Nisus Writer Express: The BMW of Word Processors?

Word Processors are one of those things that just about everyone needs. The question, then, is how much of one do you really need? On one end of the spectrum, you have a Vespa, aka TextEdit. Although TextEdit is great for dealing with plain text (such as HTML files), it is lacking when it comes to actual Word Processing.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the tank, Microsoft Word, the current industry leader. In addition to being expensive it has a million and one features that are difficult to navigate and makes the program into a serious resource hog. In between those two extremes, you have Nisus Writer Express, from Nisus Software, which is more like a BMW.

It doesn’t do everything (if you need to interface your document directly with a database, this isn’t the program for you), but what it does do, it does extremely well, and a sleek interface. So, if BMW were to design a word processor, what would it look like?

I imagine that it would look a lot like Nisus Writer. When you open it up, you see a blank page with a toolbar on top and a drawer on the side. On the toolbar, you have access to some basic formatting and document settings. Next to your document, there is a drawer that contains all of the other formatting settings. The various controls are organized into palettes which are in turn organized into groups. In addition, you can break off palettes into floating windows and create custom palette groups, should you need to.

The experience does not end at having an intuitive interface, though. The program easily handles headers and footers, columns, and tables. One of my favorite tools is the included thesaurus, which is integrated into the drawer. After using it for a few days, it becomes second nature to glance over at the thesaurus for a synonym. There are some things that are left out, however, like Indexing and Cross Referencing. Chances are, however, that if you need a feature that isn’t there, you can find it in Nisus Writer Express’ big brother, Nisus Writer Pro.

One question that inevitably comes up when you are talking about a word processors is “But is it compatible with Microsoft Word?” Nisus Writer can save documents as Word documents, which Word opens with only occasional, minor formatting changes. Nisus Writer can also open Word documents, although the formatting sometimes goes through subtle changes. Predictably, if the Word document has an embedded Excel spreadsheet, you will lose that in the translation. In an office where everyone uses MS Office exclusively, you will probably have some issues with compatibility, but other than that, Nisus Writer Express works just fine.

Nisus Writer Express is available as shareware, with a 15-day free trial period. Registration costs $45, with a three license family pack available for $79. Academic discounts are available.

In short, Nisus Writer Express is everything a word processor for Mac should be: a combination of utility and elegance that just works.