Howard Metcalfe has released a major update to PAW2U (Universal), a free Mac OS X genealogy application. This is Version 95 (3 Sep 2010) and the focus is being placed on generating genealogical books and articles, with a major update to the RTF format handling.
Changes/Updates:
* In line with a primary objective of PAWriter to produce for publication genealogical books and articles, the following changes to RTF reports were made:
RTF Reports
* RTF files can be opened by a number of word processing and desktop publishing programs. By default, RTF files will launch Nisus Writer Pro ($79 download at the Nisus store web page). Nisus Writer Pro is a fully functional desktop publishing program for MacOS X. Macworld awarded Nisus Writer Pro four and a half mice (out of five) in December 2009, and William Porter said in their review that “Nisus Writer Pro competes with [MS] Word better than any word processor I’ve seen in a very long time.” Nisus Writer Pro was also the winner of the Reader’s Choice Awards of 2010 for word processors, with Pages ’09 and MS Word 2008 as first and second runners-up.
Indexes in RTF Reports
* Register, Ahnentafel, Lineage and Dictionary reports in RTF each include an index in a separate section at the end of the report. The index appears in two columns. An entry in an index refers to the entry number in the main text (not the page number). This index may be deleted and an automatic index inserted by Nisus Writer Pro which refers to page numbers and includes entries for married women under their married surnames.
* The same replacement of the index can be done in MS Word; however there is a flaw in MS Word which requires global replacement of the two character combination : (backslash colon) by just a single : (colon) when all nonprinting characters are shown, before the new index is inserted with nonprinting characters not shown.
* None of the programs listed below can automatically generate page-numbered indexes.
Opening RTF Reports in Other Programs
* Other word processors which can open RTF files include Pages, TextEdit and Tex-Edit. Quick Look properly displays RTF files. Preview cannot open RTF files. AppleWorks opens RTF files but unfortunately displays certain nonprinting characters, and this display can’t be suppressed. BBEdit and TextWrangler display just the internal RTF code.
Pagination in RTF Reports
* Pages are alternately left and right pages as would appear in normal book format. When saved as PDF and the PDF opened in Preview, you can choose to PDF Display Two Pages from the View menu to view two pages in book format, providing the window is wide enough. If printed, you should choose Layout Two-Sided Long-Edge binding from the Print dialog (assuming your printer has duplex printing capability).
Double Periods in RTF Reports
* Double periods may occasionally occur in RTF reports. This can occur when a given name or a suffix ending in a period appears at the end of a paragraph. In general double periods always should be globally replaced by single periods.
Footnote Numbers in RTF Reports
* Notes may be entered for a person in PAWriter, and they are refered to in RTF reports as “exposition” because they contain background information, documentation, evidence, and other substantiation for the conclusions drawn about a person’s life events, as well as clarification, explanation, elucidation, explication, interpretation, appraisal, assessment and/or other commentary relevant to the person’s life.
* An exposition on a person may contain footnotes. In HTML and MML reports, footnote numbers appear as simple superscripted numbers. In RTF reports, footnote numbers appear as superscripted numbers enclosed in square brackets, as is the standard practice in the New England Historic and Genealogical Society publications. (The generation numbers appearing before people’s names do not include the brackets.)
Colors in RTF Reports
* Various headings in RTF reports appear in color: major headings which might appear in a table of contents appear in red, and some other headings appear in blue to make them easy to spot. (In Nisus Writer Pro, you can change all colors to black if you choose Select All from the Edit menu and then choose Text Color Black from the Format menu.)
Splitting RTF Registers
* When you choose to create an RTF register with two or more generations, you will be asked if you wish to split the report into two reports at a selected generation. Some RTF registers may be quite lengthy, and this capability provides for producing two shorter registers, each of which might become a different volume of a book.
It can be downloaded here.