Path: utzoo!mnetor!frank
From: frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Does anyone have comments on Nisus?
Message-ID: <5200@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jan 90 18:11:28 GMT
References: <2941@dogie.macc.wisc.edu>
Reply-To: frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick)
Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 41

In article <2941@dogie.macc.wisc.edu> yahnke@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Ross Yahnke, MACC) writes:
>In article <422@skippy.UUCP>, ras@skippy.UUCP (Bob Surtees) writes...
>-I have seen a couple of reviews on Paragon's Word Processor Nisus and, as a
>-result of playing around with the demo version, am almost at the point of
>-purchasing a copy.
>- 
>-Does anyone out there have any experience with this product for serious
>-word processing and had a chance to compare it to some of the other
>-*heavies* that are in common use?  I currently use WordPerfect and was
>
>Nisus is an extremely well thought out product, with no where near the 
>madness inherent in MS-Word's interface. (I've never used WP...). The
>search & replace facilities - based on GREP - are top notch, allowing
>s & r combinations just not possible in other packages. And combining
>that with the catalog window, allowing you to s & r thru all open files
>is incredibly useful. It's easy to learn but definitely a power-users
>app, you can really grow into it.
>...

I'll keep this brief (I can see a war on the horizon :-)...

When Nisus was released, I ordered their demo disk, as I was 
frustrated with Word. I spent about a week trying to convert a chapter
of a book I was writing to Nisus. This is a *lot* of work because
Nisus doesn't understand Word files and doesn't have the
equivalent of style sheets (no, char. styles are *not* the same).
Anyway, my conclusion was that, while I'd really like to have all
of the nice *extra* features that Nisus provides, but I couldn't live
without the *essential* features that Word provides (more flexible
paragraph spacing, for example). And with Word 4, I find I actually
like its interface, which I think is cleaner and less cluttered than
Nisus (I'm not fond of little icons all over my screen).

Now, as always, choose the wp that provides the functions you need
with the interface with which you feel most comfortable. In my
opinion, Nisus is a very good, medium-power wp, perhaps in the class
of MacWrite. Try before you buy.
-- 
Frank Kolnick,
consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X
UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank