New in Versions 10, 10Plus, 11, 11.5

Version 10 is the first version of Nota Bene to run natively on 64-bit versions of Windows. This release was in development for 5 years and involved major rewriting of the underlying code. It was formally released in September 2014, but a beta edition of version 10 was available to NB users and it was widely used for a long time prior to the formal release.

Version 10Plus consisted of 3 releases that were made available for one price and released in April 2015, October 2015 and December 2015. The third release of NB 10 Plus was released under the name NB 11 to reflect its status as a completed release that adds major new functionality to NB 10.  

Nota Bene 11.5 was released in June 2016.

The most significant new features in version 11.5, version 10Plus/11 and version 10 are listed below.

Version 11.5

Save As PDF: You can now save a Nota Bene file in PDF format, without needing to buy a separate program. You can also use the Send To feature to send a Nota Bene file via email in PDF format. Use File, File Options, Save As PDF or use File, Save As to create a PDF version of your open NB file. Use File, Send To to create a PDF version of your open NB file and attach it to an email. For detailed instructions, see Saving a File and Send To.

File Preview: You can now preview Nota Bene files in the Nota Bene File Open and Save As dialogs and in Windows File Explorer (whether Nota Bene is running or not). Note, however, that this option is not yet available on the Mac, since that uses the Wine file dialog, not Windows File Explorer. We do intend to provide file preview on the Mac, but this will be part of a future version, not 11.5.

Zoom in Side-by-Side Page View: You can now zoom in side-by-side page view, to see more pages at a time. See Two Page Preview.

Enhanced Style-Manual Dialogs: The Academic Papers tab of the New Standard Document dialog is now much more visually attractive, which makes the various options easier to identify and select.

Voice Recognition and Pen Scanners: NB 11.5 now directly accepts input from pen scanners and voice recognition software.

Precise Character Count: NB 11.5 adds an option to get a precise character count, both of the body of the paper, and of notes. See Document Statistics.

Simplified Page Composition: NB 11.5 includes a new page-composition engine that will greatly simplify your work across multiple systems. Previously, Nota Bene composed files — that is, determined line and page breaks — based on the font metrics (widths) of the currently active printer driver, which meant that page layout could change as you moved to a computer with a different active printer, changed the printer resolution, or selected a PDF printer driver to create a PDF file. But now, Nota Bene composes the file using printer-independent metrics. This ensures that the document will have the same line and page breaks, regardless of where you are working or what printer is available. This will be particularly appreciated by those creating camera-ready PDF output. See Camera-Ready Copy.

Improved Graphics: Graphics are significantly improved. You can now drag graphics anywhere on a page, including into the margins. If desired, they will even print up to the printable edge of the page. The “gutters” around graphics are now clean.

Faster Orbis Indexing: Depending on the type of files, indexing (and thus updating) in Orbis is now from 50% to 300% faster.

Ibidem: You can now have up to 20 columns in Ibidem table view. Previously, the limit was 10. To add columns to table view, see Customize Table View.

Orbis Phrase Searching: You can now do Orbis searches for phrases, where words are contiguous to each other, and not merely in the same entry. Previously, a search for "New York" would find all entries that contain both the word "new" and the word "york" (e.g. "there is a new teacher at York Elementary School"). Now a search for "New York" will find only entries that contain the phrase. This change means that Boolean AND must be used if you wish to search for two (or more) words as opposed to a phrase. See Phrase Searches.

Orbis+:  It is now possible to include DOC, DOCX, RTF, PDF and HTML files in your Orbis textbases. This additional functionality is not included in the Nota Bene Workstation, but can be purchased for an additional charge. See Orbis+

Version 10Plus/Version 11

Using NB on a Mac: We now offer a "bottled" version of NB+Wine that will install directly on a Mac. See Information for Mac Users and see the Mac FAQ on our web site.

Send To: There is a new Send To option on the File menu that allows you to send an open file via email in NB format, RTF format or as text in the body of an emails.

Find All: A new Find All search option on the Find/Replace dialog bar lets you show all search matches in the file in a side dialog bar. Matches are also highlighted in the file. This feature provides an easy way to check a long document for consistency and to move from one part of the document to another.

Print/Display Annotations: You can now display any or all annotations as footnotes or endnotes and then return them to non-printing annotations whenever desired. See Print/Display Annotations.

New Autosave Option: A new autosave option has been added to prevent losing text due to inadvertently overwriting a large file with a smaller file. Also, autosave files (._##) are now preserved for as long as possible by reusing missing numbers in the chain before pushing the last one off the bottom.

Improvements to Orbis: There is a new option to show processing of files by the indexer (click the + in a green circle icon to show, and the - to hide). This can also be shown after indexing is complete under Files, Nexus Options, View Log File.

Simplified New File Creation: An "Always Show This Dialog" option has been added to the New Standard Document dialog. If this option is unchecked, clicking File, New will create a new blank untitled file without opening the New Standard Document dialog. The New Standard Document dialog can always be opened by clicking File, File Options, New (Advanced Options). As in previous versions, this dialog provides options to create a new file based on an academic style or other template and/or to create a new named file. Users who typically want new documents to use an academic style or other template should keep this box checked (it is checked by default). Users who typically start working with a blank file can now uncheck the "Always Show This Dialog" box and open new blank files without going through the New Standard Document dialog. See Creating a New File.

Color Coding of Files: A new option allows you to color code files -- individual files, all files in specified folders, and/or all files with specified extensions. This makes it easier to identify your open files at a glance.

Popup Files: Nota Bene now offers three Popup Files — little floatable Nota Bene windows that can be used for to-do lists, taking notes when reading PDF files or web pages, or for any other purpose.

New Publishing Style: The Society of Biblical Literature 2nd edition has been added. This style can be selected in the In-Text Citation Style tab of the Document Style Dialog.

Menu Font Size: There is a new option to increase the font size of top-level and drop-down menus. A larger font size makes it easier to see the menus. Click Tools, Preferences, Screen Display to change the  font size for the menus. See Setup.

Alt+Home/End cursor movement: A new configurable Alt+Home/End cursor movement option at the bottom left of the Status bar has been added to allow Alt + Home or End to move to the previous or next selected element

Reinsert Extracted Notes: Footnotes that have been extracted can now be edited and reinserted. See Extracting Notes.

Document Dialog Bar: The Document Dialog Bar (Alt+D) has been improved. You can now sort/alphabetize by any of the columns to make it easier to find the desired file. The list of previously opened files is not expanded to take up all available vertical space.

Side-by-Side Page View: You can display two side-by-side pages on the screen with options for the display and for moving through the document. See Full Page Preview.

Page Centered on Screen: In Page Layout View (the default on-screen display), the page is now centered on the screen.

Find/Replace: You can now more easily copy a highlighted term to the Find box. If a word or short phrase is selected when the Find/Replace dialog (Ctrl+F) is opened, that word/phrase will be copied to the Find box.

Keyboard Dialog Bar: A new Keyboard Dialog Bar (Alt+K) has been added to display (1) the active keyboard, (2) Lingua Character Inventory (available only if you have purchased Lingua) and (3) active phrase library assignments (see next point). This dialog bar is conveniently available for reference as you continue to work on your open document.

Enhanced Phrase Libraries: Phrase Library key assignments are on the final tab of the Keyboard Dialog bar and can be displayed on the right side of the screen while you work. Individual phrase libraries can  now be linked to individual files, making them context specific. When switching between files, the proper library will be automatically loaded. If no library is assigned to a particular file, the default library will be used. Phrase Library names are no longer limited to 8 characters.

New Cursor Options: The Esc key can be used at any time to locate the cursor. Pressing Esc will display a red arrow pointing to the cursor. The arrow will disappear when you start typing or click the mouse (right-click or left-click). This provides an easy way to immediately locate the cursor on a complex page of text. The same cursor-location arrow is also shown when switching between document views. An option has been added to hide the mouse cursor (as distinct from the text insert cursor) when typing/editing. Cursor options can be selected to suit your preferences.

File Compare: A new keystroke (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+?) lets you highlight the differences between two files. The original Find Next Difference/Find Next Match options continue to work as before. See Comparing Files.

Enhanced Bookmarks: Bookmarks have been both simplified and enhanced so that this function is easier to use and you have more powerful options. Setting a bookmark and moving to a bookmark are now done using the same Ctrl+Q dialog (previously Ctrl+Shift+Q was used for moving to a bookmark). Text at the bookmark location is shown on the dialog to make it easier for you to identify your bookmarks. All of the options of the Bookmark (Ctrl+Q) dialog are also available on the Go To (Ctrl+G) dialog bar under Bookmark. Bookmarks are now remembered from session to session.

Go To: The Go To dialog (Ctrl+G) has been changed to make selection of the sub-options easier. They are now shown in a fuller list, rather than requiring selection from a drop-down.

Enhanced Action Line: Basic file operations on the Action Line now work on path and filenames that contain spaces (it is no longer necessary to put quotes around the path and filename). If you have a directory displayed on screen, but have a filename in the Action Line, the operation will be performed on that file, not on the file on which the cursor is positioned in the directory. A new Actions tab on the Utility Dialog Bar (Alt+U) displays all of the recent commands used on the command line and allows you to click (or double-click) on one of those commands to execute the command.

Improvements for Mac Users: Many NB users are now using NB on a Mac with WINE and version 10Plus makes that even easier. The first release of 10Plus fixes the ragged font display when running under WINE on a Mac. There are also a number of other improvements including an improved main NB icon for Launch Pad and for Dock. Further improvements for Mac users are currently being tested and will be available in the second release of NB 10Plus. The following page on our web site has more information, and will be updated as more information is available. www.notabene.com/macs.html

Version 10

There are many improvements -- far too many to mention -- but a few of the most significant changes are listed here:

Rewritten Code: By far the most significant change in NB 10 is an entirely updated code base. In addition to being compatible with 64-bit operating systems the new code base opens up a whole new world of possibilities for Nota Bene. It lets our programmers use up-to-date development tools and controls from other developers. Among other things, this means that we’ll be able to implement new functions much more quickly than we could previously.

New Interface: Nota Bene 10 supports a completely updated interface — everything in the program can be “skinned” and “themed,” and there are new icons for toolbars, a side Dialog Bar that can be easily floated, floatable mini dialogs, enhanced right-click popups, and countless other visual and aesthetic enhancements everywhere you turn. And everything can be customized to match your preferences — you can change the overall appearance with a few keystrokes, or even get a completely clean screen without any of these visual indicators at all (just the menu and action line). See Visual Appearance.

Wide-screen display: Nota Bene 10 was designed to take maximum advantage of the new wide-screen monitors. The vast majority of computers — including laptops, where the most common resolution is 1366 x 768 — now come with wide screens. Nota Bene takes full advantage of these new systems by providing a variety of optional dialog bars on the left and/or right, showing various useful options without reducing the amount of text you can see. (If you have a narrow screen, or prefer to work without these dialog bars, it’s easy — you can suppress all of them, including all the toolbars, to give a completely clean screen.)
 

Dialog Bars: New Dialog Bars open on the right side of the screen and provide a convenient way of managing functions like outline structures, cross references, an extended clipboard, and more. See Dialog Bars.

Action Line: The command line is now called the action line. The default location of the action line is the top right corner of your screen. See Action Line.

Undo/redo: You can now undo and redo when editing notes, in Ibidem fields, and many other places. In previous versions, undo/redo worked only in the main Nota Bene file. In addition, you have finer control over the steps involved in each discrete “undo/redo” unit (so if you bold a word in an inserted block, the first undo will only unbold that word, rather than also removing the entire newly inserted block). See Undo/Redo.

File Management: Nota Bene now uses the common Windows file dialog, making more file-management options available and options that are easier and more intuitive. There are also new capabilities to NB’s internal file management: There’s a separate tab (color-coded if desired) for each open file, active files are shown as checked on the most-recently-opened-files list on the File menu, pop-up tooltips provide document information for any open file on the Windows menu (as you hover over the name), and there’s a new Document Dialog bar that combines the features of the File and Window menus, so you can see everything related to files at a glance.

Frameworks and Outlines: Numerous changes have been made that will make working with frameworks and outlines easier and more intuitive. See Frameworks Overview.

Orbis: Orbis has been redesigned in version 10 with a new Interface. You can now have multiple panes open at the same time rather than switching between the old Query View and Results View. We have also introduced an option to create a basic automatic textbase  which makes it very easy for beginners to create a textbase and get started using Orbis. See Orbis.
 

Nota Bene on a Mac: With version 10, it is now possible to run Nota Bene on a Mac with WINE/Crossover. As with previous version, NB can also be run on a “virtual machine” using programs such as Parallels, VM Fusion, or Boot Camp.