Also in 1979, towards the end of his period without teaching duties at the Faculdade de Letras [School of Arts and Humanities] (1974-1981), he was a lecturer in Historical Sciences at the Universidade Livre de Lisboa and second director of the respective department between 1984 and 1985. Between 1985 and 1988, he was the first director of the History Department at the University of Lusíada, which had just been created by professors who had left the Free University, accompanied by other colleagues.

The first version of his dictionary Abreviaturas Paleográficas Portuguesas (Portuguese Paleographic Abbreviations) also dates from 1979 and was written, as always, with his students in mind. An essential tool for any researcher poring over documentation in Portuguese, the dictionary is divided into two main sections. In Part I, which he called Grammar, he explains his interpretation of the abbreviated system of medieval and modern Portuguese. In Part II, the Dictionary itself, the abbreviations collected are grouped into four blocks, entitled “Signs”, “Common Names”, “Proper Names” and “Numbers”. Due to its natural requirements, since he had conceived it on a much larger scale, Borges Nunes described it as “very brief”. A later edition of this dictionary was published in a large print run, with his authorisation and on the initiative of António Justino Ribeiro. The work, text and abbreviations, was written entirely by hand by the author, revealing another facet equally unknown to most people: his mastery of the pen and brush, as a draughtsman and artist of writing.

As a text editor, almost a natural role for a professor of palaeography and diplomatics, he left behind a considerable body of work. On the one hand, there are the occasional texts, satisfying the demands of an expert in palaeographic reading: in collaboration with Virgínia Rau (Letter from King Manuel I to King Ferdinand of Aragon on the capture of Goa, 1968; Inventário post-mortem del-rei D. Pedro II, 1969), or Martim de Albuquerque (Regimento quatrocentista da Casa da Suplicação, 1982) or entirely his own, The reconciliation of Abraaão Cohen, an incursion into inquisitorial documentation (Portugaliae Historica, 1974) and Diplomatic and paleographic commentary on the bull “Manifestis Probatum” (Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, 1981). On the other hand, his editions include the critical edition of A tragédia da Rua das Flores, by Eça de Queirós (Livros do Brasil, 1981), an opportunity to apply his critical rigour to a text by one of the greatest writers of contemporary Portuguese literature, well outside his usual chronological scope, and the edition of Ordenações d’el-rei Dom Duarte (Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1988), as the person responsible for establishing the text and in collaboration with Martim de Albuquerque. In the field of text editing, mention should also be made of História da vida, milagres e canonização do bem-aventurado S. Hyacintho da Ordem dos Pregadores, by Pedro de Mariz (Centro de Estudos Históricos, 1965) and the introductory notes to the edition, by Mário Júlio de Almeida e Costa, of the Ordenações Afonsinas (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1984), a project for which he had hoped to produce a complete transcription of the text, but which never came to fruition. Martim Martins, first notary of Guimarães (Congresso Histórico de Guimarães e sua Colegiada, 1981), a pioneering study on notaries as agents of writing, paved the way for other works, both within and outside his school.

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