![]() The usual suspects are all present: Smart quotes, the ability to save a file as a PDF, automatic hyphenation, tables, and such.Īlso worth noting is Nisus Writer Express’s continued support for RTF (rich-text format) as the default file format. This version of Nisus Express adds user-defined styles, footnotes, and endnotes (section or document). The number of LinkBack applications is quite limited now, but the project looks promising. Changes will automatically appear in the original document. LinkBack is an open source framework for Mac OS X that allows users to paste content from any LinkBack-enabled application into another and reopen that content later for editing by double-clicking it. Nisus supports LinkBack, a technology similar to that used by Microsoft to allow users to embed, for example, a piece of an Excel spreadsheet in a Word document. It’s taken a while for them to get to where they are, but I think the wait has been worth it. Nisus took some heat for starting from scratch instead of porting their classic version to OS X. And it’s a native (Cocoa) OS X application, so the look and feel are correct. But much is good, too.Īmong the unusual features is Nisus Writer Express’s support for right-to-left languages. If so, it’s not ready and shouldn’t be in the application. ![]() The only way I could get “Express?” was to allow the program to type “Expressed”, type the “?”, and then delete “ed”. What’s worse is this: The headline is “Remember Nisus Writer Express?” I would get to the end of “Express”, press the “?” key, and watch Nisus Express delete the “?” and insert “ed”. I’m not the world’s fastest typist, but I can work faster without this feature. By the time I look up at the list two or three times, I’ve wasted enough time that I could have just typed the word. But the constant motion on the screen is distracting. This sounds like it could save keystrokes, and it can. When I get enough of the word typed that Nisus knows what I want and highlights it, I can press enter. If I type “expr”, it may display “express” and several other words beginning with those 4 letters. It does this by displaying a drop-down list. When it’s turned on, Nisus tries to figure out what you’re going to say and complete the word for you. This is something that may have seemed like a good idea, but it’s a major annoyance. And one thing for the worse.įirst, turn off the auto-complete function unless you want the program to drive you to distraction. It’s currently at version 2.5 and the last time I reviewed the application, it was probably around version 1.0, so a lot has changed for the better. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Nisus Writer. You do get a decent word processor, though, and if you own any previous version of Nisus Writer Express, the upgrade to the current version is free. It’s not a “suite”, so you don’t get a spreadsheet program, an e-mail application, and a database manager. Nisus Writer Express is a Mac-only word processor that won’t compete with Microsoft Word when it comes to high-end features, but might be exactly what you need - depending on the kind of work you do.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |