Expert’s Rating
Pros
Cons
Our Verdict
As I do work on this recap and reacquaint myself withNisus Writer Pro , again and again I write a eminence about something I think Nisus Writer Pro could n’t do , and again and again I discover that I was wrong . Here ’s the executive summary : Nisus Writer Pro is a word processing power putz . This power does want a bit of effort to master , but compared toMicrosoft Word ( ) , Nisus Writer Pro is remarkably user friendly .
Big sis, little sis
Nisus Writer Pro has a little sister , Nisus Writer Express . The version numbering is confusingly out of sync , but Nisus Writer Pro 2 incorporate exactly the same basic redaction features chance in Nisus Writer Express 3.4 .
I ’ve talk about the canonical redaction features common to both programs in my limited review ofNisus Writer Express ( ) . In this review , I ’ll concentrate on some of Nisus Writer Pro ’s advanced feature film .
Power find and replace
I tell a little about this in the Nisus Writer Express review but I want to expand on this , as it ’s one of the really distinctive features of Nisus Writer and something that Nisus Writer Pro drug user in particular truly may find utilitarian . Nisus Writer Pro has not one but three find and replace modes : Normal Find , PowerFind , and PowerFind Pro . Normal Find is what you ’d expect , the basic discovery you have in Apple’sPages ( ) or TextEdit — to find “ Texas ” in the document , you look for “ Texas ” . Using PowerFind or PowerFind Pro is a whole ‘ nother ball secret plan . These tools let you make complicated finds by using markers that indicate thing like place , number of fourth dimension some letter or discussion is replicate , and so on . Say you desire to discover places in your schoolbook where “ Texas ” is followed by a zipper codification , so you could right those address to apply the two - alphabetic character abbreviation for the state ( “ TX ” ) . Using PowerFind Pro and a engineering science called “ regular reflexion , ” you ’d front fortexas ( ( d){5 } ) , which means “ find ‘ texas ’ , then a block of schoolbook start with a space and follow by five numbers in a row . ” And you ’d replace it withTX1 , which mean “ TX ” followed by everything found by the first pair of aside in the find expression ( that is , the space and the five numbers ) . This would fix the problem in a 200 - pageboy document in a second or two .
Neat trick , if you know how to do it . But most of us do n’t and regular aspect can be dash — there are long , challenging books on the subject . Now , basic regular expressions like the example above are fairly easy . The Nisus Writer Pro substance abuser manual bring home the bacon a pretty good acknowledgment scout on the depicted object , if you want to learn . But Nisus Writer Pro make it a little easier by giving you a direction to construct your find using menus . Pictured below is the Find / Replace duologue using PowerFind Pro and a ceremonious veritable expression .
index Find professional : Nisus Writer Pro abide regular expressions , a technology for fix complex discovery in textual matter documents . you could type your regular reflection into the find and replace field if you know how to , or you could use the drop - down menus sequester to the gear icons to get avail from a carte du jour . Even with the help , this is an advanced pick and making utilisation of it take a little cogitation .
Power Find Pro: Nisus Writer Pro supports regular expressions, a technology for defining complex finds in text documents. You can type your regular expression into the find and replace fields if you know how to, or you can use the drop-down menus attached to the gear icons to get help from a menu. Even with the help, this is an advanced option and making use of it involves a little study.
And here ’s what the dialog front like if you ramp up it in average PowerFind ( not PowerFind Pro ) .
PowerFind : The regular PowerFind feature in Nisus Writer Pro let you build even formulation using construction blocks that are slightly less abstractionist than a conventional regular manifestation .
It might not be obvious , but take it from someone who ’s shake off himself at Jeffrey Friedl ’s excellentbook on Regular Expressionsseveral time , with minimal burden : Using Nisus Writer Express ’s PowerFind feature film is great . The tip , however , is that the power is there for the taking , and Nisus Writer Pro almost makes it sluttish .
PowerFind: The regular PowerFind feature in Nisus Writer Pro lets you build regular expressions using building blocks that are slightly less abstract than a conventional regular expression.
More power to you
I work up a merge letter of the alphabet in Nisus Writer Pro and yield the output as individual PDFs ( one per letter ) in about two minutes , drawing addresses from my Address Book , and I did n’t have to consult the users point . Entering the merge field in Pages was equally gentle but it adopt me a little longer to figure out how to generate the end product . And Pages lack the option to yield a number of independent output files .
Giving unlike numbering streams to elements in a data file ( mesa 8 , Figure 37 , Figure 38 , Table 9 , Figure 39 , Table 10 … ) was one of those things that I think at first Nisus Writer Pro could n’t do . Well , it can , although sort this out require an electronic mail to Nisus sustenance followed by a thrifty look at the documentation . plant up an exponent is jolly straightforward .
Outline : Nisus Writer Pro offers a dash - based “ table of contents ” pane that shows the structure of your text file in schema data formatting . The table of contents scene is editable — you could drag a drift to a different position and content underneath it will follow . And the pane doubles as a quick style of navigating through a long written document .
Outline: Nisus Writer Pro offers a styles-based “table of contents” pane that shows the structure of your document in outline format. The table of contents view is editable—you can drag a heading to a different position and content underneath it will follow. And the pane doubles as a quick way of navigating through a long document.
Nisus Writer Pro does n’t have the same sort of outline view that Pages and Word have , the kind where the lineation grows organically into the final text file . This could be a problem for some user . Nisus Writer Pro ’s approaching — a particular precis pane that shows headings only — is good enough for me and less of a scuffle to use . you may move headings and the schoolbook below them around easily by dragging the heading in the Table of Contents pane , also screw as the Navigator . It get you see the outline and your factual text simultaneously , and the Navigator makes it a breeze to skip over from chapter 14 to chapter 2 of a long document .
The force of Nisus Writer Pro ( and Nisus Writer Express ) is extend by a small program library of macros , including one that converts footnotes to consistence text ; another that copies email addresses from a papers and place them in a freestanding list ; and a muckle of macro that perform maths calculations on table column and rows . I regret to add that write your own macros is not as easy as I would like .
Share and share alike?
There is another sort of sharing : Sharing with your iPad . Nisus Writer Pro does not have a counterpart for the iPad . I was able-bodied to export a Nisus Writer Pro in Word ( .doc ) data formatting , move it to my iPad and edit it in Pages .
(Mostly) picture perfect
Nisus Writer Pro does a fabulous task do by text in almost every style you may think of . It handles pictures and graphics , too , and reasonably well , most of the time . I had occasional problem see out why a picture would n’t stay put . While I ’d in person require to test Nisus Writer Pro even more thoroughly before using it to compose a leger containing lots of nontextual matter , it worked well enough for me in the light documents that I create in it .
Macworld’s buying advice
[ William Porter is a database developer and lensman who hold up and works in Dallas , Texas , with his wife , daughter , dogs and cats — every last one of them female . ]
Track Changes: Nisus Writer Pro’s change tracking and comments features will be familiar to anyone who’s used the same features in Pages or Microsoft Word. Nisus Writer Pro places comments and changes on different sides of the document for clarity.
