Mystery retention of text in preview mode in Finder when cop

[mikegrace]

Hi

I don't understand why Nisus Writer Pro doesn't remove text from a copy of a file when I view it in Finder.

I write a lot of manuals helping me remember how to use software - and have developed only a few styles that suit me. As these are not the same as the basic styles loaded into every new Nisus document - I tend to copy an existing file with my styles, remove all the text, and write my new version. This works fine as far as the file is concerned when viewed in Nisus - but not in the preview view in Finder.

The preview in Finder (and the view if a press SPACEBAR) retains all the original text as well as the new - mixed in together. Normally this wouldn't matter - but I use a large title for each manual I write and identifying them in Finder is not possible as the old title is all that is visible (not the new one).

I have enclosed an example. The original file I copied from is called "Mike's Guide to Nisus Writer Pro" and the new one is "Mike's Guide to Converting Word Doc to RTF" and I replaced "Nisus Writer Pro" with "Converting Word Doc to RTF" in the copied file (as well as replacing the header and the text) - but the preview mode in Finder contains the original title plus the replaced part.

How do I remove the extra old text so it just shows the current content of the file?

Mike

[adryan]

G’day, Mike et al

I can’t replicate this behavior with the simplest of documents.

Just to be clear, what I did is:–

(1) Create a new Nisus document and type text "Mike's Guide to Nisus Writer Pro".
(2) Save the file as an RTF file with filename "Mike's Guide to Nisus Writer Pro".
(3) Finder preview shows "Mike's Guide to Nisus Writer Pro", as expected.
(4) Duplicate the file and set filename of the copy to "Mike's Guide to Converting Word Doc to RTF".
(5) Open the file and alter the text to "Mike's Guide to Converting Word Doc to RTF". (As expected, I got the same end result using Find/Replace as with direct text alteration.)
(6) Finder preview shows "Mike's Guide to Converting Word Doc to RTF", as expected.

If you didn’t do as I did, I wonder what complicating factor you have introduced.

The conflated text in your attachment looks like the sort of thing one might get from an ill-constructed Find/Replace expression. For example, using "(Mike's Guide to Nisus Writer Pro)" as the Find expression and “\1Converting Word Doc to RTF" as a PowerFind Pro Replace expression produces your result. Perhaps the original text is non-dissectable; eg, it came from Insert > Document Property > File Name. You can also see such things in buggy coding with HTML and CSS. But why it would look right in Nisus and not in the Finder is indeed a mystery. I am presuming the behavior persists through computer Restart and re-launching of Nisus Writer Pro.

Perhaps there is some peculiarity in your style definition that would be relevant in the location where the text replacement occurred, but I’m not sure what that could be. In attempting to debug this, it’s important to note that the Finder preview shows the contents of the document body and not the contents of the header.

Cheers,
Adrian

[mikegrace]

Hi Adrian

Aha - I think I may have discovered what I am doing that is causing this anomaly - although I still don't understand why.

First - thank you for the reply and for your clear explanation.

There was a slight difference between what you did and what I did - instead of duplicating the original document I used the 'Save Copy As ...' command in the menu - closed down the original and opened up the copy (which has the new filename already) before continuing. I just did this again, and noticed for the first time that the words "Export As" appear in the upper left of the 'Save as' box - so it seems the file is not copied but exported.

Why this should cause the retention of text in the preview mode in Finder is a mystery - but at least I now know how to avoid it in future.

Many thanks.

Mike

[mikegrace]

Just to add an addendum to my last post (in case anyone else is interested)

I have spent some time trying out different ways to copy files and discovered the problem lies with the title text. If I don't copy that over then the copy of the file behaves itself and is fine - if I do it copies over the double title and lots of other text as well - I have no idea why.

I am slowly replacing my Nisus files with new ones without the error - so all fine.

The way I have dealt with it for the future (although I understand this is not the only way to do it) is to create a template file containing the styles I want - and duplicating that before I start the new one. I just have to replace the title (the bit in large font) and the header - and off I go on a new manual. And it looks fine in Finder as well.

Mike

[jeab]

Hi Mike,

I get this behaviour when ‘Track Changes’ has been turned on. I don’t know if this is the reason why you are experiencing this, but if it is, then tracking can be toggled in Tools → Track Changes → Track Changes.

[mikegrace]

Hi Jeab

Thanks for the info - but that isn't the case for me. I have track changes switched off.

Since I stopped copying my Nisus files using 'Save Copy As' and changed to 'Duplicate' I haven't had any problems.

Mike