Nisus has been pretty much the same in how it works on screen since the development of the OSX versions. Express is a reduced version, Pro does all the things like chapters, ToC etc. There are often special offers, and a family licence costs (I think) $70 at non-reduced prices. I haven't paid for an upgrade in several years.
What's also nice is that way you can customise your controls. Nisus pioneered this, together with multiple clipboards, unlimited undos etc. I find it tidy, elegant, and very easy to use. Of course, I do have some practice with it. I wouldn't touch LaTeX with a barge pole: there's no reason wp should be hard, the intention is to help us concentrate on our writing. Horses for courses. Ranulph On 13 Mar 2011, at 17:56, Patrick James wrote: > > On 13 Mar 2011, at 16:55, Jason Davies wrote: > >> I think there is a bigger problem here: WPs rely on WYSIWYG processes >> (choosing fonts, styles etc) that have no easy way to organise. You try to >> find ways that make sense but eventualyl you break down to a situation where >> you 'just have to know the programme'. Then they change them with different >> versions... Thus going to the new version of Word (2011), I looked >> everywhere for the zoom (formerly a percentage value at the top) and >> eventualyl saw a slider at the bottom. A slider is hopeless for fine-tuning. >> That's an example: when you add features, how do you do so? Bloat is >> inherent to WPs, if you ask me. Then you have to have a file format that >> allows for a) recovery from corruption b) transparent reading. > > I think that you over-empahisis this problem with the "WYSIWG" processes. It > is a bit irritating if developers change the design of the program interface > on upgrades, but in truth it is minor stuff. > > I have been using Pages for a long time now to do all word processing and it > has been a consistent interface for years. > >> >> There are roughly two alternatives that *work*, which are based on readable >> formats (ie mark-up languages). >> >> 1) LaTeX >> 2) HTML/XML variants >> >> These rely on an expert user who can cope with mark-up language. When >> something goes wrong with LaTeX, it's because you have configured it wrong >> (whereas Word will 'guess' wrong a lot of the time, it's inherent to >> something that relies on hidden values such as 'what is the default font and >> style when I type *here*) >> >> HTML got buggered up by Internet Explorer being non-standard but hopefully >> that era is behind us now as MS finally have web browsers installed that >> *actually read the file formatting in the way it was intended*. > > They are working towards this :), the era is not behind us totally. > >> To my mind, it's like manual vs automatic cars (where manual allows for more >> efficiency and control and 'real drivers' wouldn't be seen dead in an >> automatic), with the difference that the illusory 'ease of use' has won the >> argument for most people. I think that's the shame and it was MS who took us >> there. They could have taught users to respect what they were doing, as it >> were. >> >> So we are doomed to a suite of WPs that struggle to organise endless >> palettes, views, styles etc etc into a coherent way that ultimately relies >> on the user getting familiar with it. If they are simple, they cannot be >> powerful, if they are powerful, they cannot be intuitive (unless 'intuitive' >> is taken to mean 'what I have been doing for ten years and coping with'). > > I think that Pages represents a good compromise as did Word 5.1, which I > remember very well using. > >> But if you care about your documents, you won't be using Word. You probably >> won't be using a WP at all... > > With Pages or any competent word processor you can create excellent looking > documents fairly easily. > > I think you are over playing this a bit :) > > The WYSIWYG approach to document creation is one of the things that makes a > Mac a Mac. I remember very well when Macs first arrived and the WYSIWYG word > processing capability was stunning at that time. > >> My dream -- apps drawing on a LaTeX typesetting engine to render text. >> Currently, probably requires too much CPU to render on the fly:( > > But why use LaTeX ? > > Currently RTF is extremely powerful. The OSX version of Nisus Writer saves in > RTF and you can open those up with a text editor and easily modify them if > you learn the RTF markup. > > At the end of the day people do not want to learn markup languages to format > documents. > > They left that behind in 1984. > > If they do want a WYSIWYG program that uses accessible markup then RTF is > there and has been for years. > > The good WYSIWYG programs are quite superb > > I think Pages gives an excellent compromise of ease of use and power. > > Patrick > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Sussex Mac User Group" group. > To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/smug?hl=en-GB. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sussex Mac User Group" group. 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