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Hello Nisus community,

sometimes Nisus user here. At the moment I'm again trying to see if I can replace my old word processor with Nisus.
I like Nisus' offerings quite much, even if there one or two things from my old program I would like to see, e.g. the ability to hide all Invisibles together with Page margins.

But to my hopefully small feature request: There is a single real showstopper for me in Nisus right now.
In the tab settings you can define a Leader, e.g. dotted, dashed or various underlines.
But I'd need a setting like "smaller dots" (that's how it's called in my old word processor). At the moment all I can get from Nisus are quite large and narrowly spaced dots. I use this feature almost every day to create lines in test papers for my students to write the answers in.

I've attached two screenshots, one to show the Leader from my old program (which I'd need to have in Nisus). The second screenshot shows the different Leaders I've found in Nisus. Would it be possible to create a tab leader setting like this with smaller, a little bit wider spaced dots? I absolutely need this before I can make the jump to Nisus. Thanks!

Hello Arch Duke and welcome to the community! We can definitely help you with your questions:

ArchDuke wrote: ↑2021-10-25 03:25:11 I like Nisus' offerings quite much, even if there one or two things from my old program I would like to see, e.g. the ability to hide all Invisibles together with Page margins.

You can toggle both of these settings in Nisus Writer using the menus View > Show Invisibles and View > Page Guides > Show Page Guides. These view settings are saved separately in each document. If you'd like to choose default settings for invisibles and guides you can customize your Nisus New File template.

But I'd need a setting like "smaller dots" (that's how it's called in my old word processor). At the moment all I can get from Nisus are quite large and narrowly spaced dots.

This too can be customized in Nisus Writer. The trick is that Nisus will draw the leader tab dots (or other character) using whichever font, font size, and other formatting you've applied. You can select the leader tab character and change the formatting until you achieve the desired look. I got pretty close to your old screenshot using the Avenir font with a loosened kerning:


I hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Hello Martin,

thanks for your reply! The way one can change the styling of the leader was unexpected for me but extremely useful. I've already found a setting I can use. So thanks again, you solved my most important problem.

The other small thing… yes, I know one can toggle both things off and I use this quite frequently. I just like the ability to get a "print preview" with a single shortcut. But that's hardly a deal breaker.

One thing I found slightly unwieldy in Nisus are the tracked changes wrt to deleted text. In my old program there is the option to simply "mummify" text, which is akin to a tracked change, but you don't have to enable/disable tracking each time. I use this quite extensively for shortening historical sources for my students.
Of course I realize that tracked changes can also keep track of formatting changes and so on, so it's a "mightier" tool than just "mummify text". But as I said, it's a little bit unwieldy to enable tracked changes, delete a passage, then disable tracked changes again. Simply selecting text and "mummifying" it (specifically making a single tracked change) is extremely handy. Maybe you could think about creating a menu item like this?

Hello ArchDuke,

ArchDuke wrote: ↑2021-10-26 08:47:46 yes, I know one can toggle both things off and I use this quite frequently. I just like the ability to get a "print preview" with a single shortcut.

Nisus already has such a command. :–). It's just waiting for you to … create it!
What does that mean, you may wonder…

For a fixed sequence of multiple menu commands you should always use a macro in Nisus and assign it a keyboard shortcut or create a customized button in the menubar to trigger the macro. All you have to do is to write the names of the menu commands, one after the other, separated by Return characters, and then save the document as a macro. No advanced programming knowledge is required.

To make sure you start off on the right foot, first tick Show Invisibles and Show Page Guides.


Once you have done that, you just need to run this macro:

Hello ArchDuke,

It seems you are using Papyrus. :–)

Regarding mummifying text:

I use this quite extensively for shortening historical sources for my students.

I can understand why this can be useful for this particular purpose. But as a student, I would also like to see where you shortened the text. When you print the document, does Papyrus then insert […] —or something similar—to indicate that the students are reading an abridged text? Or does the print version contain the mummy symbols?

I use red, crossed out text in Nisus instead ('strikethrough' in Nisus' parlance.) In Format > Strikethrough you can choose between single, double, dotted and dashed strikethrough plus colors. Combining these options can be very powerful. If I want to delete text, but am not sure whether that's a good idea, I use single red strikethrough. If I'm pretty sure I want to delete the text, but want it to stay on screen for some time, I use red double strikethrough.

If I were to hand out historical sources in Nisus I would use a macro that duplicates the original document, then searches for all instances of text with strikethrough and let it replace it with […].
One could also use a character style to filter out the text which should be hidden in the handouts.

If I'm right, a “mummy” in Papyrus only saves plain text. Specific text attributes will not be saved. This is a great limitation.

it's a little bit unwieldy to enable tracked changes, delete a passage, then disable tracked changes again.

For a fixed sequence of multiple menu commands you should always use a macro in Nisus and assign it a keyboard shortcut or create a customized button in the menubar to trigger the macro. All you have to do is to write the names of the menu commands, one after the other, separated by Return characters, and then save the document as a macro. No advanced programming knowledge is required.

Þorvarður's suggestion is exactly right: you can create a Nisus Macro for each of your customized workflows/actions. Once you create and load the macro you can activate it as a single menu command, or assign it a custom keyboard shortcut.

Here's a variation on the suggested macro to toggle invisibles/guides:
It uses specialized macro commands so you don't first need to "start off on the right foot". The macro finds the right foot for you.

You can also use macros to add something like a "Mummify" command. It's simple for macros to enabled tracked changes, delete the selected text, and then disable tracking:

Hello Þorvarður and Martin,

got it in one. Have been using and loving Papyrus for more than 20 years, still do. But since they've specialised in tools for writers they're focussed on updates for this clientele and not on things I'd need. So after some false starts I thought I might give Nisus another spin after buying it some years ago.

And it seems it really can do everything I want. Thank you for your very helpful explanations! I'll try it out immediately.

Wrt to shortenings of historical sources of course I insert ellipses ( […] ) wherever I leave something out, since that's absolutely mandatory scientific behaviour. But in high school I need to use suitably shortened sources for my students, otherwise they'll never be able to work with them.

So now I'm off to try some nice things with macros. If I run into problems I'll be back, since I get so great answers here. Thanks again!

Thanks Martin for the additional macro examples.

I suppose the original poster has never tried to write a Nisus macro, so I wanted to demonstrate to him how easy it is to use menu commands, and that there is actually no excuse for beginners not to do it. My experience is: once you taste Nisus-macro-blood, you're hooked.

martin wrote: ↑2021-10-27 08:30:55You can also use macros to add something like a "Mummify" command. It's simple for macros to enabled tracked changes, delete the selected text, and then disable tracking

I was under the impression that "mummify" text in Papyrus meant prevent text from appearing in a printed version of the document, but still keep the text available in the document. "Text mummies are parts of your text that you want to remove but protect from being deleted".

I don't use Papyrus myself, I just had a cursory glance at the following site:
https://www.papyrusauthor.com/wiki/revi ... -tracking/

Maybe ArchDuke can explain how this feature works exactly.

Hello again,

Þorvarður, you're right, I wasn't aware of the use of macros in Nisus, so your explanations where very helpful to get me started.

"Mummifying" text in Papyrus is exactly what you think. It's great for preserving text that is important but has to be cut for a shortened version, e.g. cuts in historical source material. Often I use "mummify" to keep my options open until I know for sure how long the shortened source should be for my students. But I've found that martins macro works much in the same way. Oh, and mummified text will keep its formatting.

Another thing I still like in Papyrus is that the space around your documents works not only as a space for mummified text and comments but as a clipboard. So you can simply drag snippets out of your text to the side, where they stay available for later use. Of course I guess you could do the same thing with comments. But simply dragging text to the side and reusing it from there makes for a very simple workflow.

I've attached two screenshots of this, first is mummified text, second is a simple text snippet.

ArchDuke wrote: ↑2021-10-28 09:19:37 Another thing I still like in Papyrus is that the space around your documents works not only as a space for mummified text and comments but as a clipboard. So you can simply drag snippets out of your text to the side, where they stay available for later use. […] simply dragging text to the side and reusing it from there makes for a very simple workflow.

Here I think Nisus has got you covered too. Nisus' multiple editable clipboards should be able to create a work environment that comes close to what you want. This requires some basic knowledge of how Nisus clipboards work and the installation of two simple macros: one opens or makes the Papyrus-Clipboard visible, the other is used to easily get text and other stuff into that small window. — In the following I assume you are not yet fully familiar with how the clipboards in Nisus work. If you are, then I apologize for the verbosity.

So, let's get started.

If I remember right, Nisus comes with 4 default clipboards called Clipboard 1, Clipboard 2, Clipboard 3 and Clipboard 4. Change the name of the first one to Default Clipboard. This is the clipboard you'll use for daily work. Then change the name of the second clipboard to Clipboard for Append vertical. This is the clipboard we will use to simulate the behavior of Papyrus. And finally, delete clipboards 3 and 4. We don't need them.

1. Now go to "Edit Clipboards" (Edit > Clipboards > Edit Clipboards…)
2. Select 'Default Clipboard' and make it active by clicking on the button with the name 'Make Active". An active clipboard has a green dot before its name.
3. Close the window.

Now, every time you copy something it will be stored in the active clipboard which we just determined should be Default Clipboard. Take notice, old stuff in the active clipboard will be deleted when you copy. We don't want that. Therefore the trick is to temporarily make Clipboard for Append vertical active, so you can directly drag or copy stuff into it and then switch back and activate the Default Clipboard again. Since your text is now in Clipboard for Append vertical it's protected (until you quit the application) and won't be deleted when stuff is put into the default clipboard. See more about this below.

Let's start by making the "Papyrus-clipboard" visible by running this simple macro:
Drag the clipboard window to the side (to make it look like in Papyrus) and adjust the text size (100% is good for multiple snippets.) Notice the clipboard icon in the left corner, it shows you the content of your active clipboard. Hover over the icon with the cursor and you can see up to approximately 30 characters of text in the hidden clipboard.


Click on the icon and choose short, medium or long preview and to access other settings.


Of course you can make the active clipboard visible and edit it, just as you would edit any other document, but that's another story and we don't need to get into that here.

Now, after you have placed the Clipboard for Append vertical where you want to have it, you can (1) just drag and drop the text like in Papyrus or use the following macro which will insert automatically a separator after each snippet. I use the keyboard shortcut Command A V for this (which is my mnemonic for "Append Vertical".)
Before you quit Nisus you must save the Clipboard for Append vertical. Otherwise everything in it will be deleted. There are a lot of clipboard-macros available to automatically save clipboards and load them again later, rotate them, make them all visible, hide them again, and so on. You may have some of these macros already installed. Check which one you have got. I guess most of the macros assume your clipboards have certain names, and if you have different names, you may get an error message. In such cases you just rename your clipboards. No big deal.


Glaubst du, dieser Ansatz kann dein „Heimweh“ nach Papyrus ein Bisschen lindern oder vielleicht gar gänzlich kurieren?

Hi Þorvarður, sorry I didn't answer earlier. Thank you for your detailed explanation! It's so nice to have such a helpful community here.

I'll try editing the clipboards soon-ish - well, as soon as I can find the time. Holidays just ended so I'm completely busy since I'm the (unpaid) sysadmin of our school.

But atm I'm very happy with Nisus, especially since I can just open my files in class on my iPad. With Papyrus that wasn't possible. But Pages on iPad works well enough for my needs.

Tatsächlich trauere ich immer noch dem Feeling von Papyrus hinterher. Aber mit eurer Hilfe macht Nisus mir den Abschied wirklich einfach.