Why does line height mess with where first line starts?

[Usable Thought]

Testing out Nisus Writer Pro and came across this truly odd behavior versus other word processors, e.g. Word, OpenOffice, etc.:

If I give a paragraph a multiple line spacing - for example, 2 lines, as in double-spaced text - this pushes the first line of text on a page down from the top page margin as compared to a paragraph with a line spacing of 1.

This means that if I want to produce a double-spaced manuscript where the text starts at 1 inch down from the page, I can't actually set the top margin for the main text area at 1 inch! It has to be somewhat higher, and I would have to figure out the value for this by trial and error.

Can anyone tell me whether (a) there is some setting that compensates for this ugly behavior on the part of the application, and if not (b) how you put up with it? It is unlike anything else I've ever used.

[martin]

The placement of the line spacing is an idiosyncrasy of the OSX text engine, which NWP makes use of. And I'm afraid there's no way around it, sorry.

[Usable Thought]

The placement of the line spacing is an idiosyncrasy of the OSX text engine, which NWP makes use of. And I'm afraid there's no way around it, sorry.

Too bad - that's a complete deal-killer, and the end of my evaluation of Nisus. Too bad; in some other ways, it's a nicely designed app.

[ptram]

While we are at line height and spacing: I've been comparing how the same text in Courier 12, double spacing, is rendered in NWP and NeoOffice (NO). Lines seem to be more widely spaced in NWP than in NO. As a result, a standard page is exactly 30 lines in NO, and only 25 lines in NWP (while the number of word per line is exactly the same). In fact, I always use NO to calculate the cost my translation job.

It might be interesting to note that Mellel, another wp not making use of Apple's text engine, produces results similar to NO on the same text.

By following the various discussions at both Nisus and Scrivener forums, I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to entirely abandon Apple flawed system, and jointly develop something new and granting more control to the developers.

All considered, I fear iPhones will not need a very careful line spacing in the future...

Paolo

[Groucho]

…I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to entirely abandon Apple flawed system, and jointly develop something new and granting more control to the developers.

Paolo, I am sure Nisus will step out of Apple's text engine sooner or later. Only the Nisus people play it coy about the matter. (By the way, I would do the same.)

Greetings, Henry.

[Ruchama]

I hope you are right, concerning nisus deserting apple's text engine, but I am afraid this is no more than a wishful thinking.. after all, Nisus used to be No. 1 word processor before OSX while it used its own text engine, and for some unexplained reason chose to use apple's one with OSX...
I can't see a way back from this poor choice, except yet another completely new software...

[greenmorpher]

Ruchama sez:

for some unexplained reason chose to use apple's one with OSX... I can't see a way back from this poor choice, except yet another completely new software...

Maybe the Apple text engine looks like a poor choice now, but I can assure you that it didn't back when Nisus made it.

Apple was demonstrating its OS X to everyone and one of its great points was the text engine which meant you could use as the foundation for a very sophisticated text processor. I saw them demonstrate it here in Oz. During the course of the demo, one programmer added half-a-dozen features to the text engine to show off its capabilities. Even the true sceptics (including a bunch of programmers) were knocked out.

Two problems.

1) The underlying OS X. It wasn't nearly as good or as sophisticated as Apple claimed at the time, and most importantly, it wasn't nearly as ready for prime time nor was it nearly as soklidly "of a piece" as Apple claimed. Check VM Fusion 's site for a dismantling of the OS X myth. OS X is basically a lash up with bits from a variety of sources, which explains why it was like jelly for so long so that developers like Nisus were constantly sinking into the swamp.

2) The text engine was supposed to be developed along with the OS X, but as I understand it, it stood for years very much as it was originally shown, as the Apple engineers struggled with unknown unknowns in the OS.

That left developers like Nisus who had embarked on work using the text engine as a foundation, up a gum tree, as we sayhere in Oz. They could throw out all thyeir work and start again developing their own text engine which would be a Carbon app -- and Apple was promising to kill Carbon -- or they could proceed with Cocoa hoping that Apple would get its stuff together and keep its promises to developers, so they, in turn, could keep their promises to customers.

I'm glad I didn't have to make that decision.

The developer of Mellel went the other way and built his own text engine. One of the early problems with the Apple text engine was that its handling of non-Roman script languages was not as good as it needed to be. For Nisus, with its foundation in the English language market but a big interest in the multi-lingual market, this was a problem which Apple promised to fix pretty quickly, but it was not a deal breaker given the outlook at the time. For Mellel, setting out to cater to Hebrew writers as one of its primary markets, I believe, this was a deal breaker.

At least, that's my take on it all. I believe I read somewhere that in the end, Apple didn't use its own text engine for Pages. Is that true?

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
The Ad Doctor Online

Win business with the recession-busting "How to make great ads for (sm)all business: 99 real world advertising ideas to kickstart *your* business today". See http://www.worsleypress.com

[Groucho]

I believe I read somewhere that in the end, Apple didn't use its own text engine for Pages. Is that true?

No, I wouldn't say that Pages uses the same text engine as NWP. There are too many differences. As far as I know, Pages is a makeover of the old AppleWorks, which was the makeover of Claris Works, all of which happened in the stone age of Apple.
Anyway, I hope that either Apple or Nisus do something to improve the text thingy.

Henry.

[Ruchama]

It was a gamble, and one that Nisus lost.. unfortunately. It is , of course, a matter of taste - how one makes decisions. as I see it, when nisus people made that decision they preferred apple's text engine, which was faulty not only with non roman languages but also in other aspects merely on the basis of apple's promises to improve, over the much safer but more laborious way of building they independent engine. I find it difficult to justify especially as a very loyal Nisus user, since its very early days. if one intends to make the best word processor, one should not make compromises that risk the basics/basis of the software.

[greenmorpher]

AppleWorks for Mac and then ClarisWorks (which wasn't a makeover, simply a continuation of the line) were hardly in the Stone Age of Apple, Groucho. That said, Pages is totally unrelated to them -- more's the pity in my view because I thought Apple/ClarisWorks was an outstanding integrated app.

At the time, Ruchama, going with the Apple text engine didn't look like a gamble -- building your own did. Apple was saying it was going totally down the Cocoa path in the future -- no more Carbon or at least a very attenuated Carbon. Then, of course, Adobe said "we're not doing Carbon -- you can stick that idea where the sun don't shine", and Apple suddenly got the message (again!) that there were other OSes in the world and that regardless of how attractive they made their computers and OS X, if Adobe stuff didn't run on it, a very large proportion of its user base would be migrating (albeit unwillingly) to Windows.

So Apple went forward with Carbon and lagged on developing the text engine which had been adopted by its faithful small developers.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
The Ad Doctor Online

Win business with the recession-busting "How to make great ads for (sm)all business: 99 real world advertising ideas to kickstart *your* business today". See http://www.worsleypress.com

[mrennie]

I believe I read somewhere that in the end, Apple didn't use its own text engine for Pages. Is that true?

I remember reading somewhere (perhaps even on this forum) that Pages actually uses the same text engine as Safari, i.e. the one provided by WebKit.

[ptram]

I would love to hear a technical overview from Nisus' developers. I just compared a page in NWP with the settings dictated by an university for a thesis' format (Times 12pt, spacing 20pt, 35 lines per page). They match exactly.

So, I wonder if there are two conflicting typographic traditions battling here, and they are represented by Microsoft/Sun on one side (and the Italian tradition of counting pages), Apple on the other side.

Paolo