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Posted: 2007-09-19 00:06:41
by scottwhitlock
ncollingridge wrote:I don't think I'm in the slightest bit being defensive. It's more that I don't agree with the reply you made to my post and I'm saying so. I don't know how you construe that as being defensive.

For some reason I don't think you're seeing the constructive side of my comments - nothing is perfect, even Nisus Writer, and I am trying to identify an aspect of the product which could be enhanced to improve its prospects in the marketplace.

I think it would be great if Nisus would make these small changes to take advantage of this.
If you can't see why that previous reply was defensive, I have no hope of explaining to you why it was. But, one more response, which I promise is not an attack, and then I'm done.

Do you think that Nisus hasn't thought of Word compatibility? Or that you're the first person to broach the topic? Or, that maybe, there are some pretty good reasons that they haven't implemented these "better ways" that you speak of? And do you think if it were a small change, say simply substituting OpenOffice's conversion engine for AbiWord's, they wouldn't simply implement it? Do you have an insight into their code that no one else does? Do you think they're simply holding out on us for spite? Of course not.

I see the constructive side, just want to remind you that this has been discussed before, and there have been responses on this very forum about why things were done the way they were done that make pretty good sense (economic, code, or otherwise).

Offering you a workaround is not making excuses for a program. We tend to be helpful people around here, many of whom have been using this program for years and have encountered many of the problems new users face. I took a day when I first converted to NWE and resaved all of my files (over 500 of them) into RTF from Word, and I've never had to do it again since. It was a very small price to pay. From there on, I required my students to send me files in RTF only rather than .doc. Of course, not everyone has this much control over their senders, and I recognize that. That's why it is not for everyone.

We love the program and continue to use it for a reason, and often that reason is that its Word compatibility, especially in that it uses RTF as its native format (which can be read by Word natively), is good enough for us and its flaws in translation are a small price to pay in order to work with a program that is well thought out, responsive, and works with you instead of against you. This, once again, doesn't mean that it is for everyone. If you need your files (especially your Word files) to look the same across platforms, then really, Microsoft Word is the better choice. I don't think anyone at Nisus, or even its loyal users, would argue that.

Most of us who have stuck with the program all of these years have made the decision that the compatibility issue is not that big of a deal to us, and you have to make that decision as well. If it is too big of hurdle to jump, and the thought of using a Microsoft product makes you sick, I would suggest once again that you try Pages, because it does a very good job of translating Word files back and forth, as you would expect from a program backed by one of the top five richest computer companies. Or even NeoOffice, although I would rather cut my head off than use that program.

Good luck on finding some sort of solution,

Scott

Posted: 2007-09-19 00:41:55
by ncollingridge
I leave it to others to judge who's being defensive in this discussion (if anyone really cares). But you may choose to look at a dictionary to better understand what the word means. And you may also need some counselling in anger management if your second paragraph is typical of your style. Why so aggressive? And I'm really interested that you feel that you can speak so strongly on behalf of Nisus in these respects - do they really take such a strident approach to the issue?

But I get the idea - I'm just silly for wanting Nisus Writer to do a better job of being a Word replacement and I should just go away if that's important to me. You don't want me here and Nisus don't want me as a customer. They've got plenty of loyal users who love the product exactly as it is and don't want it to change, at least not in this respect. Just think, if the product DID work better as a Word replacement you may get lots of new customers, and that would spoil the cosy clique you feel that you're a part of. I do understand. Really.

Posted: 2007-09-19 00:57:37
by scottwhitlock
Good luck, :)

Scott

Posted: 2007-09-19 19:36:55
by dshan
If you want Nisus to improve their Word compatibility why don't you do as I suggested earlier and send them some of the Word docs you have that don't convert properly? Have you ever opened a support case on this issue?

In my experience Nisus are always ready to improve the operation of their product and they've made several improvements to the Word translator in the past as a result of customer feedback (you are far from the first to raise the issue). Complaining that it doesn't work for you is easy, how about you do something constructive about it?

Posted: 2007-09-20 07:30:54
by ncollingridge
I have now done this and llok forward to their response. Although I have to say that I would have thought that headers and footers should have come through the current translator without me having to bring the issue up. It's not as if they're an obscure feature!

Also the fact that I'm far from the first to raise this issue surely tells us something about the focus it should receive.

ANd I did think I was doing something constructive by posting to this forum about the issue rather than just going back to using Word without trying to raise the issue, which is what most people probably do!

Posted: 2007-09-25 01:24:50
by ncollingridge
No response at all from Nisus after five days...

Posted: 2007-09-29 01:41:12
by ncollingridge
Still no reply to my support enquiry after nine days. Seems like that wasn't the right way to address the issue after all, despite the encouragements to do so...

Posted: 2007-09-29 13:52:36
by dshan
ncollingridge wrote:Still no reply to my support enquiry after nine days. Seems like that wasn't the right way to address the issue after all, despite the encouragements to do so...
Not at all, it was exactly the right way to address the issue. Nisus now have an official record of your problem and supporting files they can use to reproduce the behaviour. How long it will take for them to investigate the issue and get back to you I have no idea (you're not the only customer requiring support remember), but you have now reported the problem the right way and stand the best chance of having something done about it.