nisus.com

I am using NWP 2.1.3, and I am trying to print comments in my NWP documents. When I check “Include comments in PDF as annotations” in the print dialog, and I attempt to print them, they do not appear. This behavior occurs with any document that I try to print.

Unfortunately Nisus Writer Pro (NWP) cannot print comments– sorry about that. The option you found only includes comments when you save a PDF; it does not include the comments in a printout.

Thanks for clarifying. I was hoping the annotation capability would, in essence, allow me to view all comments in the PDF without clicking on each comment.

martin wrote:Unfortunately Nisus Writer Pro (NWP) cannot print comments

Hello Martin,

This is a big drawback, especially for teachers, who in this case must use Mellel if they want to print handouts with comments.
A comment, in this sense, can be an explication, a question regarding a certain passage in an official document (in history classes), unknown vocabulary, etc. This is a challenge teachers face every day.

Printed comments can also be very useful when giving a speech or holding a lecture.

I believe the ability to print comments in Nisus should receive a priority status.

Please take my vote for printing comments.

Þorvarður

jregan wrote:I am using NWP 2.1.3, and I am trying to print comments in my NWP documents. When I check “Include comments in PDF as annotations” in the print dialog, and I attempt to print them, they do not appear. This behavior occurs with any document that I try to print.

You can convert Comments to inline comments with this macro:
http://nisus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3955#p18405

Thanks for the feedback in this thread. We'll definitely consider our users' desire for this feature.

The command “Include comments in PDF as annotations” in the print dialog seems to promise exactly what I need to do, but it doesn't seem to work. Is there some other setting that has to be in place in order for this to work? Do I need to run that Macro to put the comments "in line"... I'm not sure exactly what that means? I want to save my documents as PDF files with the comments printed along the left margin - just the way it looks on the screen when I'm writing the comments. By the way, I'm using version 2.1.4, and I've got Yosemite on this particular computer...

Without the possibility, to print out comments, NWP is not a good text-writer also for all cases where workgroups have to correct texts: in parliaments, in synods, in school. I am wondering, that other programs could handle this. Is it so difficult to enable this in NWP?

This is easily done. User manual, Page 345.

Simply export your document as a PDF, using "export as PDF" under the file menu. Name it something temporary. Then, in Preview, open your saved PDF document. You will note lots of colored squares where your comments are. Move them if possible so they do not obscure the text. Some versions of Preview will allow you to change the color and opacity of these icons. These are "notes" and are your comments.

Print from Preview. In the print screen, there is a checkbox "Show comments." Check it. Viola, all your comments suddenly are printed in the left margin of the document. Go ahead and print. You can edit your notes too in Preview, but sadly this is a limited feature at the moment, in my opinion. If you have a sophisticated PDF editor you can do much more.


You can also do interesting things with call-out boxes in Nisus and a large left margin.

Hope this helps!

Thanks a lot, that totally works! I know I tried this before, a few months ago, but I must have missed a step somehow... maybe because when you select "Open PDF in Preview" the comments aren't included as they are when you select "Export as PDF" and then open the resulting file in Preview. Also, it doesn't seem possible to show each comment connected to a particular point in the text, as it appears in the Nisus screen display... or am I missing something on that too?

At least in my copy of Preview, the annotations printed on the side point to the corresponding square icon in the text. Move the icon where you want the comment to be and Preview draws a line connecting the comment to its icon.

Yes, when you select "open in preview" in the Nisus Print dialog it does not work. If you actually choose "Save as PDF" and also the "Include comments as Annotations", it will in fact generate the PDF with the comments.

However, the "Export as PDF" command does that as well and is easier, so that's the method I recommend.

The only drawback with this method is that Preview does not allow you to change the transparency of the note icon.... at least, Preview in El Capitan. Apparently other versions of Preview do allow you to do this.

Similarly, any PDF program that prints annotations should be able to do this, if you choose not to use Preview.

Yes... because the yellow boxes are opaque and therefore block out the text underneath, I moved the boxes to the margins and at that point they no longer connect each comment to an exact point in the text. Maybe I'll see if another PDF editor (or another version of Preview) allow you to return transparency to the yellow boxes...

It certainly makes for a cumbersome workflow, and I'm not sure why Nisus couldn't offer a print function that simply prints the comments exactly how you see them on the screen... I've been a loyal user of Nisus for quite a while now, and I recommend it partly because I've learned that you can do many surprising things with this application, and with so many features semi-hidden, you begin to think you should be able to do ANYTHING (at least within reason). Anyway, thanks again for your help!

I just checked, and PDFPenPro can indeed turn the boxes transparent, also it can append an "Annotation summary" at the end of the document. However, instead of along the left side, it places the note content at the bottom, as a footnote.

PDFPenPro is pricy though. If you have lots of PDF work to do, it's a fine product. (Except, of course, the never ending battle to get relative links into PDF file URLS.... but that's another issue for another day).

As for whether Nisus could do it? I'm on the fence as to whether a combination of the macro system and Applescript could do it. Not sure. In any case, I'm glad I could help!

By the way.... if it's really crucial, you may want to think about using the Callbox idea I posted earlier. Certainly more cumbersome, but no issues with random yellow boxes either. That would work too. It is essentially using a text box for each "comment" and anchoring it to the text being "commented."

I already own PDFPen so I could upgrade to the Pro version without spending too much... so that's good to know...

Cheers!

But why so complicated? Every writer-software which I know (Microsoft, Libre, Mellel) could print annotations and comments and corrections as seen on the display. This is obviously a function which is needed. Why not in NWP?