@ Frankeed from 25 October 2018 –– This is incorrect. Nisus makes it as easy as possible to install whatever version you like. Just go to Past Versions and download the version you want. <https://nisus.com/pro/versions.php>
Every Mac User has Time Machine. Installing new software without having a Time Machine backup amounts to playing Russian Roulette.
@bobembry
I'm surprised to see you are using TextSoap with Nisus. Everything TextSoap does Nisus can do too! I stopped using TextSoap when I realized this.
It feels like it took forever to get dark mode, but it's a really nice dark mode. I've always loved the speed of Nisus, particularly compared to its MS behemoth cousin. The overall layout and approach of Nisus just makes it a joy to work with.
I use it every day in conjunction with TextSoap https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/8974/textsoap to create PDF news summaries and PDF "work books" with wide margins for use with an iPad and Apple Pencil.
FYI Version 3.0.3 is out...
This is a minor update to fix several important issues.
This is a free update for existing users of Nisus Writer Pro 3.
Requires macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) or later.
v3.0.2 was released today. Here are the notes sent out about the update:
“Summer is here. Happily, so is Nisus Writer Pro 3.0.2. Out latest release contains over 200 changes in this version, including bug fixes and refinements. The entire uncut list of changes can be found on the Nisus Writer Pro release notes page. https://nisus.com/pro/releasenotes/releasenotes302.php
“Nisus Writer Pro 3.0.2 is available now as a free update for anyone using Nisus Writer Pro 3.x. You can upgrade any version of Nisus Writer to version 3.0.2 for only $45 through our store. Mac App Store customers wishing to upgrade to 3.0.2 can do so by following these instructions. https://nisus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=7237&utm_campaign=NL_2019_06_27&utm_medium=email&utm_source=NisusNewsletter&utm_term=these-instructions
“Nisus Writer Pro 3.0.2 requires macOS 10.11 El Capitan or later.“
I've used this for many years. The newest version has attractive features, but I'm not willing to upgrade until I see a dark mode version. Pages has it; so can this.
By far the best word processor, and I have used it for years. Had to quit it a few months ago because I must work on my texts also while travelling, which means having to use an iPad. The day the (very good, perfectly reliable) developers of Nisus will succeed in giving us a IOS version, I will be simply happy to buy it and go back to Nisus for Mac (Oh, I am still on the latest v. 2)
Note that if you download the 15-day demo of the version 3, it overwrites your Nisus v2, leaving you in a bit of a bind should you not decide to purchase it and not have a Time Machine backup to restore it from. I hate it when software companies do this.
Always impressive. Support unfortunatly slow and via email only. However I have used it since it first came out and it is amazing! Huge alternative to Word. However if you do not like RTF files you could be disappointed because RTF is the primary format.
One of the best word processes indeed. Simple enough to just use; powerful enough to do all kinds of amazing things. Paragraph and character styles are superbly implemented, and very fast and easy to use. Power search is amazing: you can find every instances of bold italic 12-point Arial text in a book-length document *simultaneously,* then apply a character or paragraph style to all those instances with one click.
Interchangeability with Word documents is excellent. Book manuscript with hundreds of comments and tracked changes transfer smoothly.
As an editor, I use power search + styles to quickly fix and standardize other people's badly formatted Word documents, including book-length manuscripts. What would take hours in another program takes minutes using power search and NWP's styles. And I've only begun to explore the powerful features of this delightful program.
If you want Microsoft Word's power features without its bugs and clunky styles interface… if you work with people who use Word but don't want to use it yourself… if you loved and miss WriteNow or FrameMaker… then you will probably enjoy and appreciate Nisus Writer Pro.
It's a nice word processor, and while your text will be rendered nicely on a retina screen (courtesy of Apple - not the developer) the user interface elements (toolbars, icons, the controls in the palette) are non-retina, so they look pixelated and chunky. C'mon, it's 2017, Retina macs have been out for 5 years now!
I write novels and other long, organised texts, and this is by far the best software I found for the task. Not "very" but "pretty" easy to understand and use. Not perfect, I am afraid, when you try to move an item in the TOC so that it moves also in the context. I experienced more than one mess. Text and formatting got completely garbled, and going back was not so easy. But for the rest I am perfectly happy with it. Ah, I was forgetting. Exporting as .epub is a breeze!
To MacUpdate -- I get an error 12 message when trying to purchase Nisus Pro at your special price via paypal option? I can't complete this transaction due to this web site error, so I hope you can honor this price when your shopping cart works again.
At this price, Nisus Writer is an absolute steal. One of the most powerful wordprocessors, without the usage complexities usually associated to this type of software.
After the release of the 2.1 version I contacted NWP developers and found out that there is no plan to implement Apple's "auto suggestion" in the near future (this is supported in Mail, Messages and even in TextEdit). Is it the time to look for an alternative word processor ?
I'm using NWP for many years as my "non formal" word processor for short letters and everyday communication (the heavy duty word processor is LaTeX). It is OK but recently I'm getting more and more annoyed by the fact that NWP doesn't support the "Correct spelling automatically" option, which is a systemwide option. As I'm getting used to this function on both the MAC and the iOS devices, I find the usage of NWP without it tedious. That way or another, this software wasn't updated since Nov. 2013 when they made a few minor fixes.
Having been forced by the virtual global compliance of using MS Word for decades now, discovering Nisus Writer Pro was such a breath of fresh air that I feel a great weight has been lifted off my creativity.
Word has become such a bloated pig over the years that it's practically useless if you care for efficiency at all. What shocks me most is that—despite being a writer in technology for years—I'd never even heard of Nisus!
And now I just can't recommend it highly enough. So elegantly conceived, with spirited performance, clever tools, and outstanding documentation. Thanks to the folks at Nisus for a great product.
IT just consistently does the job, and has everything including the kitchen sink if you want to get much deeper into it.
I trust it with huge, priceless files (text only), and it has never let me down. AND they seem like good, honest people who give a damn about their customers, unlike others . . .
By the way, I am trying to give this a full 5 for Ease of Use, too, but it seems determined to keep me at 4.5 for some reason . . .
Top five stars for all five ratings!
Sometimes I manage to get lost in all the possibilities, or my fading memory doesn't work right. Support at Nisus is always quick, patient, kind and forgiving. But be careful around them on April First... They can get erratic!
Sometimes I manage to get lost in all the possibilities, or my fading memory doesn't work right. Support at Nisus is always quick, patient, kind and forgiving. But be careful around them on April First... They can get erratic!
Sometimes I manage to get lost in all the possibilities, or my fading memory doesn't work right. Support at Nisus is always quick, patient, kind and forgiving. But be careful around them on April First- They can get erratic! :-)
Sometimes I manage to get lost in all the possibilities, or my fading memory doesn't work right. Support at Nisus is always quick, patient, kind and forgiving. But be careful around them on April First... They can get erratic! :-)
Sometimes I manage to get lost in all the possibilities, or my fading memory doesn't work right. Support at Nisus is always quick, patient, kind and forgiving. But be careful around them on April First... They can get erratic! :-)
I have been using this program since it was first released. I have used it to write and publish 2 books and I don't know how many articles, stories, short-shorts, brochures..........
For my genealogy work I have created documents in, or containing; English, Russian, Japanese (ideographic and Romanji both), and Hebrew. One of my favorite show-off tricks is to Drop the cursor in the middle of an English (or any other language) paragraph and start typing—in perfectly laid out Right-to-left Hebrew. If you can't read Hebrew and didn't know it is read "backwards" all you'd see would be an unreadable font in the middle of the sentence. That's how powerful and easy Nisus is. There's a lot to learn (they have an excellent on-line manual) but you can create nice documents the first time you open the program. You probably won't believe how powerful search/search and replace are. But you will love it. And Nisus too!
This word processor is incredibly customizable. From very simple to the most complex documents are easy to create. Multilingual features are very flexible and powerful. You can even customize new windows to open where you want them on the screen. It even supports quite powerful macros. The interface looks quite daunting, but it really doesn't get in the way when you start working... You just use what you need, then grow with it. I got frustrated with the new Pages losing so many features and after searching for something better, I can say that this does about everything you can think of doing. I just wish there were a Spanish thesaurus built in... though it's got about everything else you could ever think of having. You can even make your own sets of characters, like some hard to type Tibetan ones, available from a list you can just click on. I'd have to say it's the best word processor I've ever seen.
Nisus Writer Pro is for those who need the features of apps like Word or Mellel, but want an easier to use interface, better typography and great, responsive support.
While I usually recommend Scrivener for outlining, researching and do large part of the writing of long (scientific) texts, Nisus is the TOP choice to make corrections, layout/formatting and finalise the work. It works nicely together with Scrivener, they both use RTF/RFTD, so that's about perfect.
For all those unhappy with the latest release of Apple Pages, who need a more powerful "classical" word processor, I too recommend Nisus Writer (for Pages' layout functions, Swift Publisher is a good alternative).
Highlights are:
+ BEST SEARCH- and selection-functions, EVER. No other app comes close. With help of "markers" you can search for virtually anything. If you ever had to clean up a 450 pages PhD thesis you get off your chair and applaud seeing this! :-)
+ CORRECT HYPHENATION for other languages than English! This is where both Mellel and Pages fail – what can get really embarrassing… Nisus does it perfectly (hyphenation is editable using TeX as far as I understood, but it is correct, so I never had to tinker with it).
+ good typography. Nisus uses OS X's own text engine, therefore no ugly "white spots" between the words in justified alignment like you get in Word or Mellel, letters go smoothly one into the other, they aren't block wise displayed (and printed) like in the other two apps.
+ easy to use interface, everything customisable (create your own toolbar items, with custom icons, drawer's menus customisable etc.)
+ really good support of all common file types, great compatibility with MS Word (Nisus uses the LibreOffice translator)
+ very complete foreign language features, right-to-left, for every language the correct smart quotes (resp. guillemets, this is customisable too of course), and yes I've mentioned it, but again: correct hyphenation!
+ Cross references, footnotes over multiple pages and what else you need for scientific texts (bibliography apps integration, etc.)
+ integrated Nisus Thesaurus, very practical, if not essential when doing corrections.
+ Both portrait and landscape orientation can be set individually for each page/section in a file. Very practical if you have a larger table or figure in your text
+ smooth scrolling (unlike Word) and good performance also with very long texts (except the opening of the file: that can take quite some time with a large file)
+ efficient user interface: Nisus comes with its own macro script language so you can automise lots of your work
+ multiple clipboards with history
+ practical navigation sidebar (titles, bookmarks, etc.)
+ merge fields easy to use
+ best-in-class (my opinion) track changes and comments, compatible with Word
+ Great support, regular updates
Things that are not so great:
– the app looks a bit old, especially the icons are in need for a revamp (however you can replace them with your own icons). Not really shiny the whole thing.
– no footnotes in tables, you need to tinker there (write superscript numbers in the table, then at the end of the table insert a footnote and make its ref number invisible. It's OK but kind of sucks if you have a table over multiple pages). Nisus is working on that problem I heard…
– the QuickLook plugin for RTF and RTFD is made by Apple and isn't so great.
Nisus Writer Pro is more than the old fashioned 'word processor'.
Of course it does that superbly but the improvement and extensions, since the original version of 1988, increase its usefulness.
Too much to describe here, but the notable items i use are:
Find and Replace - literally anything.
Tables.
Import and Export of files from/to other Applications.
Long Documents - this is where Nisus Writer excels.
Try it - www.nisus.com.
Downloaded via program's update, but it wouldn't launch so reverted to previous version 2.02. Maybe it's just me, or download corrupted, on Lion current version. Otherwise, like the program.
I have been using Nisus Writer since 1993! Back in the early Mac days. And it was awesome, especially because it worked with the most amazing Regular Expression engine and so forth. The app was pretty much the reward of academics, coders, and general erudite worshipers of language, especially foreign languages. Nisus had the best dictionaries and everything. And Nisus still is above and beyond other text editors and word processors. Amazing. Still.
Nisus Writer Pro is not a writing software.
It's more than that: a text formatting software.
Absolutely over-sized for novel writing or short documents, it shows all of its power when your project is long, heavy, full of references, footnotes, tables...etc
Quite stable and relatively user friendly (for a piece of software that's so packed with features), it is unfortunately expensive.
Worth the price for some, but definitely not everyone.
I'm always amazed to see small developers continue to exist and make great products and stay in business in this shark infested waters of office productivity suites.
For my opinion Nisus Pro is an excellent soft with excellent features and a good customer service (every time i write to nissus support they answer 8hours late and i'm still waiting answer for my ten mails to Mellel!!!!!!
BUT Nissus have ti improve some features to be the best, it's a shame you can't have a multi page (or a the less Two pages) view while writing on big documents!!!
As i use Nissus as a pro tool for my work , i don't care about 20 or 30 dollars more if the soft is good.
mellel i very good, i admit but their customer service is very bad and they need to integrate tools that Nisus pro do very ggod (antidote for french for ex, or grammatical checker….
Now that NWP 1.4.2 has been fixed by Nisus and functions well on Lion I can post a rating that I believe is appropriate for this excellent word processor. It is well worth the $79 initial purchase price, but I still don't think 2.0.1 is worth a $49. upgrade fee. Remember, too, that the full purchase price of Mellel, which is a better word processor, is $39. Nisus' unique search capabilities and its ability to work seamlessly with DEVONthink make it indispensable for me.
I've user some version of Nisus since it first came out and have found its speed, flexibility, multilingual features, Word compatibility, its clean rtf code, and above all its matchless search and replace facility to be invaluable in my workflow as editor of an online magazine who uses Nisus in conjunction with DEVONthink Pro Office. It has had its buggy phases along the way, to be sure. And overall Mellel is a better word processor, and I use it for formal printed documents and academic writing.
As a long-term Nisus user, I am outraged by the $49. upgrade fee for a version (2.0/2.0.1) which offers few substantial improvements, largely Word-like bloat...along with Lion compatibility. The previous version, 2.4.1, will not work with Lion. In order to use NWP with Lion, there was no choice but to buy the overpriced 2.0 upgrade. When I complained I received an unapologetic reply, which also hinted cryptically that I should wait before spending money on an alternative. There was no announcement, but recently found out by accident that there was a 2.4.2 free upgrade available, which included bug fixes and Lion compatibility. I downloaded this from a page that was difficult to find on the Nisus site and now find that the upgrade is even less compatible with Lion than 2.4.1. The application won't even open. What is Nisus trying to do here? Word is the most capable alternative for the global editing tasks I have to perform, but it is extremely cumbersome to use. Still I won't go back to Nisus until they set this right.
Nisus Writer Pro is a _very_ good word processor. As noted below, its comments and change tracking are compatible with Microsoft Word. Built-in drawing features, auto-numbering, table of contents, indexing, widow-orphan control, cross references etc. are powerful and easy to use. It uses the Open Office converter to import-export Word files so the compatibility with Word is quite high. (Import-export filter is selectable in Preferences between Open Office and Apple--Open Office is better.) It has the "classic" (Nisus products have been around for decades) Nisus features such as powerful (regex, I think) searching and a built-in macro language, neither of which you need to worry about if you don't want to. It uses style sheets (again, only if you want to) and has an innovative way of setting up and modifying them. This is a full-on Cocoa program which is saying a lot for the maker's commitment to the Mac as this took a full re-write of older code. Palettes live in a drawer and update depending on context--one of the most effective ways to provide features as needed. They contract/expand easily and scroll within the drawer, but little scrolling is needed since they are context-sensitive. Slick and pretty it is.
Picking nits a little, it doesn't have page thumbnails (but it does have a document navigator) or a split or other multi-pane view. I suppose you could take care of this by making a copy of Nisus and opening both on the same file. Also, it does not intelligently place floating objects, such as at the top of pages or columns. However, in the last few days I have been evaluating all Mac options for a technical paper I plan to write and in this respect (smart float placement) Nisus is exactly on par with all the others, even Word. (I was stunned to learn this, especially about Word. I wrote with FullWrite Professional from 1988 to probably 1998 and it handled this job with aplomb. For technical writing with rigid layout requirements from the publisher, LaTeX via LyX looks like a very good option but with some set-up and learning involved.)
Word compatibility is better than Pages while at the same time NWP provides more power and thus converts more aspects to-from Word (using OO converters).
Using NWP is a pleasure and does not cause my blood pressure to increase like it invariably does with Word. Nice job.
I think Nessus Writer Pro is over priced. For significantly less you can buy iWork (and iWork includes not only a word processing program but also a spreadsheet program and a presentation program). And for $50 more you can buy MS Office 2011.
Nessus should really consider lowering its prices.
As a Nisus Pro owner, I find it hard to believe all the 5-star reviews. If you want to take a look at some of the bugs that version 2 finally fixes, look here:
http://www.nisus.com/pro/releasenotes20.php
It's nice to see bugs being fixed, but bug fixes should be part of a free update, not a paid upgrade. I reported bugs and have waited a very long time for these fixes. Hopefully they'll make the bug fixes available to 1.x users.
In addition, an upgrade fee of 62% of the regular price feels excessive.
I like Nisus Writer, but this paid upgrade is a let down. I'll keep on using buggy version 1.4.1 for certain tasks, and Mellel and Word for more elaborate documents. By the way, I've gladly paid for upgrades for these two.
