AbiWord vs. MS Word, For Now

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Posted by ryuzaki0 on Wednesday September 1, 2004 @01:51AM from the abiword-is-an-unsung-hero dept.

Gsurface writes "If you have decided that it is time to kill MS Word, then it is time to look for an alternative. Flexbeta.net compares AbiWord, part of a larger project known as AbiSource, with MS Word and asks: is AbiWord a worthy MS Word replacement? Not to ruin the ending but according to the article the only draw back to AbiWord is that it currently does not feature a grammar checker, though a plug-in is in the works." (Also on this front, AbiWord's native Mac OS X version is labeled experimental, but seems to work very nicely.)

8 of 511 comments (clear)

Are grammer checkers that important? by weeboo0104 · 2004-09-01 01:59 · Score: 4, Funny

I don't have a problem with abiword not having a grammer checker, It's unpossible to add-in every function that everybody would want right off the bat there. It's not like I ever used those grammer check things anyways.

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It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
What about outlines? by bman08 · 2004-09-01 02:01 · Score: 4, Funny

Just last week I put Word, Abiword and Ooffice head to head on outlining a project. All I want is simple, collapsible outlines that I can easily modify and are labeled I., A., 1., a., etc...
The result... nobody wins. Word comes closest, but I still spent so much time wrestling with the software that I just grabbed a piece of paper and got my work done in record time. (course it was way harder to email)
Re:Getting Rid of Word Perfect by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-01 02:09 · Score: 2, Funny

WORDPERFECT FILTER:

alias ls='ls | grep -v *.wkb'

Would you like fries with that sir?
Its all fine and well but... by farzadb82 · 2004-09-01 02:09 · Score: 2, Funny

What most people fail to realize is that Word and its office brethren, is better, not because of its glorified feature set but rather because of its interoprability between other Windows apps and between other Office components. By this I mean that I can use the Word/Excel/PPT/Outlook automation engines from within my own code or through VBA to do stuff like producing reports, precalculated spreadsheets, etc.
Until Open Source alternatives can provide this level of functionality, MS Office and its components, will still dominate the market.
BIG SIGH by crazyhorse44 · 2004-09-01 02:12 · Score: 2, Funny

Yea yea... it should be "disable" and not "disabling". If it makes anyone feel any better next time I'm up all night drinking I'll be sure to proofread my posts before hitting the submit button. *smacks forehead*

However, I do stand by my initial assertion that the grammar checker is relatively useless for someone with a strong writing background and who regularly proofreads their work.

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. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
Re:The need for a grammar checker by caitsith01 · 2004-09-01 02:22 · Score: 2, Funny

I like just pasting swathes of Dickens or Melville or Shakespeare into Word and watching it all turn green and red like it's Christmas time. It's the strongest argument I can think of for lighting forest fires around Redmond in midsummer...

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Read Pynchon.
Re:Not worth the time to read it, summary below... by boinger · 2004-09-01 03:21 · Score: 2, Funny

Yeah, MS Word does do that a lot better.

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Re:Fancy stuff by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-01 06:42 · Score: 2, Funny

... Catching simple grammar errors ...

I think you mean grammatical errors, gammar and errors are both nouns...

or am I overextending? :-)