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Nisus Software has announced the release of Nisus Writer Pro 1.2. This latest version of their critically acclaimed (and my personal favorite) word processor adds a completely new file importer that improves file translations, especially for the .doc format. Additionally, export as Word file format (.doc) and the Open Document (.odt) format has been added. The Table of Contents feature also has a few new options: tab/backtab can be used to promote or demote TOC levels, and TOC entries can be rearranged by drag and drop within the navigator pane.

Other new features include automatically updating time stamps, Flesch and Kincaid reading ease scores, additional backup options, a Macroize menu, and editable document properties (author, company, copyright, etc.). There have also been additions to the Nisus Macro Language. A host of bug fixes and other enhancements have also been included.

Of these updates, I’m most curious to try out the new Word translations. In my review of Nisus Writer Pro v1.0.3 over at Applelinks, I wrote:

For (better or) worse, pretty much all word processors competing with Word have to support Word in order to make any sort of dent in the market. By default, Nisus Writer Pro saves files as RTFs, which Word can read. Nisus goes one better, however, by allowing you to save your files directly as Word docs. There will still be some discrepancies when opening your Nisus files in Word, depending upon the complexity of the layout, but they’re kept to a minimum. This problem is more apparent when opening Word docs in Nisus Writer Pro. Text documents with simple formatting are no problem, and I found that Nisus Writer Pro gave me cleaner, easier to format documents than even Apple’s Pages program. However, there’s pretty much no such thing as a simple Word document anymore, and Nisus did tend to choke to Word files with heavy graphics and “church secretary” layouts. I occasionally opened a graphic-heavy Word doc in Nisus only to have the graphics not show up at all.

Oh, but how’s this for irony? This new .docx format of Microsoft’s that not even Word can open? Nisus opens it just fine. We had a client send us a .docx PC file that my boss couldn’t open with Microsoft Word on his PC. I opened the document without trouble in Nisus Writer Pro, saved it to Word, and handed it off to my boss.

If this update addresses the issues with Word compatibility, I’ll update that review and post it here at Appletell.

In the meantime, the full list of features and fixes in Nisus Writer Pro 1.2 can be read at the Nisus Writer Pro release notes page. All of these new features add to an already rich feature set that includes an intuitive interface, multilingual text support, easy to use style system, non-contiguous selection, full screen mode, and a native file format (RTF) that almost any word processor can read.

Nisus Writer Pro 1.2 is available now for $79.00 ($45.00 upgrade). A three license Family Pack is also available for $99.00. Versions on CD are available for an additional $10.00 plus shipping. A printed manual is also available for $25.00 plus shipping.

This release is a free update to current license holders of Nisus Writer Pro.

Nisus Writer Pro 1.2 is a universal binary and requires Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) or later. A 15 day demo is available.

Product [Nisus Writer Pro]