tele: (503) 754-4631
drc@claris.com (Dennis Cohen) (04/07/89)
In article <9828@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> sagen@nucthy.PHYSICS.ORST.EDU (Milt Sagen) writes: >... >I have had problems with it when the original word document had multiple >columns, although the problem was not in reading the document, it did that >just (although it took a longer period of time than usual). The problem, >however, manifests itself when the Nisus copy is instructed to use multiple >columns (Nisus did not keep the Word columns, which I believe the manual says >it wont keep). Once the number of columns was selected the program never came >back after it began to reformat the document. > There was a bug discovered that Paragon claims to have fixed for the next rev concerning imported Word files. The workaround is to read it in and then save it immediately as a Nisus file and close it. Reopen the Nisus file and proceed from there. That has worked for me in all the previously dying situations. -- Dennis Cohen Claris Corp. ------------ Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed above are _MINE_!
sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) (04/07/89)
In article <21081@santra.UUCP> jmunkki@kampi.UUCP (Juri Munkki) writes: >In some ways Nisus is superior to both Word and FullWrite, but I guess >FullWrite is better, if you have a Mac II & at least 2 MB RAM. I hope >they get the bugs out of FullWrite. Nisus seems to be pretty stable, >but it does have a few "features" (changing from inches to centimeters >doesn't immediately update the rulers!) How does Nisus perform on a Mac Plus or SE? Is it usable in 1 Meg? Can it run in a reasonably small Multifinder partition like Word can? It sounds like it might be a really good word/text processor, but if it's going to be a resource hog like Fullwrite, I'm not sure it's worth it. -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." cmcl2!esquire!sbb | esquire!sbb@cmcl2.nyu.edu | - David Letterman
bmug@garnet.berkeley.edu (BMUG) (04/08/89)
In article <1134@esquire.UUCP> sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) writes: > >How does Nisus perform on a Mac Plus or SE? Is it usable in 1 Meg? >Can it run in a reasonably small Multifinder partition like Word can? Although I haven't fully tested Nisus on a 1 meg + or SE yet, a couple of thoughts: Since Nisus loads the entire document into RAM, this would lead to some built-in limitations on editing *very large* documents on a 1 meg machine, especially if the System file is very large or lots of INITs are running. "Very large" would be on the order of a book-sized manuscript, I guess, particularly if there are a few bitmap graphics thrown in. I would suspect that while Nisus may load into a Multifinder partition (I don't have at my fingertips just how much RAM the program itself requires), I doubt whether one would be able to edit a moderately-sized document with such a configuration. Of course, having the whole document in RAM makes the program operate VERY fast [it'll peel the hair from the top of your head -- and I should know :-)]. When I get firm data on Mac+/SE Nisus usage, I'll post some numbers... John Heckendorn /\ BMUG ARPA: bmug@garnet.berkeley.EDU A__A 1442A Walnut St., #62 BITNET: bmug@ucbgarnet |()| Berkeley, CA 94709 | | (415) 549-2684 | |
kathie@tekecs.GWD.TEK.COM (Kathleen Huddleston) (04/08/89)
I have Nisus (upgraded from Qued/M) and although I am a Word enthusiast, I can appreciate that Nisus has some nice features -- Especially its word search/replace (grep) capability. It also has interesting grahphics capabilities. It has several modes: Text entry, preview (which can be viewed simultaneously to editing), and also a graphics layers where you can draw lines and boxes or paste pictures. You can also paste pictures into the text layer and they are then treated like the picture characters in Word. Another nice feature is a limited "finder" type window where you can open documents (even multiple ones), etc. In fact, I liked everything about the interface EXCEPT it has this one absurdly long catch-all menu which I think is called Tools that includes every feature in the world and literally is several screen long. I could not believe they would make such a glaring interface error and hope it gets fixed in a future release (hierarchical menus at least -- or even dialog boxes). Also, I will stick with Word for now because I know it very well, but for longer documents or documents where grep would be useful, I would recommend it.
robert@island.uu.net (Robert Leyland) (04/09/89)
Paragon shipped a new version of NISUS, this is the 1.01 Update. Also in their
cover note they said that they have scheduled a major release for later in the
summer, which will be shipped FREE to all registered customers.
Pretty good service I'd say!
robert....
--
Robert Leyland - Island Graphics, 4000 Civic Ctr Dr #400, San Rafael, CA 94903
{uunet|sun}!island!robert - (415) 491-1000 - GEnie: r.leyland - std disclaimerssobiloff@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (Blake Sobiloff) (04/09/89)
How does NISUS stack up to WriteNow in terms of pure speed? I know this is pretty hard to accurately measure, but how comparable are file save and open times, for example? How about a global font change or margin change? Spelling checker speed and a global find and replace? I like what I've heard about NISUS, but so far all I've heard about were features, not speed. I like the speed of WriteNow, plus the fact that it doesn't load itself down with a bunch of page layout "features" that should be left to programs like PageMaker. Just a question and two cents change... -- * Blake "Hey, where's *MY* fancy footer?" Sobiloff * * "Meet me in a restaurant..." or call me at- * * sobiloff@thor.acc.stolaf.edu *
svc@well.UUCP (Leonard Rosenthol) (04/10/89)
In article <11257@tekecs.GWD.TEK.COM>, kathie@tekecs.GWD.TEK.COM (Kathleen Huddleston) writes: > [other deleted comments] > I liked everything about the interface EXCEPT it has this one absurdly > long catch-all menu which I think is called Tools that includes every > feature in the world and literally is several screen long. I could not > believe they would make such a glaring interface error and hope it gets > fixed in a future release (hierarchical menus at least -- or even dialog > boxes). > The 'long catch-all menu' that you refer to is that long for a very good reason - all items at the bottom of the menu are the MACROS that come with Nisus in the file called Nisus Macros. If you don't need some/all of thoise features simply delete them from the Macro file, and feel free to add those that you want. I agree that unless you are aware, this looks REALLY bad. I have a lot of personal macros and when people come in and look over my shoulder they 'lose their lunch' over that interface blunder - which it really isn't. If nayone has a better way of putting up a list of the macros, feel free to let me know and I'll pass it along to Paragon. -- +--------------------------------------------------+ Leonard Rosenthol | GEnie : MACgician Lazerware, inc. | MacNet: MACgician UUCP: svc@well.UUCP | ALink : D0025
wetter@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Pierce T. Wetter) (04/11/89)
- If
- nayone has a better way of putting up a list of the macros, feel free to let
- me know and I'll pass it along to Paragon.
Allow you to sort them into a Heirichal menu under subject names.
Pierce
--
wetter@csvax.caltech.edu | wetter@tybalt.caltech.edu | pwetter@caltech.bitnet
|----------------------------------------------------|
| This Rent For Space -|
|____________________________________________________|clye@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Lye) (04/11/89)
In article <685@island.uu.net> robert@island.uu.net (Robert Leyland) writes: >Paragon shipped a new version of NISUS, this is the 1.01 Update. Also in their >cover note they said that they have scheduled a major release for later in the >summer, which will be shipped FREE to all registered customers. > >Pretty good service I'd say! > >robert.... > Yes. I called up Paragon yesterday, having received Nisus and been quite dismayed to learn it had no footnoting capability. The gentleman on the phone , Jim Bates I believe, sympathized and seemed quite sincere when explaining that footnoting was one of their top priorities for the summer release and that he expected the release to be out within the next two months. Of course he also said he didn't want to make an promisese that Paragon couldn't keep. They also hinted at an outlining feature like in FullWrite but did not say whether that would be out in the summer release or a later version far in the future. Jim claimed that the lack of footnotes was less an oversight than one of those sacrifices thay were willing to make to get Nisus out on the shelves on time. Bit of a sacrifice to make, since I can think of a lot of Nisus frills that could have been put on hold till later to develop a good footnoting capability. Nisus seems like my dream wordprocessor, and as soon as they get footnotes onto it, I imagine it ver well could be. Chris Lye
gdavis@primate.wisc.edu (Gary Davis) (04/11/89)
> How does Nisus perform on a Mac Plus or SE? Is it usable in 1 Meg? > Can it run in a reasonably small Multifinder partition like Word can? > It sounds like it might be a really good word/text processor, but > if it's going to be a resource hog like Fullwrite, I'm not sure it's > worth it. > Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, I've edited a 250 k file on a 1 meg Mac II with no problem. A friend tested a smaller file (70 k I think) on a MacPlus and found most functions, scrolling, searching, etc, to be about 3 times faster than MS Word with the same file. Files are held entirely in memory, however, so there will be limits. It's definitely not the hog that FullWrite is, on the other hand. Gary Davis
frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (04/15/89)
I've been off the net for a few weeks and may have missed any discussion
of Nisus. I'm very interested in this WP. I've been waiting for
Word 4.0 far too long, and am getting fed up with its quirks (I know
you're listening Microsoft -- it *still* loses characters while typing).
Anyway, if Nisus has been reviewed on the net, would someone please send me
a copy. My specific questions are few:
1. will it import Word 3.x files? styles? (I phoned Paragon about this
and the tech. support person didn't know! He did say "That's a good
question. I should really know the answer to that, shouldn't I?")
2. can you search for fonts and styles, as well as text?
3. I assume it has the same powerful reg. exp. searching and macro
capability as QUED/M, or so I've heard.
4. how's the indexing, esp. compared to Word's (I've been using Sonar,
which I'll be happy to review if anyone's interested)
5. sorting?
And, of course, subjective opinions about using it, it's speed,
built-in drawing capabilities, *robustness*, ...
Thanx in advance.
--
Frank Kolnick,
consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X
UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frankbmug@garnet.berkeley.edu (BMUG) (04/17/89)
In article <4976@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes: >I've been off the net for a few weeks and may have missed any discussion >of Nisus. (stuff deleted) >1. will it import Word 3.x files? styles? Yes, it will import Word 3.x files normally (not fast) saved, as well as RTF. It will not import styles as such, but all style formatting information is converted. Macros in Nisus can then be used to alter styles. >2. can you search for fonts and styles, as well as text? Yes. >3. I assume it has the same powerful reg. exp. searching and macro > capability as QUED/M, or so I've heard. The grep routines are actually a superset of QUED/M's. There is also an option called Easy-grep, which uses a point-and-click approach to setting up grep routines. It's not quite as powerful as the real thing, though. >4. how's the indexing, esp. compared to Word's (I've been using Sonar, > which I'll be happy to review if anyone's interested) In my opinion, the indexing is much easier to use. I don't believe Nisus has the subindexing features of Word 4.0, though. >5. sorting? Yes. >And, of course, subjective opinions about using it, it's speed, >built-in drawing capabilities, *robustness*, ... It's fast. Drawing capabilities are fine (I don't use inline drawing much, though). Lots of great features. Hasn't bombed on me yet. The only serious current drawbacks are, in my opinion, the following lacks: 1. Footnoting 2. Hyphenation 3. Ability to select a sentence (as one can in Word). The bottom line: I like it. Try it out at a local retailer. >Thanx in advance. > No problem. >Frank Kolnick, John Heckendorn /\ BMUG ARPA: bmug@garnet.berkeley.EDU A__A 1442A Walnut St., #62 BITNET: bmug@ucbgarnet |()| Berkeley, CA 94709 | | (415) 549-2684 | |
ELFJ@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (04/18/89)
Nisus _does_ do hierarchacal indices using a macro. Linda Iroff Humanities
kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) (04/19/89)
In article <4976@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes:
<I've been off the net for a few weeks and may have missed any discussion
<of Nisus. I'm very interested in this WP. I've been waiting for
<Word 4.0 far too long,...
Also, why don't they sell through MacWarehouse and Mac Connection? I did
finally find an ad from a lesser-known mail order outfit, but if they
want to be taken seriously, they're going to have to distribute it through
the channels we trust. The ad I saw listed $299 which is more than I'm
willing to pay just to try it out. Is there a demo available?
Yesterday's MacWeek had a late-breaking news item stating that Word 4.0 is
shipping this week. But I still don't have an upgrade notice.
Shirley Kehrfrank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (04/22/89)
In article <92784@felix.UUCP> kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) writes: >... The ad I saw listed $299 which is more than I'm >willing to pay just to try it out. Is there a demo available? I just ordered a demo disk for $15, which can be applied to the purchase price. >Yesterday's MacWeek had a late-breaking news item stating that Word 4.0 is >shipping this week. But I still don't have an upgrade notice. I got my notice about 4 weeks ago, sent it back immediately, and received Word yesterday. Phone your nearest MS office. (For some reason, they insisted on a copy of my original receipt, although they obviously have me listed as a purchaser. Try finding one of those after almost a year!) -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank
sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) (04/23/89)
In article <4979@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes: >In article <92784@felix.UUCP> kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) writes: >>... The ad I saw listed $299 which is more than I'm >>willing to pay just to try it out. Is there a demo available? > >I just ordered a demo disk for $15, which can be applied to the purchase >price. Is this available just by calling the number (or writing to the address) given in their ads? Otherwise, could you post ordering info for the demo disk? -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." cmcl2!esquire!sbb | esquire!sbb@cmcl2.nyu.edu | - David Letterman