AbiWord
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 AbiWord screenshot |
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| Developer(s) | The AbiWord Team |
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| Initial release | December 1, 1998 |
| Stable release | 2.6.8 / 2009-3-18 |
| Written in | C++ |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Type | Word processor |
| License | GNU General Public License |
| Website | www.abisource.com |
AbiWord is a free software word processor. It was originally started by SourceGear Corporation as the first part of a proposed AbiSuite. Development stopped when SourceGear changed their focus to Internet Appliances. AbiWord was adopted by some Open source developers and AbiWord continued to be developed. The name "AbiWord" (pronounced "Abby Word") is derived from the root of the Spanish word "abierto", meaning "open". It runs on Linux, Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel), Microsoft Windows, ReactOS, BeOS (unsupported), Solaris, AmigaOS 4.0 (through its Cygnix X11 engine), and other operating systems.
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. SourceGear gradually moved on to other business interests, passing on control of the AbiWord project to a team of volunteer developers. AbiWord is part of GNOME Office, a collection of office applications with some degree of integration.
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[edit] Features
AbiWord supports both basic word processing features such as lists, indents and character formats, and more sophisticated features including tables, styles, page headers and footers, footnotes, templates, multiple views, page columns, spell checking, and grammar checking. [1] AbiWord includes a collaboration plugin, known as AbiCollab, that permits multiple users to work on the same document in real time, in full synchronization. The Presentation view of AbiWord, which permits easy display of presentations created in AbiWord on "screen-sized" pages, is another feature not often found in word processors.
[edit] Interface
AbiWord generally works similarly to classic versions (pre-Office 2007) of Microsoft Word, as direct ease of migration was a high priority early goal. Currently, while many interface similarities remain, cloning the Word interface is not a top priority. The interface is intended to follow user interface guidelines for each respective platform.
[edit] File formats
AbiWord is packaged with several import/export filters, including HTML, Microsoft Word (DOC), Office Open XML (DOCX)[2][3], OpenDocument (ODT), Rich Text Format (RTF) and Text documents (TXT). LaTeX is supported for export only. Plug-in filters are available to deal with many other formats, notably WordPerfect documents. The native file format, .abw, uses XML, so as to mitigate vendor lock-in concerns with respect to interoperability and also digital archiving.
[edit] Grammar Check
The AbiWord project includes a grammar checking plugin using Link Grammar. AbiWord had grammar checking before any other open source word processor, although a grammar checking was later added to OpenOffice.org. Link Grammar is both a theory of syntax and an open source parser which is now[when?] developed by the AbiWord project.
[edit] Version differences
AbiWord 2.6.x does not support Windows 9x. Users of these systems can still use AbiWord 2.4.6.
[edit] See also
- List of word processors
- Comparison of word processors
- Office Open XML software
- OpenDocument software
[edit] References
- ^ "AbiWord beats OpenOffice to a Grammar Checker". Slashdot. 2005-10-15. http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/15/1312216. Retrieved on 2007-11-23. ""The recently released AbiWord-2.4...is the first Free Word Processor to offer an integrated Grammar Checker""
- ^ "AbiWord v2.6.0 Released". www.abisource.com. http://abisource.com/release-notes/2.6.0.phtml. Retrieved on 2008-03-24.
- ^ "AbiWord v2.6.5 Changelog". www.abisource.com. http://www.abisource.com/changelogs/2.6.5.phtml. Retrieved on 2008-12-19.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: AbiWord |
- AbiSource.com, official website.
- AbiSource.com Mirror Site.
- List of AbiWord translations (both complete and incomplete)
- Andrew Leonard: Abiword Up. Salon.com, November 15, 2002. History of the project and comparison with closed source development.
- AbiWord vs. MS Word Flexbeta.net, September 1, 2004.
- Comparison between OOo Writer, AbiWord, and KWord newsforge.com, August 23, 2005.
- Abi the Ant project mascot. Page includes pronunciation explanation.
- Interview with Development team after 2.6 release
- AbiWord: A Small, Swift Word Processor
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