The purpose with Document Manager

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greenjuice
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Joined: 2007-09-02 07:19:10

The purpose with Document Manager

Post by greenjuice »

Hi,

I'm a beginner and before I bought a license to NWP I used regularly Mellel (but not at an advanced level). I have a question - what is the purpose with Document Manager, I still don't know how I should use Document Manager. I tried once but it saved files in another folder. Is Document Manager effective to use?

Jonas
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scottwhitlock
Posts: 174
Joined: 2004-10-26 07:10:40
Location: Tucson, AZ

Post by scottwhitlock »

Hello Jonas and welcome to the forum. I think you'll find Nisus Writer's interface much easier to use than Mellel's (and much more pleasurable). Mellel is a powerful word processor, but it has one hell of a learning curve. NWP is just as powerful, but as intuitive as the Mac itself and tends to work with you rather than against you.

First, when you save a document in Document Manager, it saves the file in the \Documents\Nisus Documents folder in your home directory.

Second, I was once like you as well, not really knowing how to incorporate Document Manager into my workflow. I once even stated that it was a "useless feature." Now, I couldn't live without it and it is one of my favorite features of NWP. So much so, I have set in the preferences for it to open when NWP opens, instead of the default new document.

Third, I use Document Manager as:

1. a place to hold aliases (shortcuts for you former Windows users) of all my documents that I'm currently working on. That way, I can easily open them when NWP starts and when I save them, they are saved in their original (and more permanent and logical) location (like a folder for the class whose lecture I'm working on) rather than in the physical Nisus Documents folder (although the alias remains there for easy opening).

2. a place to hold certain templates (like ones for class lectures, article templates, etc.). I have to use these a lot, and the Document Manager is a great place to keep them (rather than some Template folder that I would have to navigate to every time).

3. a place to quickly save something when I don't want to deal with the save as dialog (use File - Save in Document Manager, which I have shortcut'ed as Cmd-SDM) or I am pressed for time.

4. a place to save documents that really don't "fit" anywhere else in my permanent filing schema. For example, algorithms for Nisus macros...where do I file those, because I don't do enough of them to really have a separate folder? Well, the Document Manager maybe? :)

The one drawback of Document Manager is that you cannot determine what folder it points to (which would be useful for those who want to have it point to a folder on an external drive which moves between two or more machines with NWP/NWE installed). It is defaulted to /Documents/Nisus Documents in your User folder and will only work with that location. I get around this by placing an alias in my Work folder, which works like the document manager for my system but on a much larger scale--everything from syllabi in Pages to gradebooks in Numbers to lecture presentations in Keynote.

Hope this helps and feel free to ask questions.

Scott
MacBook Pro 15
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greenmorpher
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Post by greenmorpher »

Hello Greenjuice

I use the Document Manager much as Scott does. My document manager includes:

* Several long documents I am working on.

* Some templates I want from time to time (saved as Nisus templates, .dot, files to the user/Documents/Nisus Documents folder so they automatically appear in the Document Manager), with different letterheads and so on.

* A couple of documents of user names and passwords for the internet and so forth.

In the preferences, I have set Nisus Writer to open the Document Manager when it launches, so I have it open ready all the time with the corner peeping out from behind the main NW Pro window.

Have you found out how to personalise the default new file? Set up the page as you want it, then save, setting the format as "Document template" which gtives a file extension of ".dot" with the name "Nisus New File.dot" in the folder user/Library/Application Support/Nisus Writer).

Have fune.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com
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scottwhitlock
Posts: 174
Joined: 2004-10-26 07:10:40
Location: Tucson, AZ

Post by scottwhitlock »

greenmorpher wrote:Hello Greenjuice
Have you found out how to personalise the default new file? Set up the page as you want it, then save, setting the format as "Document template" which gtives a file extension of ".dot" with the name "Nisus New File.dot" in the folder user/Library/Application Support/Nisus Writer).
Or alternatively, in the Preferences, click New File in the toolbar, then the Advanced tab. You will then see Edit Nisus New File button, which edits the new file template. :)


Scott
MacBook Pro 15
2.66 Ghz Core i7
8GB RAM
10.8.3
NWP 2.0.4
iPad 3
greenjuice
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Joined: 2007-09-02 07:19:10

Post by greenjuice »

Thank both of you for good explanations :) Sometimes I think it's too granted that people will automatically understand the purpose of different features in a software. I can read the manual guide, no problem but sometimes I'd like to know more about the idea behind a certain feature.

Thanks,

Jonas
greenjuice
Posts: 6
Joined: 2007-09-02 07:19:10

The reason why I abandoned Mellel

Post by greenjuice »

scottwhitlock wrote:Hello Jonas and welcome to the forum. I think you'll find Nisus Writer's interface much easier to use than Mellel's (and much more pleasurable). Mellel is a powerful word processor, but it has one hell of a learning curve. NWP is just as powerful, but as intuitive as the Mac itself and tends to work with you rather than against you.

Scott
I hope so because I'm very very very tired by trying different word processors. I've tried AbiWord, MS Word, Mellel, OpenOffice Writer, Nisus Express, Atlantis, Google Docs, Buzzword and so on. It sounds like I look for a perfect word processor but it's not about it. I want a word processor that is easy to use and is for writers. Some word processors are too heavy too, that make my computers slowly.

I used Mellel when I wrote my first essay and it went well even it was difficult to adjust some "styles". But my tutor uses Mellel too so he helped me a bit. But it was 2 years ago now and many new features have been implemented in Mellel so I don't hang the development. For a couple of weeks ago when I started Mellel because I was going to write a paper. I should type in a header, but what the hell, I could'nt figure how to write in the header of the document. I lost my patience and start swearing. I asked myself - why should it be SO HARD to only type a simple header? I read the guide but it was too advanced so I lost my interest in Mellel.

Then I started Nisus Writer Express and there was a very very simple way to write in Header... But NWE was too simple, need to generate Toc, adjusting footnotes etc, so I upgraded to NWP. If it was not for NWP, then I would go back to MS Word.

I hope too that NWP has less learning curve than Mellel and MS Word.

greenjuice
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