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Genre: Word processing

Developer: Nisus Software, Inc.

Minimum System Requirements: G3 Macintosh, Mac OS X v10.2

Review Computer: 867MHz G4, 640MB RAM, ATI RADEON 8500, Mac OS X v10.3.5

Price: $59.95 download ($44.95 upgrade from Nisus Writer v6 and above), $69.95 CD ($54.95 upgrade from Nisus Writer v6 and above), free for registered owners of Nisus Writer Express v1

Availability: Out now

The gang over at Nisus Software, Inc. bill Nisus Writer Express as an alternative to Microsoft Word, but isn't every word processor an alternative to Microsoft Word? I mean, even TextEdit could be considered an alternative to Word, just not a very good one.

I'm in the minority here, I suppose, but to me, nothing's an alternative to Microsoft Word because I'd never use Word. It costs too much, it's too cumbersome, and its feature set doesn't appeal to me. I'm a writer, after all. I like to write, not play with pie charts and mail merges and such. I left that stuff behind when I quit my secretarial job back in '95.

Some of you may remember all the way back to my Nisus Files series of articles in which I took a hard look at what's now considered Nisus Writer Classic. That's not available us on OS X yet, so Nisus Writer Express is getting all the attention...for now.

Back in August of last year, I reviewed the initial version of Nisus Writer Express. To me, that's what version two is an alternative to, not Word. Truth of the matter is that there are now so many OS X word processors out there—each of which is better than Word in certain areas—that it's kind of unfair to compare anything to Word anymore. It's like ganging up. It almost makes me feel sorry for that sad, misunderstood bully over in Redmond.

Anyway, Nisus Writer Express v2 (NWE 2). Quite simply, what I most like about this program is the interface. It was originally based on the interface of Okito Composer, but has developed a life of its own since its initial Nisus implementation. You an access just about all of your writing tools from the tool drawer, which behaves much like the mailbox drawer in Apple's Mail program. The click of a button will hide or show the tool drawer, and you can easily customize the items included there. You can add to or delete from the preset palettes, or create your own. Doing this is a simple matter of adding a new group, opening the palette library, and dragging your choice of palettes onto the new group. From that point forward, that group will be available to you as a drop down option.

It should also be noted that any of these palates can be opened as individual floating windows. Doing this temporarily removes them from the tool drawer, which I found odd, but returns them when you close the floating palette. I suppose there's no reason to have the palette appear on its own and in the tool drawer, but it still seems a bizarre programming decision to me.

The toolbar (across the top of the page) is just as easy to update, as it behaves more like OS X itself; select Customize Toolbar and drag the tool you want from the options up into the toolbar. Done. Your choices here are much more limited than with the tool drawer, however, so there's really not a lot of room to play. You can also choose to view the toolbar with icons and text or with just text or just icons.

In addition, at the bottom right corner of your page are small icons that provide quick access to your endnotes and footnotes, style sheets, languages (more on that in a bit), clip board and the magnification feature (is there a reason why the magnification tool has 128% listed as an option as opposed to 125%?). I don't see that you can customize this section, but it's helpful to have yet one more way to access some of the tools you'll be using.

One of the other ways to make NWE 2 your very own is to customize the keyboard shortcuts. By selecting Menu Keys in this preferences, you can assign nearly every possible command to a keystroke using the standard modifier keys (shift, control and option; command is the default). When I say nearly every possible command, I mean nearly every possible command. You can even control type and size using the modifier keys. Even better, some of the custom items you create are added to the Menu Keys option. For instance, if you create a new style, it's added there as an option, so you can assign a keyboard shortcut to your new style. With all of these assignable commands, you'd think it may get confusing. It does, but no worries. If you try to assign a keystroke that's already been assigned, you'll be warned.

While we're talking about styles, let's take a look at that. Although you can access your styles from the menu bar, the tool drawer and the icons at the bottom of the page, you can only create new styles using the menu bar. I found that counter intuitive, as I prefer to get into the styles before I see if I need a new one. How else will I know, after all? The act of creating a new styles is fairly simple, though. Select either Character Style or Paragraph style from the Insert -> New Style menu option, then define the attributes just as you would format text on a page, margins and all. Unfortunately, there's no Save Style option or anything like that. After I created my first style, I accidentally closed the document thinking that I was closing the style window. Obviously, that's slightly annoying. Switching back to Page View will save your changes, but then there was no easy to way to delete a style. You have select Edit Styles, find the style you want to delete, click on it, then hit delete on the keyboard. It would make much more sense to able to right click on the style in the in the tool drawer and simply select delete from there. Unfortunately, control clicking is not supported in the tool drawer or in the Style Sheet View mode.

There's a lot of talk about the new Tables feature in NWE 2. I'm not much of a table guy, myself; they simply don't come into play in novels and game reviews. Therefore, when I do need to use them, I want it to be as simple as possible. In NWE 2, I simply click on the table Insert Table option in the tool bar, drag across the pop up window to indicate how many rows and columns I want, and that's it. Table's created. There are even a couple basic pre-formatting options available.

Beyond that, your more powerful Table options are available in either the menu bar or the tool drawer. As is expected, you can customize the size, alignment, padding, shading, borders, etc. The options here are fairly basic, but they're all that most users will need.

Smaller items have been addressed, as well. Saved documents will open to the same tool set and page size and placement that they were at when last saved. The way new documents open is controlled by a file in your system's library folder. Edit the file, and Nisus will behave as instructed. Styles you create in one document will not appear in new documents unless you create them in this new document template. This can be a bit of an annoyance, but it doesn't clutter up your style sheet menu with unwanted option.

I'm also thrilled that the type size, page size and other options in the tool drawer now allow you to either type in the exact amount you want or, in some cases, click on up and down arrows to set your preference. Before, you could only drag sliders, and I hate sliders. It's little items like this that prove Nisus is listening to their users' suggestions and complaints.

I mentioned earlier that I'd take a look at language support, but I think all I really need to say is that NWE 2 supports over 180 languages. I'll have to take Nisus' word for that, obviously. I mean, I didn't even know there were 180 languages. Choosing your language will alter NWE 2's behavior to fit that language, and you can use different languages within a single document.

Of course, as with any word processor that's not Word, most people will only care if it can read Word files. NWE 2 can, but with limitations. Because its default file format is RTF, Word has no problem reading NWE 2 documents. It's not always so smooth the other way around, however. Basic text documents are no problem, but Word files with complicated tables, heavy graphic usage and odd formatting can pose problems. I've found that if the Word document was created by someone who has a decent knowledge of the program, which is maybe about 7% of Word users out there, NWE 2 will handle the translation, graphics and all. However, when people confuse Word with Quark or start messing around with features they don't understand, odd things start happening. This can be as minimal as having striked-through text when opening the document or as troublesome as having the Word document crash Nisus. File translation is not an exact science, however, and although Nisus has some catching up to do with programs such as Mariner Write, I find that it mostly gets by okay.

People looking for a feature rich, easy to use word processor should definitely give Nisus Writer Express a shot. Even those who were unhappy with version one owe it to themselves to give Nisus another try. Because it doesn't feel at all like Word, those switching from there to here may be a bit put off at first, but I think you'll grow to like the Nisus interface and capabilities.

Those still waiting for an OS X version of Nisus Writer Classic (v6.5), however, will need to wait a while longer. Although Nisus Writer Express v2 is gaining capabilities as it goes, it's travelling in another direction. So, don't look at Nisus Writer Express v2 as an alternative to Word or as a replacement to Nisus Writer Classic. It is what it is, after all; an elegant, intuitive, feature-rich word processor that has some maturing to do, but that's giving every indication it'll make its parents proud.