Path: utzoo!mnetor!frank
From: frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Does anyone have comments on Nisus?
Message-ID: <5206@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jan 90 15:44:31 GMT
References: <2941@dogie.macc.wisc.edu> <5200@mnetor.UUCP> <1712@esquire.UUCP>
Reply-To: frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick)
Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 63

In article <1712@esquire.UUCP> baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten) writes:
>Hmm.  Nisus doesn't understand Word styles, but it should convert Word
>documents without any trouble.  I've converted all of mine (some
>needed some minor touchup, but there were no major headaches).  You
>can't convert documents saved in "Fast Save" format, though.  Maybe
>this was your problem?

No, 'fast save' was not the problem. Besides styles, Word has numerous
features (like 'space before' for paragraphs) that Nisus just doesn't
understand. I'm sure there's a lower common denominator that converts
easily, but my document didn't.

>>equivalent of style sheets (no, char. styles are *not* the same).
>
>This is true, but it's easily worked around.  I suspect it would be
>more of a problem if you were working in a group and wanted to have a
>readily definable "Heading" style (or something like that).  But since
>styles are local to Word documents (at least the DOS version of Word
>stores them separately), I don't see what the big advantage is.
>
>Nisus has a simple way to change text and/or attributes from one thing
>to something else.  You can easily change all the "Nisus"'s in your
>document from bold to italic.  Very straightforward.

Definitely not. I spent 15 minutes with Nisus' tech. support, and we
agreed it couldn't be done. I doubt if there are many style sheets that
are a simple as 'all headers are italic (or whatever)'. You can't just
replace all italicized text by bold, for example. Some of those italics
may be in other style sheets, or in no style sheet at all. Nisus simply
does not have style sheets.

>>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).
>
>I really have to disagree with you here, but I won't try to convince
>you.  But the recent discussion in this group of how to get fonts to
>show up in Word's font menu points out serious interface flaws that
>Microsoft has never (and probably will never) address.  ...

I *like* Word's font menu. It lets me choose the fonts I need for
the document, and the method is consistent across all menus. But
that's beside the point. I was trying to emphasize that this is an
area of personal opinion. A long feature list is not the solution.
The features I (or anyone else) *needs* is the primary criterion.
Sure, I'd like to have the regular expressions, but I need the tables
and the extra paragraph formatting options. I would also prefer my
wp *not* to have built-in drawing tools. I have yet to see one that
allows me to abandon separate drawing apps, which let me create
drawings and store them, print them, etc. separately, without taking
up memory when I'm just typing. My personal preference (this is
*opinion*, ok?) is to have a wp, several drawing packages, and
a high-end page layout program (XPress), along with numerous DAs
(like Vantage) to fill in the gaps. As I said, each person should
evaluate the candidate products in his/her own environment.

-- 
Frank Kolnick,
consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X
UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank