Year: 2012

I am very happy to announce that at long last Nisus Writer Pro 2.0.4 is now available on the Mac App Store for updating and purchase.

So if you have purchased from the MAS please go to the store and download the update.

The good news is that Nisus Writer Express has been approved by Apple and is now available at the Mac App Store as an update or for purchase.

As for Nisus Writer Pro, it has been rejected. We have resubmitted Pro to the App Store and are awaiting approval again. We will keep you updated here and in our newsletter when more information is available to us.

We know that the latest versions of Nisus Writer Pro and Nisus Writer Express have been out for a short while, but we wanted to fix some commonly reported problems quickly. So, we are happy to announce the release of Nisus Writer Pro 2.0.4 and Nisus Writer Express 3.4.3.

Here are the highlighted changes since Pro 2.0.3 and Express 3.4.2:

• Fixed: print: preview in print dialog can be clipped/zoomed incorrectly.
• Fixed: Apple’s “Start Dictation” menu command should appear on the Edit menu (when using OSX 10.8).
• Fixed: hyphenation for non-English languages wasn’t always working correctly.
• Fixed: using the Color panel can incorrectly spread colors to other content.
• Fixed: clicking links to files can fail to open the file. The “Show Linked File in Finder” command could also fail.
• Fixed: Nisus Writer can fail to launch/initialize for some users when encountering incomplete font information.
• Fixed: export: exporting an EPUB with special characters in TOC/Chapter names can fail to export all content from the document.
• Fixed: right-clicking the style list in stylesheet view can crash/hang on OSX 10.8.
• Fixed: toc: possible hang when copy-pasting certain multipart selections with applied TOCs.
• Fixed: redisplay flickers ungracefully when zooming in/out Draft View.
• Fixed: if the entire document is selected, should not autoscroll after making a formatting change.

The complete release notes can be found here for Express and here for Pro. They can also be found under the Help menu in both Express and Pro.

Both applications can be updated from within each app. Select “Check for Updates” from the “Nisus Writer Pro/Express” menu and follow the instructions. You can also download directly from our site.

Express

Pro

Nisus Writer Pro and Express require OS X 10.6.6.

For those of you who have purchased through the Mac App Store both Express and Pro have been submitted but we have no idea when they will be approved. It could be a few days or two weeks. We will update this blog and send out a newsletter when the apps are approved.

We are very happy to announce the release of Nisus Writer Pro 2.0.3, Nisus Writer Express 3.4.2, and Nisus Thesaurus 1.1.1.

Nisus Writer Pro 2.0.3 adds support for Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) and fixes some bugs. One change we should mention up front is that Pro now requires Mac OS X 10.6.6.
Here are the highlights:

• Requires Mac OSX 10.6.6.
• Nisus Writer Pro is now signed using an Apple Developer ID, so it runs under Gatekeeper (OSX 10.8).
• Improved hyphenation for many non-English languages (including Danish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and more).
• Fixed: Splash screen can incorrectly stay visible after Nisus Writer finishes launching.
• Faster subsequent launches.
• Fixed: A variety of issues when making a PDF/printout.
• Improvements to EPUB export.

The complete release notes can be found here or under the Help menu in Pro 2.0.3.

Nisus Writer Pro can be updated from within the app. Select “Check for Updates” from the “Nisus Writer Pro” menu and follow the instructions. You can also download from our site.

Nisus Writer Express 3.4.2 receives many of the same updates as Pro 2.0.3:

• Requires Mac OSX 10.6.6.
• Nisus Writer Express is now signed using an Apple Developer ID, so it runs under Gatekeeper (OSX 10.8).
• Improved hyphenation for many non-English languages (including Danish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and more).
• Fixed: Splash screen can incorrectly stay visible after Nisus Writer Express finishes launching.
• Faster subsequent launches.
• Fixed: A variety of issues when making a PDF/printout.

The complete release notes can be found here or in Express under the Help menu.

Nisus Writer Express can be updated from within the app. Select “Check for Updates” from the “Nisus Writer Express” menu and follow the instructions. You can also download from our site.

Nisus Thesaurus receives one update: It is now signed using an Apple Developer ID so it runs under Gatekeeper in Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8).

Nisus Thesaurus is free and can be updated from within the application or from our Thesaurus page.

Both Nisus Writer Pro and Nisus Writer Express can be purchased directly from our store. Nisus Writer Express is only $45. You can upgrade from Express 1.x or 2.x for only $30. Nisus Writer Pro is only $79. Upgrades from Pro 1.x are only $49.

For those of you who have purchased through the Mac App Store Nisus Writer Pro 2.0.3 and Nisus Writer Express 3.4.2 have been submitted but we have no idea when they will be approved. It could be a few days or two weeks. We will post to our blog and send out a newsletter when the apps are approved.

For those of you visiting from Macworld, thank you for coming.

To thank you for your interest and to sweeten the deal, we are putting both Nisus Writer Express and Nisus Writer Pro on sale.

From now until July 1 we are offering the full version of Nisus Writer Pro for only $59 (regular price $79). The upgrade is $39 (regular price $49). Nisus Writer Express is now $39 (regular price $45) and the upgrade price is $25 (regular price $30).

Nisus Writer Pro 2.0.2 and Nisus Writer Express 3.4.1 require an Intel Mac and at least OS X 10.4.11.

So please, read the reviews, then purchase either Pro or Express from our store or the Mac App Store before July 1.

It isn’t every day that Macworld reviews our applications. It would be weird if they did, don’t you think? Anyway, since the last newsletter Macworld has posted their thorough reviews of both Nisus Writer Express and Nisus Writer Pro.

Nisus Writer Express was given a 3.5 out of 5 rating. The reviewer stated “…Nisus Writer Express is a very decent basic word processor. If you want to write business letters, school papers (including papers with extensive notes, graphics, and tables), or simply do basic text editing, Nisus Writer Express will do a great job. And it’s a pleasure to use.”

Macworld gave Nisus Writer Pro a 4.5 out 5 rating. In his extensive review William Porter wrote the following:

…Nisus Writer Pro 2.0.0 impressed me so much that I may begin to go to it rather than Pages for most of my writing. True, Pages does a fair bit of what Nisus Writer Pro does and costs less. But Nisus Writer Pro’s higher price is still not unreasonable. And there are things about Nisus Writer Pro’s user interface (like writing in Draft View) and about its special features (including PowerFind) that I, at least, find hard to resist. And although I don’t need Nisus Writer Pro’s long-document features often, I think it makes sense to spend a few more dollars and get Nisus Writer Pro.

If you would like to see what all of this fuss is about, visit our store or the Mac App Store to purchase one (or both!) of these highly rated and favorably reviewed word processors.

I normally do not go in for all of the various World (name your favorite subject) days, but in this case I feel that this subject is very important to those of us who are using computers.

Today, 31 March, is World Backup Day. As someone who has had a hard drive fail and has lost data, this is something worthy to promote.

Let’s face it: there is no excuse for not backing up. Drives are relatively cheap, and the major operating systems have backup apps built in. Backing up is easy and cheap, and a life saver when (not if) your hard drive fails.

So please, do yourself a favor and backup in honor of World Backup Day.

Your data thanks you.

Recently we received an email from a user who asked “Is Nisus going to support Mountain Lion? If so, are you going to support older machines?”

Yes, we are going to support Mountain Lion when it is released. The other question is more complicated. We have, for the most part, ended support for the PowerPC architecture. From here on we will support Intel-based Macs running Snow Leopard and up. Our web stats show that the vast majority (well over 90 percent) of our users are on Snow Leopard or Lion. Plus, there are API’s that we would like to use and we can’t do that if we are supporting older operating systems.

Apple sort of forces our hand in this area. They are a forward moving company and rarely if ever look backwards. As a developer you have to look forward or get left behind. So, we choose to look forward and enjoy the view.

Being under NDA there isn’t much I can say about Mountain Lion but I can state that we are in the preliminary stages of testing for compatibility with OS X 10.8. Hopefully there won’t be too much work to do on this front.

The last two years, thanks to you guys, we finished first in the About.com Readers Choice award in the Best Mac Word Processor category against some very good competition. We were lucky enough to be nominated again for the award this year. The voting has started, and the competition is just as tough.

So please take a minute, go to the About.com Readers Choice Awards site and vote for us.

Thank you for your support.

Seth Godin, on The Domino Project blog, wrote up his experiences writing and producing a (free) book using, among other tools, Nisus Writer Pro.

“I wrote the manifesto in Nisus, a fabulous word processor for the Mac. Using styles, I was easily able to create a numbered header for each section, and to see what the manifesto would look like when it was read. When it was finished, I sent it by email to my trusted copyeditor Catherine, who sent it back redlined in Word. I conformed her changes and took it back into Nisus.

To create the printable PDF, all I had to do was change the styles, add a footer and “save as PDF”. Nisus lets you put live links within the file as you’re writing it, and those links come through in the PDF, which is essential for a manifesto–the riff is a launching point, so I wanted to be sure readers could easily click to find out more about the sources I used.”

Thank you Seth!

You can read the entire blog post here.