What to do about Word's track changes feature?

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lawrencegoodman
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What to do about Word's track changes feature?

Post by lawrencegoodman »

My colleague just sent me a Word document in which she'd tracked changes. I opened it up in Nisus and both the original and the changed version were joined together--in other word a mess.

Is there nothing that can be done?

Thanks.
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martin
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Post by martin »

If she saves the file as an RTF then all but the current revision should be marked with a "Deleted" style. You could then select all this older content and remove it.
TommyW
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Post by TommyW »

It might be worth getting a copy of iWork 08 to deal with this...

It's a very low price for three great apps. And you can still use NWPro for your main writing, Pages would be an able page layout partner for it.
Derick
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Post by Derick »

Or OpenOffice. I really like NWP but the need to track changes on co-authored documents is keeping it from being my sole WP solution on the mac.
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joehardy
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Post by joehardy »

TommyW wrote:It might be worth getting a copy of iWork 08 to deal with this...

It's a very low price for three great apps. And you can still use NWPro for your main writing, Pages would be an able page layout partner for it.
Or save some money and find a copy of iWork 06 because that version of Pages also does track changes back and forth with Word 2004 documents.

I don't know why Apple is promoting this as a new feature.

But then I don't know why Apple bothered to release either iWork or iLife 08.
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scottwhitlock
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Post by scottwhitlock »

Joe,

iWork '06 did not include Track Changes, only comments. Track Changes is a different thing, which tracks all deletions, additions, and changes to the document by each user.

I must admit, all of the suite got a nice update, and Numbers is nice. I've been using it pretty exclusively for the last couple of days. Pages now feels like a word processor, Keynote has always been a much better alternative to PowerPoint, and Numbers makes me forget that Excel ever existed.

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joehardy
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Post by joehardy »

scottwhitlock wrote:Joe,

iWork '06 did not include Track Changes, only comments. Track Changes is a different thing, which tracks all deletions, additions, and changes to the document by each user.

I must admit, all of the suite got a nice update, and Numbers is nice. I've been using it pretty exclusively for the last couple of days. Pages now feels like a word processor, Keynote has always been a much better alternative to PowerPoint, and Numbers makes me forget that Excel ever existed.

Scott
You're right about the track changes feature.
But the TOC feature is not compatible when exported to either Word .doc format or to RTF to be opened in NWP.
And the file size is enormous.
A 224 K file in NWP or in Word balloons to 412 in Pages.
I haven't played too much with Numbers (using the downloaded demo) but I mostly use excel for basic grade records for my classes, not high tech spreadsheets.
I prefer Keynote to PowerPoint but I also prefer than neither program had ever been invented. (I think nuclear weapons and PowerPoint were the too most destructive inventions of the 20th century.)
Still pondering if it's worth the $71 (educational price) investment.
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scottwhitlock
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Post by scottwhitlock »

joehardy wrote:But the TOC feature is not compatible when exported to either Word .doc format or to RTF to be opened in NWP.
I have had no problems with getting TOC created in Pages to export to Word. As a matter of fact, .doc to Pages and back to .doc has been pretty seamless. Pages, on the other hand, does NOT do a good job with .rtf, which is ironic, because it is the one file format they didn't really have to reverse engineer (unlike the .doc and .docx, both of which are read very well in Pages). This is one of the few drawbacks for Pages for me, because of Endnote/Bookends compatibility requiring an .rtf file to turn temp citations into perms. This is why I will always use NWP for some kinds of writing, like articles and books where I have to maintain citations. However, for document creation, Pages, imo, really can't be beat.

The comments and track changes also translate seamlessly between Word and Pages, the only Mac native program other than Word that seems to be able to do this. And the three or four .docx files I have thrown at Pages seems to open without a hiccup. I do believe that, outside of NeoOffice, Pages does the best job at opening Word documents. And exporting them.
joehardy wrote: I haven't played too much with Numbers (using the downloaded demo) but I mostly use excel for basic grade records for my classes, not high tech spreadsheets.
And this is where Numbers shines. Excel was never good for grade keeping, because you get bound up by the grid. Numbers allows you to think outside of the grid. It is everything I have ever wanted in a spreadsheet app. It allows me to keep two different tables on one sheet and have separate formatting for both while allowing me to reference each in formulas. You can drop charts and images and everything else and Numbers handles it with aplumb.

I really enjoy iWork '08. I was at the Apple Store the day it came out and probably bought the first copy. Does Pages replace NWP when I'm writing an article? Never. Does Pages do a much better job at making class documents, though, like handouts with graphics, charts, and docs such as syllabi and others? I would have to say yes. I just pretend that iWork '08 has one more program, and that program is NWP. And with them all, I can finally say good riddance to Microsoft. And anything that allows me to do that is perfectly fine in my book.

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joehardy
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Post by joehardy »

scottwhitlock wrote: I just pretend that iWork '08 has one more program, and that program is NWP. And with them all, I can finally say good riddance to Microsoft. And anything that allows me to do that is perfectly fine in my book.

Scott
That's a good way to put it. Pages is improved (in speed, especially) over Pages 2 but I'll stick with NWP for article writing and for lots of other documents.
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maccam
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Track changes

Post by maccam »

I concur with Derrick on this. Track changes for coauthored papers is the number one feature in Word, which is missing from NWP. A MSW compatible track-changes feature would be very welcome. I have also ordered iWork 08 to test track-changes compatibility in Pages. My number 2 request for NWP is better Endnote integration. Number 3 would be ODF format support (not urgent).
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Re: What to do about Word's track changes feature?

Post by Sascha Erni »

Sorry for digging up this rather old thread, but what’s the official word on Track Changes in NWP?

As is right now, I send in RTFs to my editor and can work with the comments she sends me back, but the other changes she did using “Track Changes” … well.

Unfortunately, Pages doesn’t display either (changes or comments) in RTF documents, so I can’t use it for the editorial cycle, either – unless I open the Nisus RTF in Pages, export it (after some editing, as Pages really doesn’t like RTF) to Word and then continue collaborating with my editor in Pages.

How do others deal with this?

Cheers,
-Sascha
Derick
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Re: What to do about Word's track changes feature?

Post by Derick »

I gave up and bought Microsoft Office during the pre-release promo. With the rebate they were offering it was like $50. I just use Word when I need to deal with co-authored stuff. Fortunately I've finished my main co-authored project (coming out from Routledge one week from today! woohoo!) so I don't need to deal with it very often.
thewolfgang
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Re: What to do about Word's track changes feature?

Post by thewolfgang »

I'm at the same point, helping several novelists polish their final drafts before submitting to the publishers. As much as I understand the situation, it's infuriating that there seems to be no ideal solution. In my experience, all of the MS products, or the open source clones, are prone to crashes. Pages is really far short of what it needs to be to compete with the really elegant products like NWP and Scrivener. And yet neither NWP or Scrivener provide this absolutely indispensable feature. Having to go through hoops in the hopes that it won't screw up somewhere along the way is insane. I vaguely remember how simple it was when I was using XyWrite - super fast, super customizable. But that's just a distant, probably distorted fantasy. And the improvements since then in 99% of the areas have been, and continue to be, stunning.

I just want to take my hat off one more time to NWP. Whatever its imperfections, it qualities are one of the glories of the software industry.

Many thanks,

Laurence
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Jester
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Re: What to do about Word's track changes feature?

Post by Jester »

*revives thread*

Has this feature been added? I edit a lot of texts, so this would be a wonderful feature to have. I don't mind paying for it, either.

If I have a Word document with the changes, I'd have to save it in RTF; then it should look fine in Nisus right?
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Jester
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Re: What to do about Word's track changes feature?

Post by Jester »

I want Track Changes for Nisus, please.
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