Tracking Changes and Comments . . .

[goldste4]

Hello All,

First, thanks for NWP2, a bunch of very nice additions and refinements. I just had a couple of questions about the tracking changes and comment features:

• Is there anyway to change the default font and size of the text in the comments and tracking changes? I seem to recall in the last version there was but can't seem to find it in NWP2? (I think someone had asked this question earlier, but I didn't catch the answer.)
• Is there some way to differentiate between an author's comments and tracking changes? When you have a whole bunch of tracking changes revisions in a paragraph and comments in there also, it becomes virtually impossible to distinguish between the revisions and the comments by tracing the little lines back to their respective 'bubble' in the tracking changes or comments pane. I was thinking of the ability to set the colour of the author's comments and tracking changes separately — right now it seems that both are set to the comment colour — or to have the border of the 'bubble' around the comment/tracking change be different (dashed vs. solid line?). I realize, of course, that one can show and hide the comments and tracking changes individually as a work around, but it would still be nice to know what is what at glance.
• If you set the colour of the comments/tracking changes to something darker (say, so that you can better see the lines connecting the bubbles in the comments/tracking changes pane to the text) it would be nice if text in the bubbles in the comment/tracking changes pane would automatically switch from black to white so that there is sufficient contrast to read the content of the bubble. As it stands now, colours that are dark enough to make the lines stand out sharply are too dark to make the (black) text readable. (Side note: the smart fading of the bubbles is a great idea).
• Is there anyway to have the tracking changes display on the screen in the same way as it does when you have 'Review Changes' on with 'Markup additions and deletions' checked? In other words, can we make NWP2's tracking changes look like MSWord's tracking changes if we want?

Great program, and very happy with the update.

Thanks,
Josh

[rmark]

Josh,

Thank you for your positive comments and good questions.

I hope I can help clarify some matters you raise.

Is there anyway to change the default font and size of the text in the comments and tracking changes? I seem to recall in the last version there was but can't seem to find it in NWP2? (I think someone had asked this question earlier, but I didn't catch the answer.)

When you first add a comment Nisus Writer Pro adds a new "Comment" Paragraph Style based on your Normal style (unless your Nisus New File already has a Comment style in it).
When you make a change, Nisus Writer Pro displays that changed text in the Style (with the attributes) in which it appears in the document. Or, if you only change the attribute(s), a bubble (or bubbles) indicating that attribute appears in the change annotation.

Is there some way to differentiate between an author's comments and tracking changes? When you have a whole bunch of tracking changes revisions in a paragraph and comments in there also, it becomes virtually impossible to distinguish between the revisions and the comments by tracing the little lines back to their respective 'bubble' in the tracking changes or comments pane. I was thinking of the ability to set the colour of the author's comments and tracking changes separately — right now it seems that both are set to the comment colour

At this time, both Comments and Changes have the same "Author" color set in Nisus Writer Pro > Preferences/Appearance/Comments. We are considering separating these, but that will take more work and we did not want to delay release for this. In the meantime, you can keep your Comments pane on one side of the document (Tools > Comments > Comment Display Options/Show pane on…) and your Tracked Changes pane on the other (Tools > Track Changes > Tracking and Display Options/Show pane on…).
You can also change the opacity of the annotations in that window.

If you set the colour of the comments/tracking changes to something darker (say, so that you can better see the lines connecting the bubbles in the comments/tracking changes pane to the text) it would be nice if text in the bubbles in the comment/tracking changes pane would automatically switch from black to white so that there is sufficient contrast to read the content of the bubble.

This would take considerably more work. We'll look into it.

Is there anyway to have the tracking changes display on the screen in the same way as it does when you have 'Review Changes' on with 'Markup additions and deletions' checked? In other words, can we make NWP2's tracking changes look like MSWord's tracking changes if we want?

This also would take a good deal more examination. We'll add it to the hopper.
Again, thank you for your comments and suggestions. I hope I've been able to clarify the options a bit.

[goldste4]

Hi Martin,
Thanks, as usual, for the quick and thorough reply.
Josh

[martin]

Those replies were actually from my colleague Mark, but either way, I'm glad you're happy with his answers and NWP's update!