Barbara, et alia,
I feel your pain. The nameable rulers were prominently visible and
casually workable— once I figured out how they worked, which took
some doing coming from <gasp> Word 5.1a habits. Not until NWP
version 1.3, I think it was (which is what I'm still using) did they
get a particular function working which is less apparent, but in many
ways better, once you get the hang of it. That function is Format—>
Paragraph Style—> "Redefine Style From Selection". It demands a key-
command. I assigned cmd-D from prior habits. Once that is done, you
can adjust the current paragraph till you get it the way you want,
and then press the key, and all paragraphs with that style update to
match— despite being interspersed with other styles. There are also
tools to find all paragraphs with the same format which can help
assign appropriate styles.
That said, I still wish styles were a little more accessible with
more intuitive presentation. I keep closing my window after editing
styles, from Nisus Classic habits. And I would much prefer to have
it use my current paragraph— in place—as the example while editing
styles. And perhaps some way to tell what text is per default style
and what is an exception. I never have fully understood the various
little icons and their barely perceptible high-lighting etc.
I am also astonished that after all this time, there apparently is
still no Page-Break Before option for paragraph styles... I never got
on friendly enough terms with NWP yet but what I just beat it into
submission with manual tweaks— definitely not good for user
satisfaction...
And yes, the continued lack of side-by-side page view (and booklet
mode) is a nuisance, not to speak of a couple other little items that
are apparently taboo to even comment on in public. :-)
But hey, they finally implemented Geoff's vertical rulers! so maybe
there's hope yet in another decade or so! I just wonder if they need
to hear more prodding, or if that just distracts from the work of
getting it done. Effective communication is a chore... but so
imperative to success.
Wishing at times I could read minds!
Ben Andrus
in Montana, wondering if summer is ever going to come.
We're having nice weather— for April. :-)
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On 2011 Jun 15, Wed, at 3:18 pm, Barbara Nostrand wrote:
> Hi.
>
> What I really miss is having nameable user-defined rulers. You
> could come up with uniform formatting for different types of
> paragraphs in the text and could change all of the paragraphs with
> the same named ruler at once by selecting the ruler icon and
> fiddling with the ruler at the top of the text window. I also miss
> being able to look at two page spreads, but that isn't as much of a
> loss.
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