NW for iPad?

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ptram
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Re: "I spilled coffee on my beautiful Air."

Post by ptram »

jtranter wrote:You placed a one-dollar cup of coffee near your one thousand dollar laptop computer? Seriously??
It's something Americans do often. I've never understood why, since it is extremely dangerous and quite unhealthy. If you need a coffe, why not walking to the kitchen/common hall to have one? Maybe you will meet the girls of the other department, there.
fgvs
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by fgvs »

allenwatson wrote::? I can't understand why Nisus has not produced a version for IPad! The demand has been high for years.
OK, I'd like to add my vote here. I recently started using NWP and am quite impressed with its resourcefulness. It's got everything I need. EXCEPT, alas, for a couple things that turn out to be quite important to me. I had actually moved a paper in progress to NWP for the sheer pleasure of finishing it here, but had to move it back to Mellel because of these lacking features. They are:

1. A companion iPad app. For me, this is important not only when I'm on the move but also in that it allows me to tweak text, fine-tune passages, at unexpected times and places. Always having my text ready on the iPad, at a second's notice, turns out to be an incredible boost to productivity. Mellel has some notorious shortcomings, but the developers nailed this one right. Their iPad app is fabulous--it's fast, it synchs faultlessly, it includes many features, and--crucially--it does not mess with the OS X features it does not include yet.

I think it would be a shame if Nisus did not come up with an app for the iPad. This lack can adversely impact on users' workflow, and if you look around virtually all Mac word processors come with an iPad app these days. So it feels like Nisus is sleep-walking into a blind alley here... In any case, this is what keeps me from ditching Mellel for good and using NWP as my only and true word processor.

In practice: what would I need on the iPad? Basically, text formatting and styles, endnotes and footnotes. But I'd be happy with an app that would start with very basic features and would have features progressively added, as long as, from the outset, the iPad app didn''t mess with the features it doesn't support yet. AS long as, in other words, synch with the Mac NWP was seamless from the very start.

2. The second feature I think would be wonderful is Live Bibliography. I first used the feature with Endnote and Word on a PC many years ago, and I've been enjoying it with Mellel and Bookends on my Mac for a while now. It's especially useful when you're doing a paper that has a words limit that includes endnotes and references. With Live Bibliography, you always know where you stand and can act accordingly, with no extra fuss. Nisus plays very nicely with Bookends, I just wish Live Bibliography would the crowning feature of this synergy.

But, again, the lack of a companion iPad app is the reason why I can't commit to working full time in NWP--a pity...

Francisco
tedg
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by tedg »

I've been conflicted on this for some time. Asking for an iPad app is a big ask, and absolutely a money loser in the existing app ecosphere. It must be a tough enough business as it is maintaining one main product, and I would rather see new development in the Mac app.

I can think of two use cases. One is that I have some idea that I want to work on that will be part of a NWp document. This will have styles and perhaps indicators for cross-references, comments and so on. I'll want to write this and sent it to NWp, incorporating it painlessly. This case may involve me 'grabbing' some existing material from NWp for editing. The incorporation or re-incorporation would happen on the mac in NWp.

A second use case is what Mellel, Pages and Word are chasing: a full native Word Processing mode on iPad, potentially for large, complex documents.

Speaking for myself, I would be happy with a set of macros on Ulysses documents for the first use case.

And for the second? I don't know because my iPad4 is just used for kids' videos. When I buy an iPad Pro, I may be happy enough using one of the existing iOS word processors if the NWp round trip was perfect.
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greenmorpher
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by greenmorpher »

The iPad opportunity for Nisus is long gone -- the train left the station years ago. May as well let this topic die. :(

Cheers, Geoff
Collstep
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by Collstep »

greenmorpher wrote:The iPad opportunity for Nisus is long gone -- the train left the station years ago. May as well let this topic die. :(

Cheers, Geoff
Is there really no way for an iPad app? That's too bad. A lot of Nisus users also want to have this on the go.
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greenmorpher
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by greenmorpher »

Collstep wrote:
greenmorpher wrote:The iPad opportunity for Nisus is long gone -- the train left the station years ago. May as well let this topic die. :(

Cheers, Geoff
Is there really no way for an iPad app? That's too bad. A lot of Nisus users also want to have this on the go.
The time to develop an iPad/iPhone app was nearly a decade ago. Nisus elected not to go down that path for various reasons, the main one given at the time being its RTF format which was not supported by the "i" platforms, I believe.

Nisus is a wonderful WP in many respects and certainly all (and far more) than I need with one or two minor additions, but it is essentially just marking time now, it seems to me. For example, we have been waiting years for a table where we can specify the height of rows and width of columns -- and have that fixed. It's just not being developed like it was Nisus back in the day. I wonder whether Martin is the last man standing in the office.

Cheers, Geoff
jb
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by jb »

Maybe you're right, Geoff.
I'd like to think not, but can't make a good case for doing so.

Would love to have a good reason to give Nisus more money, if you know what I mean.
acb
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by acb »

Didn’t folks tell Apple it was too late for them to sell its own version of an MP3 player, way back when? ;-)

To view RTFs in iOS for free with good fidelity I found FileMaker Go (14) works. Use iTunes and drag the RTF file through that to sync it to iOS. I just happened to try it and it worked. I haven’t used it extensively but with modest files they seem to display perfectly fine. Besides not being able to edit the file, one can’t zoom in or out of RTFs, but at least you can read the document with styles applied.

I tried the Notability app but found it had trouble with RTFs from Nisus Writer Pro. This is a bummer since, otherwise, Notability allows for the direct editing those files as well as an RTF export option.

But of course if there was a Nisus Writer app, this would be moot.
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Elbrecht
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by Elbrecht »

Hi –

I am still with my "iPhone One" – so can't test anything RTF on iOS.
But I seem to remember "Mach Write" for OS X & iOS – Exporting to RTF/DOC/HTML/RTFD/TXT…

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ptram
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by ptram »

To just read RTF files on the iPad/iPhone, you can use Dropbox. Since you will probably use it to move the files from your Mac to the iDevice, the file is already there. Select it and see its content. Double-tap it to read it fullscreen.

Paolo
fgvs
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by fgvs »

At the moment, I'm content just having the wonderful capabilities of NWP on my Mac. As it happens, I use Scrivener for most of the heavy lifting in my writing process, and NWP basically comes into my workflow on the wrapping-up stage (or for writing short essays). Currently, Scrivener features a clever half-decent way to sync to Simplenote, which allows me to do a degree of editing on the iPad. I do lose character formatting in any paragraph I edit on the iPad, but otherwise the annotations and notes (and all the character formatting in untouched paragraphs) make the roundtrip intact, which is the main thing. And, of course, there is currently an iOS Scrivener app in beta testing.

So, as I said, I'm content with just having NWP as the overall heavy-duty word processor on my Mac. This said, I hear those of you who would be happy to have a reason to give Nisus some money and would hope that the development of NSW continues into the future. And, well, the developer of Scrivener seems on the verge of making some real money with the iOS app. So I wonder whether an iOS companion app for NW could not actually boost the company's profits. I'm supposing that it would be a simple app, just meant to make basic editing possible on the iPad without messing with the complex formatting features it might not support. Could a light iOS companion app be a feasible option?

Anyway, to my mind, iOS is great for consuming information but has clear limitations for productive purposes. OS X is required for serious writing, I think, so light companion apps is all I expect and need on the iPad.

Francisco
MichaelGli
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by MichaelGli »

I'm sure you're sick of this topic, but are there plans for an iPad Nisus?
I have an ongoing files issue that I need to solve so just knowing would be a help.
I am very impressed with Scrivener for iPad, they have achieved more than I would have thought possible, and I even have to grudgingly admit that Word on the Pad is OK,so maybe an iPad Nisus is becoming practical?
I think earlier comments about having missed the boat are wrong; as more and more people turn to pads, there are more boats.
JBL
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by JBL »

I too would love to be able to give Nisus some money for an iPad version. Maybe they should run a Kickstarter campaign.
However, if I can't get that, does anyone have suggestions for an iPad program that will read and write rtf without stripping out styles and other stuff Nisus puts in that it may not understand. That is, I don't care that much if documents aren't formatted correctly on the iPad as long as saving them on the iPad doesn't mess up the formatting back on my Mac.
MichaelGli
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by MichaelGli »

I too would give money to a Kickstarter for Nisus on the iPad.
glidagida
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Re: NW for iPad?

Post by glidagida »

I bought NW Pro as a replacement for Pages on my Mac. I have now also bought an iPad Pro and was generally disappointed at its usefulness for business. However, the most recent iOS has transformed the iPad into a helpful business tool. So I am looking for a full featured Word Processor for the IPad. My choices are Pages 4 on Mac (remove 5 and went back to 4) and Pages 5 on the iPad or Scrivener/Scrivener iPad. I would prefer a Nisus iPad app, and I do think it is the right time as a “Propperl” WP like Nisus now has greater appeal to business users like me.
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