Using Nisus Writer Express, I opened a document I had created in Word. The formatting of this document was simple: 12 pt. Courier New, double-spaced, all paragraphs indented with one tab. Nisus Writer Express is a smart word processor loaded with small, yet intelligent features that make writing a breeze. Nisus Writer Express offers a customizable interface, an advanced full screen mode, and hundreds of features that make this word processor a joy to use. The Ideal Writing Environment.

After much consideration, I bought Nisus Writer Express, now on version 2.6.1. Here's how a review of a much earlier version concluded:

ATPM 10.11 - Review: Nisus Writer Express 2.0:
Nisus Writer Express isn’t—yet—the power user’s word processor its namesake was. But it shows a high attention to detail in what really matters: the act of writing. And, more than any of the alternatives—Mellel, Mariner Write, Microsoft Word itself—it has a high quality of “Mac-ness.” Express just feels right in a way that no Mac word processor has to me since the venerable WriteNow. If you’re looking for a writer’s word processor from a responsive company, definitely take a look at Nisus Writer Express.

So why did I opt for NWE?
My requirements were:

1. It had to use an open file format. Practically that means RTF, RTFD or OpenOffice. I cannot abide yet another file format that will strand my data. That ruled out Mellel and, sadly, AbiWord. I don't care if it's the second coming of WordPerfect, it has a stupid proprietary file format. That also rules out Pages and AppleWorks.
2. It had to be a reasonably decent wordprocessor. That ruled out TextEdit. I thought TE might do, but I eventually realized it's a toy.
3. I wanted it to run on my old iBook well. That ruled out Pages.
4. I hate Word, despite being a certified Word guru. That ruled out Word. I have an XP version if I need it.
5. It had to be something my wife would be very comfortable using. That ruled out Word and Pages and OpenOffice and various GUI front ends on TeX engines.
6. It had to be able to save to an SMB share. That rules out TextEdit and a number of other OS X apps bitten by the SMB save bugs.
7. I really wanted a Cocoa app that would play well with OS X and support services. That ruled out OpenOffice, AbiWord, etc.
8. It had to be fast and reliable. That ruled out OpenOffice, AbiWord and a few others. I'm not sure NWE really qualifies but I'll find out.
9. It had to be able to open most Word documents so they can at least be read, and it should be able to save as a Word file tolerably well.
10. I would have loved lots of other wordprocessor features, things I remember from the Golden Age. I'd have liked outlining and hypertext and table of contents and more. Alas, this is not the Golden Age. So this is the least of my demands.

There was only one Mac wordprocessor left standing after I'd made my list -- Nisus Writer Express. So, even though I had qualms about their rigorous license enforcement and price, I bought it.
How's it stack up? I'll add comments here as I learn about them.

1. I encountered my first bug within 10 seconds of installation. If you are a non-admin user, you can't enter a license for the entire computer. The app gives an error message and continues, but the license isn't installed.
2. It does save to an SMB share. Many Mac apps have trouble with this. Stupid Apple bug, good work Nisus.
3. I have a family license. I installed on my iBook for all users. I had two user sessions run NWE. It didn't complain. So I seem to have a license for simultaneous use on 3 machines, and by a number of simultaneous users on each machine. In practice, it's very unlikely we'll have 3 simultaneous users so we're well within the official licensing rules.
4. It does outline style lists. True, they don't collapse (it's' not an outliner), but really I didn't expect that much. It would be marvelous if this turned out to be good WP, but they key test will be reliability.
5. It launches very quickly and is very responsive on my old G3 iBook.
6. It has styles! Unlike the butchered 'styles' in Word they may even work.
7. It supports LinkBack, as does OmniGraffle (but, not OmniOutlinter - yet). So OG drawings can be embedded in NWE and edited. Interesting! I was one of the few people who liked Publish and Subscribe. BTW, OLE embedding in Word is worse than you could imagine.
'... In addition to these Services, Nisus Writer Express enables you to include content from other applications and then edit that content again with just a double-click (Classic users will remember Publish and Subscribe as well as Embedded Graphic Objects.)
The LinkBack Framework is an open framework that brings editable objects to Mac OS X. Using LinkBack-enabled applications, you can paste content created in other applications into a Nisus Writer Express document and later edit or update the content from the original application. When activated, content can be updated automatically by the provider application or the provider application can display the content for the user to edit. Any changes automatically replace the original embedded content.'
8. This dictionary tip works in NWE! Very cool, if a bit weird. Mouse over a word, hit Cmd-Ctrl-D, a definition window appears. It don't think it works in every Cocoa app, but it does in NWE. (Maybe 10.4 required?)
9. I couldn't find out what file formats NWE imports. I thought for a while that the list was very short, but this web page has a longer list. So, really not too awful. Nisus does need to document this better, I couldn't find it in the help files or PDF documentation.

... Much more to come ...
Update 5/24/06

10. The Word import can't handle Word's change tracking feature. So if a Word document has had changes tracked, and the owner hasn't told Word to 'accept all changes', it will be badly mangled when viewed in Nisus Writer Express. This is a tough test for Word document import; Nisus doesn't pass.

Update 1/7/07

Nisus

11. The HTML export is text only. It's really inadequate and shouldn't be on the export list.
12. It can't auto-generate a table of contents based on the styles. A feature of WordPerfect (and Word) which I do miss.

Looking for a word processor that has power where you need it but doesn’t come with a lot of noisy bells and whistles you never use? Two recently released OS X word processors, Nisus Writer Express 2.1.1 and RedleX’s Mellel 1.8.2, offer competitive feature sets at very competitive prices. One may be just right for you.

Sleek, Flexible, and a Bit Geeky

With the release of version 2, Nisus Writer Express comes of age. It now has solid support for style sheets and tables, footnotes and endnotes, columns, in-line images, section formatting, and hyphenation—the features that distinguish word processors from text editors. There’s a lot here for power users. You can assign keyboard shortcuts to almost any command. The program offers nameable, editable clipboards, a three-level find-and-replace function including regular expressions (grep) and search criteria you can save, and noncontiguous selection. You can automate processes in AppleScript, via scripting in Perl (a language designed for manipulating text), and by using the basic but efficient Nisus Macro. But there’s nothing intimidating about Nisus Writer Express; in fact, it’s so easy to use, and its user interface is so uncluttered, that beginners will take to it like baby ducks to water.

Writing by Numbers

Many users won’t mind, but Mellel 1.8 lacks macro and AppleScript support, and its find command is limited to searching only for literal text strings. Its idiosyncratic user interface makes sense once you get to know the application, but you may find that figuring out critical features such as styles and autonumbering is impossible without reading the guide.

Nonetheless, where Mellel delivers, it really delivers. The program’s distinctive excellence is its extraordinarily powerful and flexible autonumbering system. You can autonumber document parts (or objects such as tables and pictures) on several levels; each level can have its own format, including literal text strings, numbers, and variables. You can also view numbered levels reflecting document structure as an outline in a separate pane. In addition, Mellel 1.8 offers unequaled footnote and endnote options, a bibliographic database, and table-of-contents generation—features scholars will welcome. And with Mellel’s support for user-definable document variables, it’s clear that the program is up to the task of creating complex structured documents without a hint of feature bloat.

Head-to-Head

Using styles to format the parts of a word processing document is more efficient than using ad hoc formats. Styles also help you achieve consistency in your formatting and allow you to reformat documents later by simply redefining styles. Unfortunately, Mellel’s implementation of styles is the program’s biggest weakness. Only global (application-wide) styles are editable, so defining and editing a common style—Body Text, for example—differently in various documents is not an option. In Nisus Writer Express, changes made to styles in a given document affect only that document; this makes it possible to define and save a variety of differently styled document templates for different purposes. And while Nisus Writer Express has a conventional section feature, Mellel currently does not. It’s far too difficult in Mellel to get a different header to appear reliably in the different parts of a document.

By default, Nisus Writer Express saves documents in RTF, a standard for word processing documents. Mellel offers RTF as an export option, but for editable documents, it uses its own MELL file format. Both Nisus Writer Express and Mellel can read Microsoft Word .doc files.

Both programs tout their support for non-Latin alphabets, and in my tests both Nisus Writer Express and Mellel did a great job of handling Simplified Chinese. Nisus Writer Express 2 does not support right-to-left languages such as Hebrew, but Mellel does—not surprising, as Mellel’s developers are Israeli ( mellel means “text” in Hebrew).

Nisus Writer Express

Macworld’s Buying Advice

Neither program will appeal to users whose primary requirement in a word processor is that it be Microsoft Word. But if you are free to consider alternatives, Nisus Writer Express 2.1.1 or Mellel 1.8.2 might be right for you. If you are an outlining addict or an academic who needs great note options, and if Mellel’s quirky styles don’t bother you, then Mellel is a great deal. And although Nisus Writer Express doesn’t include outlining, that program’s customization options, powerful text-processing tools, and uncluttered look will appeal to a wide variety of users.

Mellel’s autonumbering options are breathtakingly rich and underlie many of the program’s strengths, including its outline view.

Nisus Writer Express 4

In its Draft view, Nisus Writer Express hides margins, headers, and footers. You can also hide toolbars and palettes so you can concentrate on the words.