ssegan@dorsai (Sascha I. Segan) (06/17/91)
Well, I'm getting around to looking for a new word processor, and I've come down to three choices. I need the Net's help after this point, though. My choices are Nisus 3.xx, Word 4.xx, and WordPerfect 2.xx. I'm running a 2.5 I'm running a 2.5 MB Mac SE with a 20MB HD under System 7. I'm going to need to do serious work with this thing - very pretty documents, though not too long (30pp tops?) I want a nice dictionary, maybe a thesaurus, footnoting, basic page layout (columns, at least), maybe macros, good online help - essentially, power. I also want speed, however. Can people who have used and/or compared these programs give me some pros and cons? If there is demand, I'll post a summary of replies. Thanks, ----Sascha (Please send mail to dorsai!ssegan@uu.psi.com.)
tlt38517@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Terry Lee Thiel) (06/17/91)
ssegan@dorsai (Sascha I. Segan) writes: >Well, I'm getting around to looking for a new word processor, and I've come >down to three choices. I need the Net's help after this point, though. >My choices are Nisus 3.xx, Word 4.xx, and WordPerfect 2.xx. > >I'm running a 2.5 >I'm running a 2.5 MB Mac SE with a 20MB HD under System 7. >I'm going to need to do serious work with this thing - very pretty >documents, though not too long (30pp tops?) I want a nice dictionary, maybe >a thesaurus, footnoting, basic page layout (columns, at least), maybe >macros, good online help - essentially, power. I also want speed, however. > >Can people who have used and/or compared these programs give me some pros >and cons? If there is demand, I'll post a summary of replies. > >Thanks, >----Sascha Go for Nisus, it has most of the power of the other two, is more intuitive, and is much faster on an SE. WP is slow even on my SE/30, while Word is slow, underpowered (at least these days it is) and non-intuitive. Nisus as well as WP havedrawing tools built in while Word does not. I have played around with the new WP quite a bit and just do not like it. It is much better than WP 1 but then thats not saying much. I like a word processor that lets me get in and do my writing without thinking about getti ng the program to do what I want it to do. Out of all the word processors I have used only Nisus and WriteNow (possibly the old macWrite but not MacWrite II) fit that description. >(Please send mail to dorsai!ssegan@uu.psi.com.)
amaury@rel.mit.edu (06/28/91)
In article <8uwN48w163w@dorsai> ssegan@dorsai (Sascha I. Segan) writes: >Well, I'm getting around to looking for a new word processor, and I've come >down to three choices. I need the Net's help after this point, though. >My choices are Nisus 3.xx, Word 4.xx, and WordPerfect 2.xx......... I gave up on Word - it doesn't have cross-references and as the doc. gets longer it slows down. WordPerfect which we bought and returned is amazingly slow. I've been trying Nisus and it seems to be very powerful, however I'm still learning how to tame the beast! In my case I have lots of equations (generated with Expressionist - btw they print and place correctly in Nisus but not with Word) figures and Chapters (yes thesis!) which should be splitted in several files, also I'm using EndNote Plus for bibliography database (Nisus is not directly compatible with EndNote but I think I got a work around). So far my difficult with Nisus has been the Technical support which was not very responsive (I've been in contact with only one person perhaps I should try someone else!), I've been asking them questions on how to properly do the cross-references across different files and a macro to overcome the incompatibility with EndNote Plus, but I haven't got much help. I believe that if I find some knowledgeable Nisus users I will be able to circumvent this problem DOES ANYBODY OUT THERE USES NISUS IN A REGULAR BASIS AND COULD GIVE ME SOME TIPS????? Another option could be TEXtures which is an excellent tech. word processor but it is not WYSIWYG. I used TEX for 5 years and used TEXtures in the MAC for one year, but I think I'm spoiled and I just don't want to typeset the document everytime, in addition to always have to do some fine tuning with the equations. amaury@rel.mit.edu
long@mcntsh.enet.dec.com (Rich Long) (06/28/91)
In article <8uwN48w163w@dorsai> ssegan@dorsai (Sascha I. Segan) writes: >Well, I'm getting around to looking for a new word processor, and I've come You might want to check out DeltaPoint's Taste. It has some page layout features in addition to the standard word processing stuff. It also includes a dictionary and thesaurus. I picked it up as part of a bundle (with Deneba's Ultrapaint) from MacConnection for $79. I have not used the program extensively yet, but it looks quite powerful. I can't figure out how to make tables (ala Word) though. Does anyone know if it can be done? Richard C. Long | long@mcntsh.enet.dec.com | Selfware: If you like --------------- | ...!decwrl!mcntsh.enet.dec.com!long | this program, send A First Edition | long%mcntsh.dec@decwrl.enet.dec.com | yourself five bucks!