AbiWord

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AbiWord
AbiWord icon

Screenshot of AbiWord 2.4.2
Developed by The AbiWord Team
Initial release December 1, 1998 (1998-12-01)
Latest release 2.6.3 / May 2, 2008
OS Cross-platform
Genre Word processor
License GNU General Public License
Website http://abisource.com/

AbiWord is a free software word processor licensed under the GNU General Public License. The name "AbiWord" (pronounced "Abby Word") is derived from the root of the Spanish word abierto, meaning "open". It is supported on Linux, Mac OS X (PowerPC), Microsoft Windows, ReactOS, BeOS, 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. However, SourceGear gradually moved on to other business interests, and now the AbiWord project is run by a team of volunteer developers. AbiWord is part of GNOME Office, a collection of office applications with some degree of integration.

Contents

[edit] Features

AbiWord has a comprehensive language database with multiple languages. It also has support for tables and footnotes, as well as a spell checker and an advanced grammar checking system.[1]

[edit] Interface

AbiWord has a similar user interface to classic versions of Microsoft Word, which is 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.

With recent changes in Office 2007 user interface, AbiWord becomes a viable alternative, since it mimics the old versions of Word.

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 Rich Text Format, HTML, OpenDocument, and Microsoft Word. An input filter for Office Open XML (docx) is included beginning with version 2.6.0. 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] See also

Free software Portal

[edit] References

  1. ^ AbiWord beats OpenOffice to a Grammar Checker. Slashdot (2005-10-15). Retrieved on 2007-11-23. “"The recently released AbiWord-2.4...is the first Free Word Processor to offer an integrated Grammar Checker"”

[edit] External links

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