Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!gdavis From: gdavis@primate.wisc.edu (Gary Davis) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Nisus w/footnotes ships Message-ID: <803@uakari.primate.wisc.edu> Date: 28 Sep 89 00:47:10 GMT References: <25419@santra.UUCP> Sender: news@primate.wisc.edu Reply-To: gdavis@primate.wisc.edu Lines: 65 > > I use FullWrite Pro and always use style sheets instead of choosing the styles > directly from the style menu. I usually write the text with a more legible > font and then change the sheets so that I get a smaller font for printing. > > Style sheets allow me to experiment with the look of my documents. I often > have two styles that look the same, but have different names. I can then > change the other style (maybe underline it) if I want them to be different. > You can't do this with Nisus styles. > > | Juri Munkki jmunkki@hut.fi jmunkki@fingate.bitnet I Want Ne | Actually you can do it with Nisus styles. If you apply a user defined style to text, then edit the definition of the style, all the text formatted with it is changed to the new format. The change happens a lot faster in Nisus as well, but then everything is faster in Nisus than in FullWrite. The very flexible search and replace in Nisus, with grep and style sensitivity, also means you can easily do a lot of reformatting in cases where you haven't planned ahead with style sheets or where you're working on text from someone else. It is true, however, that Nisus styles only control character formats; they don't include paragraph formatting. As someone mentioned previously, you can fake full style sheets by setting up a macro which pastes in a paragraph ruler and applies a user defined character style. Text formatted in this way can also be changed globally. As I mentioned the character style sheet can be edited, and Nisus has means of changing all rulers cloned from a particular ruler. It's fairly easy to do this kind of thing in Nisus, though it's admittedly a bit of a kludge compared to full style sheets. But, then, a lot of people find the style sheets in Word a bit kludgy too, or at least less than intuitive. I've tried all the Mac word processors, except Word Perfect, and for my purposes Nisus is the best. It still lacks some features that I would like to see such as full style sheets and the ability to write files in Word or MacWrite format. The only way to get output in a format other than Nisus' is to go through the MacWrite clipboard. Paragon claims to be adding these features in the next release. Another feature lacking is a table generator as in Word. Even though that's clearly a nice convenience, I can still make tables in Nisus with a flexibility I sometimes need which is lacking in Word. With Nisus as with other word processors, you have to set up tables with tabs, but you can then draw right over the text using the built in graphics layer. For the tables I make I often need to draw lines or arrows between various values in the table in order to point out statistical comparisons. As far as I know with Word, you can only have lines as borders between cells. One reason I bought FullWrite back when it was still vapor was because I thought that a built-in drawing environment implied that you could draw right on the text. I was quite disappointed to find that FullWrite's drawing environment was little more than a built-in DA. Though setting up a table with multiple rulers and tabs, then drawing borders, etc, is time consuming, once it's done I can just copy it and paste it in the glossary (the text and graphics layers go together). If I need a table with the same format, then, I can just get it out of the glossary and edit the text and entries. I seem to be apologizing for Nisus' limitations, though of course I like it for its many neat features. I could go on and on about them, and maybe I will when I have more time. Gary Davis