Last fall I bought a Mac Air laptop to replace my ancient Toshiba laptop, aka “the writing laptop.” Out of habit, I would have installed Microsoft Word, but I didn’t want to pay a monthly subscription and I didn’t want to install the very old version of Word-For-Mac that I have. So I decided to try Nisus Writer Pro.

NWP is Mac-only software, but it can save files in standard *.doc format — and it came highly recommended by other writers. So I downloaded a trial copy…and never looked back!

Well, okay. Maybe I glanced wistfully over my shoulder a few times. Leaving a program I knew and understood quite well, for one that required me to repeatedly figure out how to do basic things — or to establish a way to do basic things — was frustrating. But that’s a fixed cost of change.

Since October I’ve been using NWP exclusively for fiction writing. In that time I’ve finished drafting a novel, completed a full revision of that novel, written two short stories, 90% of a novelette, and I’m presently brainstorming a new novel.

And I’m very happy I made the switch to NWP!

In the paragraphs that follow, I take a look at some of the things I like about it, but first let’s agree that a new program is an invitation to explore. I used Word for so many years that I came to accept the way I did things and I was only occasionally inspired to seek out features I hadn’t used before. I don’t doubt there is a lot I could have done with Word that I never got around to doing or figured out how to do. But since I’m new to NWP I’m much more likely to investigate possibilities.

So here are a few new-to-me features I like: (more…)