Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!rutgers!pyrnj!esquire!baumgart
From: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Nisus info wanted
Message-ID: <2127@esquire.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jul 90 20:17:57 GMT
References: <1990Jun28.204508.18882@ariel.unm.edu>
Sender: news@esquire.UUCP
Reply-To: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten)
Organization: Davis Polk & Wardwell
Lines: 65
In-reply-to: wilcox@hydra.unm.edu (Sherman Wilcox ED.FOUND)

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result is better than having an out-of-date v2.0 manual and a separate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