Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac.apps:5348 comp.sys.mac.misc:11038
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!isi.edu!venera.isi.edu!jas
From: jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps,comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Nisus v. MS Word -- Different Question
Message-ID: <17610@venera.isi.edu>
Date: 17 Apr 91 20:24:49 GMT
References: <1991Apr14.220122.8800@news.stolaf.edu>
Sender: news@isi.edu
Distribution: na
Organization: USC-ISI
Lines: 65
In-reply-to: smithc@thor.acc.stolaf.edu's message of 14 Apr 91 22:01:22 GMT

In article <1991Apr14.220122.8800@news.stolaf.edu> smithc@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (Christopher Smith) writes:

>After having MS Word 4.0 crash three times on me last night for no
>reason whatsoever -- I was looking up a quote, MS Word was doing
>nothing, and it crashed; I clicked on the menubar, and it crashed; I
>stared at it cross-eyed, and I SWEAR! it crashed -- which kept me up
>until 2:30am instead of 11:00pm or so, my interest in Nisus has leaped
>quite a bit.
>
>I've spent a good block of time going back over previous articles in
>this group and have found very little on Nisus, at least along the
>lines of what I'd like to know.  So, this is directed to those of you
>with hands-on experience with Nisus.
>
>How does Nisus compare to MS Word?  More specifically:
>
>      *  how compatible is it with other word processing formats;

It imports MacWrite and Word4.0 (but not fast-saved files).  It
preserves most of the formatting -- all it supports, I guess.

>      *  does it have the section support MS Word does, ie. can I
>	 have different headers/footers/etc for certain pages;

Not that familiar with word's sections.  You can have a new header on
each page in Nisus.

>      *  does it support a table format like MS Word does;

No.

>      *  does it have footnoting features;

Yes.

>      *  is Nisus relatively fast, specifically with the spell-
>	 checking, searching, and search/replace?

Very fast, *but* it keeps the whole file in RAM, so there's a
ram-based limit to the size of files you can edit.

It's search/replace functionality is the best there is.  (relatively)
easy-to-use grep with styles and fonts.  Sweet.



There is, however, a "feature" in Nisus that caused me to abandon it
for my scriptwriting.  When you hold down command and change a
paragraph, all paragraphs with the same ruler type are changes as
well.  This causes quite a substantial delay (4-6 minutes on my MacII)
while it does this on my 100+ page scripts.  On my partner's MacPlus,
it hasn't come back on occasion.  Since a this happens 1-3 times per
writing session, it's too big a hassle, even given the other
advantages.

Too bad.

I still use it for other stuff.

jas
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey A. Sullivan		| Senior Systems Programmer
jas@venera.isi.edu		| Information Sciences Institute
jas@isi.edu                    	| University of Southern California