Good-bye AW6

[woodrackets]

Hi,
My first post here.

I just found that multi-page open too long & revert to previous version bug in AW the hard, bitter way. That's it. I'm in the market for a new word pro app.

Question framing: I liked AW's easy of use. The way I could click on a text filed, photo, table or graphic and easily move, resize, or send it to the back or front. Jaw-dropping , brainless ease. I use my word pro for everything; in order, EFL lesson writing, letter writing, family newsletters, CD/DVD label design, masters coursework, etc, etc. I can see how cool the features are in Nisus and iWorks, but do I really need to tackle that learning curve? Do I really need all them bells & whistles. I did pretty well w/out them for about 6 years.

Question: How do you guys here feel iWork compares to Nisus? Don't even mention Word.

Thanx in advance.

[shades]

I have Nisus Writer Pro and iWork 08 (and Mellel). I use NWP for most word processing, Mellel for my academic writing, and Pages for the simple page layout stuff that I need to do.

Pages (from iWork) is a cross between word processor and page layout. Thus, you can do things with images, layout, etc., in Pages that you cannot do in Nisus. I am designing a newsletter in Pages for our Seminary. It has been very easy and does everything I need. On the other hand, if you need footnotes, advanced word processing capabilities, etc. then Nisus is the way to go (or Mellel for that matter).

[scottwhitlock]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

If you want ease of use, NWP is the way to go. It's interface, as you can see discussed here many many times, is intuitive and a breeze to learn.

However, I must say, for what you descibe, Pages '08 is the best choice, which you get as a bonus Numbers and Keynote (which are two very good programs that complete the office suite). I too just did a graphically complex newsletter in Pages. It was so easy I almost cried and it made me fall in love all over again. Now, your challenge is going to be to learn Pages. There are parts that are very similar to AW and there are parts that are unique to Pages, although this has gotten better over the last two releases.

So, you might ask why you would use NWP and Pages? Pages is a very good page layout program and not a half-bad word processor, but it balks at complex word processing tasks. Therefore, they're both good at different things. NWP for long and intense writing that needs cross-references, styles based on other styles (Pages still doesn't have this feature), indexing, and complex text searches. NWP also integrates better with bibliographic software (if only because of its native RTF file format). Pages for graphics heavy documents that need to be shared with Word or converted into a PDF.

Really, the answer depends on which one of these you want.

Scott

[woodrackets]

Shades,
Mellel? I've never heard of it. Can you fill me in, or send me to a url?

Thanx.

[shades]

Mellel. Keep in mind that it has a steeper learning curve than NWP. But Mellel is unmatched for styles, auto-titles, multiple notestreams, and a very handy and useful outlining capability. And very 2.5 coming out of beta this week/early next week has very powerful cross-references.

Again, I like and use both NWP and Mellel, for different purposes, and then Pages as described above. (I keep OpenOffice and NeoOffice up-to-date, as well as an old copy of MS Office 2004, but I will not update it).

Overload of word processors? Yep.

Then I have purchased Papyrus and RagTime as well.

[Lanx]

With multiple note-streams Mellel has a real innovation in the field of footnotes, allowing for multiple sets of footnotes which are required in some fields of academic work (one footnote-stream for alternate versions of the original text, one stream for translation notes, one stream for secondary literature, for example). After decades of no innovation, finaly a word processor which evolves the old footnote feature.

The second programm with a new feature for footnotes is Nisus: multiple notes per line. Every once in a while, some student comes in my offices asking: "How can I have multiple short footnotes in one line in Word?" All I could say was: "No chance.", but not any more. Now I usually reply: "Get a Mac and Nisus Writer."

[Sheamus]

Greetings from Canada!

My wife and I are evaluating Mellel and Nisus Writer Pro relative to her writing a long dissertation and Bookends and Sente relative to references et al. She needs text wrapping functionality. We tried copying Mac 2004 Word .doc and .rtf format to both Mellel and NWP. Copied text, text wrapping, photographs and references perfectly into NWP but did not copy photos in Mellel.

Is NWP stable for long documents in the range of 60,000 to 100,000 words?

What is best reference software to use with NWP... RefWorks, Bookends or Sente?

BTW my wife prefers NWP look and feel.

Also (apologies) I don't understand why academic writers also use text editors and Scriviner?

[shades]

NWP and Mellel both handle long documents very well.

Scrivener is meant as an organization and initial writing tool, because of its flexibility, etc. The re-arrangement of material and connections allows goo "thinking-around-the-topic" type of activity as well as writing. Also, all the pieces can be pulled together easily and can be exported to any decent word processor (NWP and Mellel both work well here).

[Sheamus]

Thank you!

Any input on the other question... What is best reference software to use with NWP... RefWorks, Bookends or Sente?

[scottwhitlock]

Sheamus,

I think Endnote works best with NWP, if only for its integration into the Services menu.

See my Endnote workflow and mini-tutorial for more information:

http://www.nisus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2495

Scott

[xiamenese]

I on the other hand use Bookends, finding it very straightforward and intuitive. Some people seem to have some problem with the need to scan the RTF file to create the bibliography and turn the citations into whatever format an irritation compared with the way it's apparently done in Mellel, but I don't use Mellel and so can't judge that. I certainly have no problem with it.

I tried Sente at the same time as I first tried Bookends, but there was some reason why I couldn't get on with it, which I am sure is personal preference; Endnote had some other deal-breaker for me, though I don't remember what it was.

Oh, and if you are a FireFox user, there is Zotero which is free and some people go into ecstasy over. I am not a FireFox user either.

Mark

[Sheamus]

Again, thank you to shades, Scott and Mark for answering my questions.

shades... I'm going to download Scrivener and give it a try.

Scott... Thank you for the link. Will evaluate End-Note.

Mark... We will evaluate Bookends. Do you currently live in Xiamen? Lots of history with respect to Xiamen and Fujian Province.

Best regards to each of you for a lovely weekend!

[xiamenese]

<snip>
shades... I'm going to download Scrivener and give it a try.

Great application ... doesn't suit everyone, but it's a great writing environment and it works very well with Scrivener and NWP.

<snip>
Mark... We will evaluate Bookends. Do you currently live in Xiamen? Lots of history with respect to Xiamen and Fujian Province.

Yes. I've been here in Xiamen for 8 years. Has always felt very much like home.
Mark

[landi3337]

A late response to Sheamus' question: long documents aren't a problem. I just finished a 140,000 word novel using NWE and it worked perfectly.