Comments/notes and interoperability w/MS Word & OOo Writer

[flips]

Hi!
I was testing out some features in Nisus Writer Pro for a friend of mine. (He is frustrated with Word, looking for alternatives.)
One of the features I tested, was adding Comments, and that works well – at first glance.

If I add comments and save my document as a Word 97 (.doc) file, it opens without trouble in Microsoft Word 2008 on OSX. (Haven't tried other versons.) But then I tried to open it in OpenOffice.org Writer 3.2, and the comments did not show up.
(My friend is collaborating with some people using OpenOffice.)
I found that a little weird, and did some more experiments.

If my friend saved the document again in Word, as the new Word format (.docx), the comments were gone when I opened it in NWP (and OOo Writer). We tried saving in Word again, this time as Word 97 (.doc) format, and now I had comments both in NWP and OOo Writer.

But when I saved the doc in OOo Writer (as Word 97), the comments were lost in NWP (But not in Word).
If I saved as ODT, the comments were still there in NWP, but I didn't try finding/installing ODT filters for Word to see if that works.

So, does this make any sense, is it something that could be easily fixed?

I myself is very happy with NWP and do recommend it to all. But I don't have much interoperability requirements myself. (At least not yet. Next year I might actually need to be able to use the comments feature in documents and share with both Linux and Windows users.)

--
flips

[martin]

Hi flips,

I'm glad you're happy with Nisus Writer, and we're very grateful to have you out there recommending our software Let me see if I can clear up some of your questions on comments and interoperability. The issue is unfortunately more complex than we'd like.

First, let's go over the best way to interchange documents. If one wants to exchange a document between Nisus Writer Pro (NWP) and MS Word (on any platform), RTF is the best way to go. Comments will be preserved, along with footnotes, styles, tables and everything else. RTF is NWP's native format, so its fidelity is best, and Word supports all features of RTF.

When it comes to sharing documents between NWP and OpenOffice (OOo), it's best to use either Open Office XML (.odt) or Microsoft Word's binary ".doc" format (both of these are available in NWP's "Export As" menu). Both of these formats will preserve comments.

Now, on to the import problems and the complexity behind them:

If I add comments and save my document as a Word 97 (.doc) file, it opens without trouble in Microsoft Word 2008 on OSX. (Haven't tried other versons.) But then I tried to open it in OpenOffice.org Writer 3.2, and the comments did not show up.

OOo unfortunately doesn't import comments from RTF. That's relevant because NWP's normal ".doc" files are saved as RTF internally, and thus OOo fails to import the comments in them as well. However, if you export the file from NWP using the binary ".doc" format (using the menu File > Export As), comments will be imported by OOo.

If my friend saved the document again in Word, as the new Word format (.docx), the comments were gone when I opened it in NWP (and OOo Writer). We tried saving in Word again, this time as Word 97 (.doc) format, and now I had comments both in NWP and OOo Writer.

NWP uses Apple's "docx" importer included in OSX, which doesn't support comments and other interesting content like footnotes. Currently one should only expect basic text, though Apple may improve the import as OSX is updated. But before that happens, NWP may switch away from Apple's "docx" importer to gain better fidelity, but I couldn't say exactly when or what improvements might be made.

But when I saved the doc in OOo Writer (as Word 97), the comments were lost in NWP (But not in Word).

I wasn't able to observe that result. Saving a Word 97 document from OOo 3.1 imported the comments into NWP just fine.

If I saved as ODT, the comments were still there in NWP, but I didn't try finding/installing ODT filters for Word to see if that works.

Yes, OpenOffice XML files (".odt") do import comments into NWP. I don't know how Word handles them.

Well, I hope that's all as clear as it can be. We try our best to be as compatible as possible, but file formats are messy.

[flips]

Thanks for your quick reply!
I hadn't realized that "Save As" Word format was not the same as the "Export to" binary Word format.
But with the binary Word format, the comments/notes showed up in OpenOffice.org Writer and I assume it will show up correctly in MS Word as well.

So, I guess it will work well if all save as Word 97 format, both in Word, OOo and NWP (the binary Word format).
Too bad OOo does understand all the RTF stuff, so everyone could just use RTF. (I did notice that Word understood the RTF correctly.)

BTW:
I noticed this friend of mine using Word in a sort of Notebook mode or something (pages showing up as a notebook with lines). I assume it's just the presentation of the same word files, but is that something you guys have considered?
(I wouldn't know if it's good or bad, as I never tried it.)

Anyway, thanks again. Your explanations made clear what the issues are, so that I might be able to navigate around them.
--
flips

[flips]

NWP is by far the best word processor I've ever used. For my everyday writing or school/university paper writing on my Mac, it's amazing, let's me focus on the tasks at hand. (All other word processors seems to "get in the way" for me.) For collaboration with other's, it's most of the time sufficient, no matter if they use Word or LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org, but some people use too advanced layout stuff in Word (large documents where page breaks seems to flow differently, messing up the structure). And other people only use Pages, and I think only Pages is able to open/edit Pages documents correctly ...

I am also however fascinated by Scrivener. I am trying to figure out a good way to use Scrivener for organizing and stuff, while still letting me enjoy the powers of Nisus Writer Pro. (There's different ways of organizing the workflow, I'm still testing it out.)

My main challenge nowadays is finding a way to edit my RTF files on the iPad (minor corrections/additions). So far I haven't found a nice way. (See the NW on the iPad thread for details ...)