> On Sep 6, 2013, at 3:56 AM, Žorvaršur Davķšsson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> [Randy Singer] may be well intentioned, but he is unfair in his argumentation. He keeps saying: "Only Word, for the Mac, has all of the advanced features that an attorney needs, such as document comparison, tables of authorities, collaboration, etc." He has been told that this is not true ...
He is curiously adamant about MS Word. On the MILO list he has built a reputation as the premier expert on computer hardware and software, so many members of the MILO list unfortunately accept his advice as indisputable.
> Assuming you are all on the MacLaw list, how come that Randy keeps saying that creating TOA is impossible to do in NWP?
As I mentioned before, there are 2 lists for attorneys using Macs. Randy participates extensively in the list called MILO (Macs in Law Offices) hosted by Google Groups, but he does not participate in MacLaw because of an old feud.
(The "user group" that Randy runs is a 3rd entity. It is not a participatory discussion list; it is merely an email newsletter that Randy sends a few times per year to his 9000 "members". He calls it a "user group" because it retains the official Mac user group status that Apple awarded it when it was a participatory discussion list, but Randy converted it to a newsletter when the MacLaw discussion list was founded 14 years ago.)
My impression is that there is a major demographic difference between the MacLaw and MILO lists. MacLaw is much older, its members mostly were using Macs before the iOS era, and its members are imbued with the original Mac culture in which most people used apps developed by third parties rather than Apple and Microsoft. MILO's members mostly switched from Windows to Mac during the iOS era, and they tend to preserve the old Windows mentality of considering Microsoft (previously) and Apple (now) more trustworthy than 3rd parties like Nisus. Accordingly, Apple Pages tends to be the only word processor considered by the MILO people if they consider an alternative to Word.
The Nisus users I know of are on the MacLaw list. Even there, however, Nisus users are a minuscule minority. 99% use MS Word or Apple Pages, depending on whether they need the power of Word versus the simplicity of Pages. I have tried repeatedly to proselytize Nisus on both lists, but people who have never experienced the unique features of Nisus (especially Power Find or even its superior Draft View) don't seem to appreciate what they are missing. I think power users who are annoyed by the poor usability of MS Word expect that the learning curve of a new word processor would be an even greater obstacle.
When NWP 1.0 was introduced, there was a burst of interest in exploring alternatives to MS Word on the MacLaw and MILO lists, possibly because of some compatibility problem with Word and OS X that I can't recall. However, NWP 1.0 didn't fully meet lawyers' needs. By the time NWP 2.0 was released, the interest in switching word processors had died out.
I certainly welcome your participation in either list to help proselytize Nisus.
Bob Stern
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