Nisus Writer Express 2.0

[Mr Beardsley]

Has anyone used the new version? It looks like a good update. How does it stack up to other word processors like Mellel or Word 2004? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Nisus Writer Express (http://www.nisus.com/Express/)

[DMBand0026]

I haven't used it, but it's gotta be better than Word :)

[Brad]

For those who don't know the history, here's a recap:

Nisus made Nisus Writer years ago for Classic Mac OS. It was a nice word processor, but there was little chance it would be ported to Carbon for Mac OS X. It was clearly a dead end and its future looked bleak.

Okito, a wholly separate one-man company, made Okito Composer in 2001 for Mac OS X. It was a work in progress, but it was a really great attempt that showed the beauty of Cocoa programming. Best of all, it was free since it was still considered "beta" and incomplete.

Nisus caught wind of Okito Composer and purchased the whole shebang. Nisus then quickly slapped a different icon on the package, patched up some bugs, and shipped it as Nisus Writer Express, despite the fact that it looked nothing like and had literally no relation to its new big brother Nisus Writer. Oh yeah, and Nisus decided to start charging $60 a pop for it.

Since then, it's been relatively quiet from Nisus until very recently. This 2.0 version looks to finally be bringing Okito... er, I mean Nisus Writer Express some killer features like MS Word-compatible tables.

http://brad.project-think.com/images-3/okito.jpg

That is Nisus Writer Express 2.0... no, wait... Silly me, that's a really old copy of Okito Composer! Yeah, even the cool drag-off palettes were originally an Okito feature. My mistake... this is Nisus Writer Express 2.0:

http://brad.project-think.com/images-3/nisus.jpg

All kidding aside, though, it looks like version 2.0 is a very capable program. It's a very good alternative to Monopoly Word and it isn't too outrageously expensive.

[usurp]

i use Nisus Writer. Love it for the fact that it has all the featues i want and doesnt take 5 minutes to open up on my G4 733mhz.

Very quick.

[DMBand0026]

I gotta admit, it looks like a great app, but you can have AppleWorks when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

<crosses fingers for AW X>

[curiousuburb]

I remember some of the early promo demos for Nisus Writer at computer shows in HK between '90-95. First word processor to support multiple language input and display (including vertical r-to-l mixed with horizontal l-to-r) in the same document.

Most of the professional Writers I know found it more 'natural/intuitive' than MSWord, but it was rare to find on sale and presumably support was thin, despite superior product in many ways.

[usurp]

I really wanted to love appleworks for its shear speed. it opens as quickly as TextEdit but contained more features. But sadly i was never able to get the hang of it and unitl Nisus Writer came along i was using word.

What i like about nisus also is that u can customize the tool bar and side bar and stuff so that it doesnt take up that much screen space.

[staph]

Has anyone used the new version? It looks like a good update. How does it stack up to other word processors like Mellel or Word 2004? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Nisus Writer Express (http://www.nisus.com/Express/)

Things Mellel has which NWE doesn't have:

• outlining (including support for references to outline items in the header and footer);
• lists;
• RTL support;
• OpenType support (correct me if I'm wrong);
• tight integration with a reference management program (Bookends);
• support for "secondary" font styles in a style (so, for example, the primary style can be a Roman-text font, and the secondary can be Polytonic Greek);
• support for multiple footnote streams;
• page styles;
• automatic TOC generation;
• cheapness (US$29/$50 for five licences).

Things NWE has which Mellel doesn't:

• support for Word tables;
• RTF based, i.e. open file format;
• that weird drawer thing;
• style management is very different, and possibly preferable for some; includes style inheritance, which isn't present in Mellel;
• non-contiguous selection;
• Perl macros;
• a very powerful find-and-replace dialogue.

This isn't a complete list, and it's only based on a twenty-minute play with NWE last night. As someone mostly word-processing academic texts, Mellel is a better fit for me; NWE looks pretty competent for 95% of users tho'

[Mr Beardsley]

I went ahead and got NWE 2.0. So far I really like it. Granted my word processing needs are very slim. I really like the styles implementation. Being able to switch over into the stylesheet mode and edit your styles is really cool. Now I just have to find something to write about. :D