wilcox@hydra.unm.edu (Sherman Wilcox ED.FOUND) (06/29/90)
I am currently a MS Word user, but I am considering switching to Nisus (or at least using both word processors). Certain features of Nisus interest me very much: grep, macros, indexing, auto ref, etc. Does anyone out there have any experience with Nisus, especially the newest upgrade. Has anyone made the switch from Word to Nisus?
yahnke@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Ross Yahnke, MACC) (06/29/90)
In article <1990Jun28.204508.18882@ariel.unm.edu>, wilcox@hydra.unm.edu (Sherman Wilcox ED.FOUND) writes... -I am currently a MS Word user, but I am considering switching to -Nisus (or at least using both word processors). Certain features of -Nisus interest me very much: grep, macros, indexing, auto ref, etc. -Does anyone out there have any experience with Nisus, especially the -newest upgrade. Has anyone made the switch from Word to Nisus? I use it a lot and like it, it's so much more straightforward then Word. The graphics layer overlay - like SuperPaint - is great. Search & Replace, cross referencing, marker setting - all wonderful. The consistency employed in handling multiple windows is great. Overall it's some much more intuitive then Word, Microsoft oughtta take some pointers... The downside, multiple column support is weak. Large document support is so-so; Nisus doesn't support virtual documents, the whole thing must be in RAM at once which is can be a problem for truly colossal documents. Word - IMHO - has a thyroid problem. Nisus is still a little rough around the edges but it's been thought out much better. >>> yahnke@macc.wisc.edu <<<
baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten) (07/03/90)
In article <1990Jun28.204508.18882@ariel.unm.edu>, wilcox@hydra (Sherman Wilcox ED.FOUND) writes: >I am currently a MS Word user, but I am considering switching to >Nisus (or at least using both word processors). Certain features of >Nisus interest me very much: grep, macros, indexing, auto ref, etc. >Does anyone out there have any experience with Nisus, especially the >newest upgrade. Has anyone made the switch from Word to Nisus? Yes and yes. Having grep and the ability to use macros is a big win; the loss of "true" style sheets is a loss -- at least for now, as the new version (v3.0), due to ship later this month, will support true styles. I like being able to find all my italic text and substitute {\em text\/} for it [I use LaTeX at work] without having to use macros and without having to know bizarre grep codes. However, some things, like word count, are implemented as macros and would be much faster if they were built in. I find the user interface very clean and easy to use. I barely looked at the manual when I bought it, and I haven't looked at it in a long, long time. I wish I could say that about more Mac programs... In any case, there's only one manual, and it is both brief and well-written. My only complaint was that I had to add correction pages and cross out changed text -- this was a little tedious, but in my opinion the result is better than having an out-of-date v2.0 manual and a separate v2.03 update. It doesn't do tables -- though it may in the new release -- so for now that's a loss. It does, however, do friendly things like synced scrolling of windows, and it reads and writes Word and MacWrite files. Indexing and tables of contents are simple, especially with the powerful search and replace capabilities. TOC's, though, sometimes require a little hand-tuning, and I've had to resort to things like "invisible" tabs to implement indented TOC entries. This was the most Word-like part of the program for me; I'm hoping they've improved things in v3.0. Still, the results were quite nice and I didn't have to do very much work to get them, so I was quite happy with its abilities in this area. The coolest thing about it is still its file format, which is standard Mac text with resources used to hold the formatting info. I regularly browse through my Nisus documents with McSink, and uploading them is a breeze, since they don't have to be saved as "text only" first. It also scrolls like a bat out of hell, which is important for Mac Plus users (like me). And saving files is very fast -- faster than "fast" save format in Word, but a lot safer and easier to decipher should your hard disk decide to go south on you. On the other hand, it's a little slower in starting up than Word, although this may be an issue for Plus users more than it is for other folks. All in all, I'm really glad I switched. I have yet to find a reason to go back to Word, and every time I hear of another Word bug I feel even better (Nisus has been rock solid for me). Hope this helps make up your mind. I think it's definitely worth checking out; you could even give the folks at Paragon a call and ask about the new version -- they'll be glad to give you a preview. -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." baumgart@esquire.dpw.com | cmcl2!esquire!baumgart | - David Letterman