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AbiWord vs. MS Word, For Now
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.)
How about comparing AbiWord to MS Works, that's what most folks at least used to get on their OEM installation...
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Another feature I found unique to AbiWord is when you restore the AbiWord application itself, make is smaller, the text within your document is minimized. If you look at the screenshots below, you will notice how the text is made smaller when the AbiWord window is restored. The first screenshot shows AbiWord maximized while the second screenshot shows AbiWord restored; notice how the text is minimized in the restored screenshot. This feature is useful because you don't have to scroll sideways to view the entire text. Also shown below is MS Word restored to show the differences between the two.
Ever heard of 'Fit to page' ?
Another great feature in AbiWord is the insert field option. Under the Insert tab you can choose to insert a field such as date and time. If you choose to insert time, you will actually insert a clock into your document as the screenshot below demonstrates.
Word has this too!
Abiword doesn't even have text boxes or math equation editors yet.
I would have loved to have this application around back when I was running Windows 98 on my Compaq Presario with 64MB of RAM
Want a small, fast, Word-compatible word processor?
Try Word 97. Or hell, even Works.
...but why am I supposed to hate Word? Seems a decent product and the sharepoint shared workspaces has turned out to be real popular with my users.
If you already have Word/Office, then you shouldn't hate it. However, if you don't have it and can't afford it, then you may need an alternative. I personally can't afford MSOffice, so I go with OOo.
It's also $200 or so (unless you get it with a new computer).
I'd call randomly corupting files and moving images around more than annoying quirks. The fact is, Word's only killer feature is 100% Word compatibility. Combine that with a monopoly, saturation advertising and restrictive licensing deals with OEMs and you have a WP that's hard to beat.
i love abiword, but won't use it until it supports the OASIS file format. i'm tired of have .docs, .abws, .sxws, .kwds and no common program to read them. three of them are open standards, there's no reason word, abiword, kword, and OO.o shouldn't support abw and sxw and kwd. preferably, i'd say everything should support sxw (which i'm happy to see koffice doing), but that's just my pipe dream.
I'm sorry, but word just does NOT have 100% word compatibility. Give me ANY two versions of word, and I can generage a doc on one version that doesn't load properly on the other version.
Exposure is also a way to donate. Show the world the benefits. And after a while you can help beginners. Beginners who started because of you. Who could become the architects of the next generation of Free Software.
It could happen.
Nobody believes the official spokesman, but everybody trusts an unidentified source. -- Ron Nesen
What a bizarre way to do it - why would the user ever want to *not* repair the file when they try to open it?
Simple filters should be as easy as a XML transform.
This is a popular fallacy. But XML only says how the data is stored - it says absolutely nothing about what data is stored.
Consider how you might store a table layout in XML. There are literally thousands of ways you might go about it. The chances of you and someone else even choosing to store the same bits of information, let alone with a similar structure, are, frankly, pretty slim. So, no, it's not "easy as an XML transform". The only advantage of XML is that it makes it easier to read the data -- but the tricky part is interpreting it, and XML does nothing to help there.
or how about NOT corrupting them in the first place? Is that possible?
And why have an option to even open and repair...shouldn't it just repair if it sees it corrupted automagically?
I left Word behind many many moons ago. I'm not looking back.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Word's only killer feature is 100% Word compatibility.
.DOC file format... It would allow that small office with 3 employees to continue to happily use their Office 95 CD's they got back in 1995 and work perfectly fine for them.
which it DOES NOT HAVE.
Word 2003 is not 100% compatable with Word 97. word 2000 had trouble with word95 AND word97 files.
there are HUGE compatability problems between versions of Word that make the switch to Open Office look like tiny annoyances.
Microsoft intentionally does not want 100% compatability with previous version of the
Microsoft does not like nor want that.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
But seriously folks... Is a grammar checker really that important a feature?
Zealotry in action. If an open source program lacks a feature that many people agree is important, it's a "stupid, useless feature that no one uses." Once said open source program implements the feature, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.