ならば vs なら. both are totally interchangeable without affecting the nuance of the sentence?

Question

is it true that なら is merely a short form of ならば and as such, both are totally interchangeable without affecting the nuance of the sentence? Also, a second question is is ならば more "formal" than "なら" ?

Answer 1

For the most part you are correct. Verbs and adjectives also have a distinct -BA form, which differ from V+NARA and Adj+NARA a bit.

Maggie-Sensei has a good summery of the conditionals on her blog, as doe Learn Japanese Adventure.