ABIWORD

'AbiWord' is a free software word processor licensed under the GNU General Public License. The name "AbiWord" is derived from the root of the Spanish word "abierto" meaning open. It is supported on GNU/Linux, Mac OS X (PowerPC), Windows, ReactOS, BeOS and other operating systems. The level of support on each operating system varies considerably, though. GNU/Linux versions, for example, are actively developed, while recent Mac OS X versions don't run natively on the latest machines and don't render fonts correctly. An unofficial port based on the GTK+ (GNU/Linux) version is also distributed by the creators of SkyOS. AbiWord was originally started by SourceGear Corporation as the first component of AbiSuite, as part of a plan to create a full Office Suite that would be free software. However, SourceGear gradually moved on to other business interests, and now the AbiWord project is run by a team of volunteer developers. AbiWord added a grammar checker before OpenOffice.org had one[1]. AbiWord is part of GNOME Office, a collection of office applications with some degree of integration.
AbiWord has a similar user interface to Microsoft Word, intended to ease migration for new users. Although there are differences, the AbiWord developers aim to embrace and extend this de facto standard in business. The interface is intended to follow user interface guidelines for each respective platform.
AbiWord is packaged with several import/export filters, including Rich Text Format, HTML, OpenDocument and LaTeX (export only). Plug-in filters are available to deal with many other formats, notably WordPerfect documents. The native file format uses XML, so as to mitigate vendor lock-in concerns with respect to interoperability and also digital archiving.

Contents

Features

Adoption

See also

External links

Features

Abiword supports the following features:

★ Fast startup and speed of operation.

★ Low memory and hard drive requirements.

★ Microsoft Word-like interface.

★ Support for tables, footnotes, and endnotes.

★ Support for tables of contents.

★ Equation editing.

★ Grammar checking.

★ User interface and spell checking in 49 languages.

Adoption

Abiword is the default word processor in the following GNU/Linux distributions:

★ Xubuntu

★ Zenwalk
The XO-1 Laptop uses AbiWord. The word processor's small size makes it easily installable on the laptop's small computer specifications.

See also

★ List of word processors

★ Comparison of word processors

External links

★ abisource.com, official website.

★ List of AbiWord translations (both complete and incomplete)

★ Andrew Leonard: Abiword Up. ''Salon.com'', Nov 15 2002. History of the project and comparison with closed source development.

★ AbiWord vs. MS Word ''Flexbeta.net'', Sep 1 2004.

★ Comparison between OOo Writer, AbiWord, and KWord ''newsforge.com'', Aug 23 2005.