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Hi there. I'm currently trying NWE 2.01 to see if I can use it instead of Word 2004. It is of course a hard choice since I've been using Word for nearly 10 years now, and I've become quite used to it. Anyway, I really like NWE, and since I'm an English literature student, NWE gives me exactly what I need, a fast word processor that is not overloaded with DTP features I'm not likely to use. However, I've run into a few problems, and I thought some of you might be able to help me.
First of all, when I first used NWE, the default paper format was US Letter, and there was no way I could change it to A4, the format I need. So what I did was open up a new document, set the paper format to A4, I saved that document as a template and replaced the Normal template with my new one. That worked out great. But what really annoys me (and I don't know if it's related to my changing the default template), is that everytime I open a file with NWE, the app opens two documents, one containing the file I want to edit, and a new blank one in top of that. Any suggestions on that?
My other problem is related to style formatting. I've created my own style sheet in a template for my essays, so that I can easily format the text, for instance setting a different margin and font size for quotations, bibliographies and so on. What I have noticed is that if I apply a style to a paragraph, the entire previous formatting gets lost. To illustrate what I mean: due to conventions, book titles have to be in italics. I do that manually as I'm typing, to make sure I don't forget if afterwards. If I now apply a style to the paragraph containing the book title, the formatting for the style is perfect, but the title is no longer in italics. Did I forget anything during the creation of my style sheets, or is this the default behaviour? I'm just asking because Word keeps the formatting when applying styles.
Anyway, I realise that I've asked quite a few questions, so a big thank you for reading this post, and an even bigger thank you if you can help me on this.

Regarding the lost formatting: this is a known issue that Nisus calls a "feature." I call it a bad idea to have the application of paragraph styles nuke existing character formatting. I had to manually go back through 250 pages of a novel and reapply character formatting. I can think of better things to do with four hours of my time.

Version 2.1 of NWX is due out in the next couple of days, and it'll be interesting to see of Nisus has fixed this "feature" or not.

mrennie,
Thank you for using Nisus Writer Express.

...everytime I open a file with NWE, the app opens two documents, one containing the file I want to edit, and a new blank one in top of that. Any suggestions on that?

You can turn that off in the General Prefereces of Nisus Writer Express. In the "On Activation" section you'll see three "radio buttons". That means you have to choose one of them. At the moment Create a new document is selected. Click Do nothing instead.

My other problem is related to style formatting. I've created my own style sheet in a template for my essays, so that I can easily format the text, for instance setting a different margin and font size for quotations, bibliographies and so on. What I have noticed is that if I apply a style to a paragraph, the entire previous formatting gets lost. To illustrate what I mean: due to conventions, book titles have to be in italics. I do that manually as I'm typing, to make sure I don't forget if afterwards. If I now apply a style to the paragraph containing the book title, the formatting for the style is perfect, but the title is no longer in italics. Did I forget anything during the creation of my style sheets, or is this the default behaviour? I'm just asking because Word keeps the formatting when applying styles.

In the new, about-to-be-released-when-everyone-recovers-from-the-flu free update (2.1): applying a paragraph style no longer removes character formatting.

Thanks for your quick replies. So that means I'll just have to wait for the next update. Checking that ratio button in the Preferences also solved the problem with two documents opening. However, now that I've checked the Do Nothing button, logically, the app doesn't open a new document when it is launched. This is kind of strange, though. Ideally, so I'd suggest, you should do the following:
*if NWX is started normally, a new document should be opened
*if a document is selected in the Finder to be opened by NWX, only that document should be shown instead of creating an additional new document
Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticising, I'm suggesting. I think you guys at Nisus are doing a great job, and the fact that you're replying to people on your forums is exemplary. So keep up the good work!

Also the forthcoming release with change the behavior for Nisus Writer Express so that when you launch the application by opening a Nisus file, it will not show a new blank window also.

-Charles

rmark wrote: In the new, ...free update (2.1): applying a paragraph style no longer removes character formatting.

Yes, but, unfortunately, applying a character style still removes all formatting from the selected text. This makes it impossible to apply a color as a style.

So, I decided to use my new non-MS app to create a simple list, but I want to use a dingbat (zapf, symbol, or other) at the beginning of each list item.

I cannnot make this work. I have defined a "dingbat" character style, and all it shows are the regular alpha character, no dingbats. I tried making a "bullet list" paragraph style, but no luck there either. The "help" isn't.

I really, really hate the idea of MS (I'm used to FrameMaker & BBEdit, to be honest), but I am at a loss on how to do this, or where to look to find out how to do it.

I'm sure it is something simple that I'm missing. help?

Zapf Dingbats is now a unicode font. You'll need to use the character palette to find symbols.