Can I embedding a sound file in a documents?

[hannahdresner]

I have sound files I'd like to put into a document. I'd like them to be a part of the file itself. Can Nisus Writer Pro do this? How?

Thanks !

[martin]

Nisus Writer has no support for embedding sound files inside a document. What kinds of capabilities would you like to see?

[marc]

The ability to insert an audio file would be useful for adding voice notes to a document. As far as features are concerned, at least parity with how TextEdit handles embedded audio files; i.e. the QuickTime play bar is shown where the file was inserted in the document, and the user can interact with the play bar as normal.

In terms of annotating a file, I could imaging inserting an audio file into a NWP Comment, so as to not interfere with the printed results. To at least enable this scenario NWP could 'simply' utilise QuickTime for A/V support, but not provide an recording interface instead rely on shareware/freeware or QuickTime Pro for the recording.

[NisusUser]

I would like to embed audio (and video) in a work to be published to epub format. Apparently it's easy to do via InDesign (http://tv.adobe.com/watch/cs55-design-s ... ign-cs55-/), although I've not yet tried it. I really would much prefer to write in NWP, not InDesign. The ideal set up (I'm turning this into a feature request), would be the ability to include audio and video in NWP so it can be exported from NWP to ePub with no problem, but then have a nice way to turn it off (and delete the icons linking to the media) for paper print. But I may be being simplistic here …

[NisusUser]

Martin, Could this be bumped up on the feature request list? I see it's been over five years since the initial request. Any chance?

Anyone else who'd like to be able to embed media files in NWP want to chime in? The more votes the better!

Thanks.

[Shoolie]

I have just started using NWP and I'm quite surprised at this omission. It is an important feature for me, and its omission means that I cannot use NWP as my primary word processing app. I encourage Nisus to add it to NWP.

[Þorvarður]

Hello Shoolie,

You should send them directly feature requests using this link:

http://nisus.com/support/SubmitFeatureRequest.php

It is an important feature for me, and its omission means that I cannot use NWP as my primary word processing app.

Tell us why you need to embed sound files in documents.

If you are keeping the documents and sound files on the same machine, and by that I mean you don't need to send them to other people, then you can create links to sound and video files directly in Nisus, and you won't notice any difference other than the files will be opened and played in the program you determine in Finder. If, for example, you have told Finder to open .m4a files with VLC Media Player, then clicking on the link in NWP will open the file in VLC Media Player.

To do this you have to

1. Create a sound or video file with a program of your choice
2. Then you select the file in Finder and press Command + c to copy it
3. Now you go to your Nisus document and press Command + v to paste a hot link

The link will have the same name as the original file. If you want another name, you just right-click on the link and select "Edit Link…" and
override the file name by typing whatever text you find appropriate into the "Display text" field, and then click OK.

• You can place links to audio files everywhere in NWP, also into Comments.
• You can copy and paste links from one NWP document to another.


The only thing you have to be aware of is, that if you move the sound/video file, then the old file path in the link will not be valid anymore. So how to deal with that?

If you often use audio comments, then create a special folder for audio files, and keep all your audio comments in there. Don't ever move that folder.

If you do this, then Nisus will always find your audio files, and you won't have any problems.

Here is a scenario that shows how you can play music in NWP:

I. Select one or more music files in Finder
II. Press Command + c, and then paste the links into a Nisus document (I like to paste my music links into a small separate document which I drag around).
III. Save the doc with the music links, so you can use it over and over again.

This gives you much more flexibility than if you had just clicked on the files in Finder and let them be played in VLC.

To take this to the next higher level, create a Music glossary file.

Every time I type "mus", Nisus will automatically and instantly paste the following old Rolling Stones titles into my document:

Satisfaction
Paint It Black
19th Nervous Breakdown
Carol

1.png (76.98 KiB) Viewed 13151 times

This is how it looks like in the glossary file:

2.png (43.77 KiB) Viewed 13151 times

If you copy multiple audio/video files in Finder and then paste them in one go into Nisus, they will appear as a horizontal list in one long paragraph. I prefer to have the titles appear as a vertical list, each song on one line. In order to do that you can use the following macro. All you have to do then is to

1. copy the files in Finder
2. Switch to Nisus and run this macro

Code: Select all

Paste
Edit:Select:Select Paragraph
Find and Replace '(?:\b\w+\b), *', '\0\n', 'Esa'
Find and Replace ', ', '', 'Esa'

The macro will paste the links as a vertical list.


Was this helpful?

Þorvarður

[Shoolie]

Thanks for your detailed reply.

Tell us why you need to embed sound files in documents.
Þorvarður

RTFD is a convenient storage format that can hold multimedia and text, obviating the need for fragile links that break when constituent parts of the document are moved or inadvertently trashed.

I often research a topic and collect selected text and multimedia from web pages. I have developed Keyboard Maestro macros and AppleScripts that greatly automate the process of collecting content from a web page and creating an RTFD document in Bean. Then, if alI I need is text and images, I print to PDF and discard the RTFD document. If I need multimedia, I download the files and embed these files in the Bean RTFD document and save it.

There are drawbacks to using Bean: it crashes frequently; and while hyperlinks in a Bean document are clickable in a PDF, they are stripped of their hyperlink formatting and are transformed into plain-looking text that reveal themselves as hyperlinks only when hovered over in the PDF, so it's often a frustrating hunting expedition when referring to the PDF. And, Bean is no longer in development, so there is no prospect of getting these issues remedied.

NWP's PDF generation process retains hypertext links that are formatted as links, which is a great plus. However, not being able to embed multimedia renders NWP useless for such documents, and I must resort to Bean, with its own set of issues.

Since Bean is no longer in development, I petition for NWP to support embedded multimedia in its RTFD container. Thanks for the link for feature requests. I will drop them a note.

[Þorvarður]

If I need multimedia, I download the files and embed these files in the Bean RTFD document and save it.
There are drawbacks to using Bean: it crashes frequently

How about using TextEdit instead?

[Shoolie]

How about using TextEdit instead?

TE does not properly scale video embedded in an RTFD container. One can toggle Wrap to Page/Window to correct this, but coupled with TE's superfluous and confusing versioning system and its unwanted practices (such as silently storing unwanted and unneeded versions in hidden locations); NWP's more advanced layout features that I'd like to take advantage of; and the convenience of using only one app for creating research documents and for other basic WP needs, TE falls short. But thanks for the suggestion.

[Þorvarður]

TE does not properly scale video embedded in an RTFD container.

You are right, it seems TE displays the videos in the original size. But one can still Show Package Contents by right-clicking on the file and then play and scale them in any popular multimedia player. Not a very elegant solution though, I admit.

I still don't know why you need these files embedded. I do can imagine that this may be necessary if you are creating multimedia documents for publication, but you only mentioned that you are doing research and must collect text and multimedia from the web. If the primary purpose is to archive and retrieve interesting material, then programs like DEVONthink Pro Office may perhaps be a better choice for this kind of job. You can even archive a whole web page with just one mouse click. Just a thought…
http://www.devontechnologies.com/produc ... ffice.html

[Shoolie]

Show Package Contents by right-clicking on the file and then play and scale them in any popular multimedia player. Not a very elegant solution though, I admit.

Agree. This is exactly the kind of thing that I want to avoid having to do.

I still don't know why you need these files embedded.

As I previously wrote:

RTFD is a convenient storage format that can hold multimedia and text, obviating the need for fragile links that break when constituent parts of the document are moved or inadvertently trashed.

In addition, I seek to do using a supported app (Nisus) what I can now do using an app that is no longer supported (Bean), and to use Nisus' superior PDF generation capabilities, along with using only one supported app for my general word processing needs.

I do can imagine that this may be necessary if you are creating multimedia documents for publication, but you only mentioned that you are doing research

To me, the distinction is irrelevant.

programs like DEVONthink Pro Office

I use DTPO (for selected research documents, on a project-by-project basis), but the idea of using it as a digital dustbin to store fragmented assets just replicates the problems of using the file system as a digital dustbin to store fragmented assets. Whatever method is used for storing assets, grouping the assets in a container before storing greatly helps keep the database organized. In addition, not everything gets stored up in DTPO; some gets stored in the file system.

You can even archive a whole web page

Along with uninteresting and unnecessary content including advertisements, unrelated sets of "popular links" and "related links," and irrelevant comments, all of which skew DTPO's AI. One can use Printliminator to strip some of this garbage out of a web page prior to capturing its content, but this is a tedious and cumbersome process and subject to error, and does not work on all web content. One can also manually edit out this garbage, but this too is a tedious and cumbersome process and subject to error. The workflow that I have developed allows me to quickly capture content of interest from a web page or an email, along with relevant metadata, while eliminating garbage as much as possible, decreasing the amount of manual editing that must be done, all of which helps me create on-target, well-organized research documents with minimal effort and maximum speed. I use this workflow dozens of times every day.

Ay any rate, I have submitted an enhancement request (thanks again for the link) referencing this discussion. Support for RTFD is not unheard of in a word processor. I hope that Nisus will schedule the enhancement, which I believe would bring much more utility and versatility to Writer Pro.