Automate Individual Apps - Take Control of Automating Your Mac (1.0) - page 76

• The Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros page (mainly oriented toward
Windows, but mostly applies to Mac too

Automate Nisus Writer Pro
Nisus Writer Pro is a powerful yet easy-to-use word processor. Wait, did I call it a word
processor? That's like saying El Capitan is a rock—it's a bit of an understatement! Nisus
Writer Pro is much more than a word processor; I like to think of it as a Programmable
Everything Tool. I explain my history with Nisus (the product and the company) and why
I'm so enamored of this app in my Macworld article Tools of the trade: Why I prefer Nisus
Writer . For anyone who works with words, it's an extraordinarily flexible tool—and capable
enough that Take Control Books has left behind both Word and Pages and now creates
ebooks (including this one) exclusively in Nisus Writer Pro. With the coupon at the end of
this topic, you can buy Nisus Writer Pro at a 20-percent discount.

One of the reasons I like Nisus Writer Pro so much is that it's chock full of automation
featuresthatmakemywritingfasterandmoreefficient.InthischapterIwanttolookatthree
of them: macros, multi-key shortcuts, and automatic numbers and cross-references.

Run Macros in Nisus Writer Pro
As in other apps, macros in Nisus Writer Pro let you perform a single action, or a list of
actions, with a menu command or keyboard shortcut. But Nisus Writer Pro macros can do
muchmore than runsequences ofcommands; theycaninteract withfiles and foldersonyour
Mac, ask for user input, make decisions based on complex logic, and access many capabilities
in the app that don't appear anywhere in the visible user interface. In other words, by writing
macros, you can create entirely new features.

NisusWriterProincludesover50preinstalled macrosontheMacromenu(oritssubmenus).
Choose any macro name to run it. Some macros assume you have text selected first; if you try
to run a macro and it won't work in the current context, it'll either beep or display an error
message.

Here are a few you might try:

• Macro > Calculation > Mortgage Calculator: Fill in the blanks to

calculate your monthly payment.

• Macro > Document > Create Word Frequency List: This creates a new
document listing every word in the existing document (or selection) along with
a count of how many times it appeared.