The deal-killer
Posted: 2005-10-17 12:53:16
In an effort to keep my new G5 Microsoft-free, I've been messing with the Nisus demo. I love the GUI and how styles are handled, appreciate the use of RTF, and think that the programmers and community here are really great. No other Word alternative has appealed to me as much as Nisus.
However...
Yesterday I was working on a simple document. My need was for a two-column document in which certain paragraphs had a column-wide border at the top to separate sections of the text.
First off, I realized that Nisus could not add borders to paragraphs. Ack! So, I figured using a table could be a workaround, with each section of content in a separate cell, each cell with a top border. Sure, this meant no wrapping to the next column, but I was going to at least give it a shot.
So, I drew a table with four cells and inserted it at the beginning of the first column, above what I had already typed. When I would drag existing copy to a cell, the remaining copy would slide upwards... BEHIND the table (and thus invisible). I then had to grab the table and drag it upwards (though it had nowhere to go, so it stayed put) to make the text beneath slide back down where I could see it. This would happen every time I would drag copy into a table cell.
Then, in moving copy to the third cell, Nisus crashed, i.e., "unexpectedly quit." It's been a while since I've seen an app do that.
I then went to my Office 2004 Test Drive, fired up Word, and tried the same thing. Just as with v.X (the last version I had access to), I was able to do what I wanted just fine. And with a previewing Font menu, no less.
(I generally save docs from Word in RTF. I viewed the file I created with Word in Nisus and Pages, and the paragraph-borders were gone. Is this something that straight RTF just can't do? Is Word using some Word-only RTF encoding?)
This is not an attempt to bust Nisus' chops. I really wanted to like it, and I was ready to buy a license. However, given the problems accomplishing the simple tasks I wanted, I can't really justify paying the US$70.
Granted, I'm in sort of a special situation. Via my job, I can get Office 2004 Pro for $199. Ergo, the extra $129 doesn't feel like that much more to spend considering I get the whole Office suite plus Virtual PC. If I were stuck paying the US$400 retail price, I'd probably be working harder to stick with Nisus.
(As for OpenOffice.org... I've considred it, but spending hours in a clunky X11 app isn't my ideal way to use the Mac OS. There's NeoOffice/J, I know, but I hear it's poky, even on a dual G5.)
Anyway, I relay this simply to make you guys aware of a possible bug, and to give you an idea of the kinds of things that would make a user choose your competitor's product. Nisus is the best Word-alternative I've seen on the Mac, and I want to see it continue to improve. Still, when it comes down to it, I can't see paying for it as-is.
And if I'm just doing something wrong in Nisus, please let me know.
However...
Yesterday I was working on a simple document. My need was for a two-column document in which certain paragraphs had a column-wide border at the top to separate sections of the text.
First off, I realized that Nisus could not add borders to paragraphs. Ack! So, I figured using a table could be a workaround, with each section of content in a separate cell, each cell with a top border. Sure, this meant no wrapping to the next column, but I was going to at least give it a shot.
So, I drew a table with four cells and inserted it at the beginning of the first column, above what I had already typed. When I would drag existing copy to a cell, the remaining copy would slide upwards... BEHIND the table (and thus invisible). I then had to grab the table and drag it upwards (though it had nowhere to go, so it stayed put) to make the text beneath slide back down where I could see it. This would happen every time I would drag copy into a table cell.
Then, in moving copy to the third cell, Nisus crashed, i.e., "unexpectedly quit." It's been a while since I've seen an app do that.
I then went to my Office 2004 Test Drive, fired up Word, and tried the same thing. Just as with v.X (the last version I had access to), I was able to do what I wanted just fine. And with a previewing Font menu, no less.
(I generally save docs from Word in RTF. I viewed the file I created with Word in Nisus and Pages, and the paragraph-borders were gone. Is this something that straight RTF just can't do? Is Word using some Word-only RTF encoding?)
This is not an attempt to bust Nisus' chops. I really wanted to like it, and I was ready to buy a license. However, given the problems accomplishing the simple tasks I wanted, I can't really justify paying the US$70.
Granted, I'm in sort of a special situation. Via my job, I can get Office 2004 Pro for $199. Ergo, the extra $129 doesn't feel like that much more to spend considering I get the whole Office suite plus Virtual PC. If I were stuck paying the US$400 retail price, I'd probably be working harder to stick with Nisus.
(As for OpenOffice.org... I've considred it, but spending hours in a clunky X11 app isn't my ideal way to use the Mac OS. There's NeoOffice/J, I know, but I hear it's poky, even on a dual G5.)
Anyway, I relay this simply to make you guys aware of a possible bug, and to give you an idea of the kinds of things that would make a user choose your competitor's product. Nisus is the best Word-alternative I've seen on the Mac, and I want to see it continue to improve. Still, when it comes down to it, I can't see paying for it as-is.
And if I'm just doing something wrong in Nisus, please let me know.