AbiWord beats OpenOffice to a Grammar Checker

msevior writes "The recently released AbiWord-2.4 (downloads for Linux, OSX and Windows here ) is the first Free Word Processor to offer an integrated Grammar Checker. We can can do this because we're a pure GPL'd application and so can easily collaborate with other Freely licensed applications like link-grammar, gtkmathview and itex2mml which provide AbiWord-2.4 with a superb Latex-based Math feature. Sun's license requirements for OpenOffice.Org make it much more difficult for such collaborations to occur."

Comments

Usefulness?

[dada21]

Yay for F/OSS bloatware! (No offense to the poster)

Now if only they could have a floating thumb tack that gives you help whenever you don't need it.

Do people honestly use grammar check? Hasn't it been proven that no grammar checker works well enough to provide a wide cover of the English language?

Personally, when I write an article or something for wide dissemination, I'll send it to a group of writers I know and trust. Peer editing. They do the same when they need a human review. I'm sure there are websites to help others do similar swaps.

The MS Word g/c pisses me off bigtime. I have to disable it or go crazy.

For me, a grammar check is a bloat feature that doesn't add worth to a word processor. This is especially true for technical documents.

Is this a feature needed solely to promote the package (like the "often used" cruise control on every car) to the masses?

I'd rather have a thin distribution that works quickly without consuming massive amounts of RAM and processing power.

Am I alone?

Re:Usefulness?

[free space]

A grammar checker would be a good idea if:
- It is well implemented, from what I hear, Wordperfect's Grammatik used to be almost always correct and very useful,as opposed to Word's grammar checker that 's here just so that Microsoft can say "we have a grammar checker"

- It didn't try to 'improve your style'. I hate it whenever Word tries to encourage me not to use passive.Also my pet hate when Word underlines all my headers and says "fragment: consider revising" ...what the heck you dumb program! It's a freaking header! must all my headers be complete sentences?

- It can be easily turned off, and doesnt fill your page with green lines under every sentence.

it won't be as good as peer review or a professional proofreader, but it may spot that embarrasing mistake before you send that critical report to the customer at 11 pm..

Re:Usefulness?

[iangoldby]

I hate it whenever Word tries to encourage me not to use passive.

You can turn this off you know. If I had MS Word installed on this machine I'd tell you how, but I don't think it is too obscure.

Personally, I find the grammer checker quite useful and I believe that the passive voice is Evil(TM). Most people who use passive seem to believe that they need to in order to take the focus away from the person doing the action, and that this is particularly important in scientific publications etc.

All I can say in response is that there are a great many almost unreadable scientific papers out there that are over-wordy, constructed portacabin-like from pre-fabricated sentences, which contain nothing to keep the reader engaged. If that is the price of using the passive voice, then I don't think it is worth paying.

Can I recommend you take a look at George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language ? Although written in 1946, he still has a lot that is relevant to say about writing clear and engaging english. (Sorry, I've gone off the original subject a little, but I think this essay should be required reading for anyone who does any kind of formal writing.)

Re:Usefulness?

[agraupe]

Do you drive much on the highway? If so, I don't see how you could disparage the use of cruise control; there's nothing I hate more than someone floating between two different speeds, 20 km/h apart, and it's not like cruise control makes you a worse driver or something. Although for the average commuter, it's useless, it is crucial for the many 5-hour-plus drives I make.

Re:Usefulness?

[God'sDuck]

Okay then, translate "The window has been broken" into active voice.

"Windows is broken."

Re:Usefulness?

[amliebsch]

X is carrying the food. (Where X is the food carrier.)

Note this is why passive voice is disfavored; it is often unnecessarily ambiguous.

Re:Usefulness?

[Krach42]

More accurately to the point. The sentence "Something broke the window." implies that the writer doesn't even know what broke the window. While, "The windows was broken." Indicates that they have an idea of what broke it, but it's not important. And in a process report would indicate that the action was perhaps even part of the process. Compare:

In testing the VeloMatic A, the test unit was placed in the restraint system in front of the window, then as the test concluded, the window was broken.

With:

In testing the VeloMatic A, the test unit was placed in the restraint system in front of the window, then as the test concluded, something broke the window.

There's god damn nothing wrong with the Passive Voice except that it has a stigmatic notion in English. In German, it has a air of respectability to it over the active voice. Thus, in German if you want to sound more respectable, you use the passive more.

I spoke with my Dad on this topic once. He worked on process documents and reports. The idea is that you put everything in the passive, because the agents of the senteces are not to be indicated. You don't write "Bob strapped the VeloMatic A into the restraint system." no. You don't say who did what, it doesn't matter who did what, just that it was done. "The VeloMatic A was strapped into the restraint system."

Re:Usefulness?

[Krach42]

First, "The window broke" only works because "to break" is a dual-use transitive/intransitive. Not every word in English is like this. "The unit was strapped in." Please make *that* into an active sentence.

Oh, and don't use "someone" or "something", because both of those restrict the actor to either animate, or inanimate, while my sentence doesn't make any such restriction. Also, they create a greater air of uncertainty as to the agent of the sentence. "Someone strapped the unit in." makes it sound like, "I came into the lab, and someone had already strapped the unit in." Not, "As according to the process, the unit was strapped in."

Also, "The window has been broken for 3 weeks." *is* a passive sentence. The past perfect for "to be" (is) is "to have been" (has been). Thus, "I am a programmer." and "I have been a programmer for 3 weeks." Changing the tense of the sentence to make it seem like it's not a passive sentence shouldn't count for making it non-passive.

The passive isn't any less or more ambiguous than every setence that we use in English. It just has a bad rep, because stylistic perscriptionists declare that you should't use it. Meanwhile, in German, the perscriptivists *suggest* the passive, because it's an uncommon usage form that takes the tone of the sentence out of the "everyday".

Re:Usefulness?

[gordo3000]

I take it you've never tried to type of paper filled with foreign words and/or foreign names? For me, that is the only time I use auto-complete but during those times, it is the most useful feature I have ever run across. I used to have to type the word without any of the accents the entire way through and then go back and do a 'find and replace'. Now I can type it once and it will always complete it that way.

Physics papers would be a real bitch if I didn't have that option(Schrodinger is a key example).

Re:Usefulness?

[Krach42]

I'm not ending a sentence with a preposition. I'm ending the sentence with an additional word that follows the verb, which just happens to look identical to a preposition. I'm not using the verb: "to strap" and then a preposition of "in" + some location. I'm using the verb "to strap in". Compare: "I strapped in the car." This does *not* mean, "I was strapping, and the location of that strapping was in the car." It means "I took the car, and strapped it in."

This confusion has been propogated by Prescriptionists for no bloody reason, except maybe that Latin didn't do it, or something like that. But fact is that Germanic languages are often known to use seperable and inseperable affixes to their verbs. German and Dutch are most apparent, because they're V2, thus the word "aufsteigen" (to climb up) is generally written together, but then in a sentence it become "ich steige auf." (I climb up.) Here the "preposition" auf is placed at the end of the sentence. So, I hear you "yeah, whatever, this is German, it's not English."

Well, let's move to Swedish, on the other side of the Germanic Language tree, and you'll see that while they don't have the words directly affixed, they are still considiered averbial suffixes. Example: "klättra uppför". (to climb up) Here the verb infinitive is "klättra", and the suffix is "uppför", you can't drop that suffix without changing the semantic meaning of the sentence. It's "Jag klättrar uppför" (I climb up), that's how it's used, and "uppför" is not a preposition at the end of a sentence, it's a suffix to the verb.

Now, while we have all these complex verbal phrases out there like "to strap in" and "to climb up". It's interesting to note that English shows the same features as all of the other Germanic languages: adverbial affixes that look exactly the same as a preposition. It's easily demonstrable that it's the German verbal system. Prescriptionists just don't listen to Linguists though, they listen to their damned style manuals that don't take much more than a surface examination of the language and attempt to dictate reason upon it.

Learning foreign languages you begin to learn that all that crap that Prescriptionists tell you is wrong, is actually done in other languages all around the world, in fact to the perscription of their own language guidelines! So, while English Prescriptionists are telling you "don't use double negatives, because it means the opposite of what you're trying to say," there are major languages out there that "violate" this logic. And when they say "don't end a sentence with a preposition", they neglect evidence shown by other languages that these are not prepositions, they're adverbial affixes to the verb. And when they say "don't split infinitives" they don't know what the hell they're talking about because there isn't a way to put another word between the "b" and "e" in "be", which is the real infinitive. ("I can see." Where's the infinitive in that sentence? "see", not "to see", German and Swedish follow the same rules about when you say "to verb" or "zu verb" or "att verb" respectively, but you don't see them saying that it's part of their infinitive.)

Note, that these three rules are slowly growing out of merit among perscriptionists, because they're starting to realize that hey, linguists actually know what they're talking about, and can make a rational explanation for this feature of natural speech. The only one they keep is double negatives, saying that "agreement of negation should not be done with negative words, but rather with indefinite words, as this is the established formal standard." Which is true.

But you still won't see those elementary school teachers, who are stupid, changing their deeply rooted opinions on this matter.

Re:Usefulness?

[Krach42]

Well, the real problem here is actually to native English speakers. Many languages have clear and accurate responses to negative questions. Let's take some examples, starting with English, then we'll touch Japanese, then German. All sentences given are grammatically/semantically correct responses for the respective language.

In English, the speaker agrees his "yes/no" response with his sentence. Thus, you use "no" only when you're responding with sentence in the negative.
Did you watch TV? No, I didn't watch TV.
Did you watch TV? Yes, I did watch TV.
Did you not watch TV? No, I didn't watch TV.
Did you not watch TV? Yes, I did watch TV.

In Japanese, the speaker's "hai/iie" response to the affirmation or negation of the question. This matches English for the positive, but is opposite for the negative.
terebi o mitta? iie, minakatta. (Did you watch TV? No, I didn't.)
terebi o mitta? hai, mitta. (Did you watch TV? Yes, I did.)
terebi o minakatta? hai, minakatta. (Did you not watch TV? Yes, I didn't.)
terebi o minakatta? iie, mitta. (Did you not watch TV? No, I did.)

In German, you have two pairs. For positive sentences you use "ja/nein" same as English, but for negative sentences, you have "ja/doch", responding on the affirmation of negation of the question.
Hast du ferngesehen? Nein, ich habe nicht. (Did you watch TV? No, I didn't.)
Hast du ferngesehen? Ja, ich habe. (Did you watch TV? Yes, I did.)
Hast du nicht ferngesehen? Ja, ich habe nicht. (Did you not watch TV? Yes, I didn't.)
Hast du nicht ferngesene? Doch, ich habe. (Did you not watch TV? Wrong, I did.)

This is generally why (at least this is the purpose behind it, even if it were not conciously the reaosn) the English-speaking militaries use a pair like "affirmative/negative" for responses. Because the response is consistent upon the question asked (a la natural Japanese).

Of course, English causes even more pitfalls with even positive questions: "Do you mind if I eat that?" "Yeah, go ahead." Since your response isn't a negative sentence, you say "yes" as per reasons above, even though we all know that "yeah" means, "I do mind if you eat that."

Anyways, the majority of people have problems with negative statements, even in their native language. Few languages actually have sufficiently consistent terms for responses to avoid this abiguity.

Sure

[slashflood]

[...] integrated Grammar Checker. We can can do this because [...]

:-)

Re:Sure

[Surt]

They do it by dancing the can can, I don't understand your problem with this claim? I mean sure, you have to get the DDR keyboard mod to do your coding, but those aren't so expensive as to make this claim implausible.

Pfft.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm laughing at all you AbiWord and OpenOffice users from my tower of Notepad!

Grammar checker? No thanks

[g_dunn]

Even advanced grammar checkers still work very poorly compaired to sitting down, reading it yourself, and then having an english inclined friend do the same.

I suppose LaTeX support is nice for the math geeks, though you would think that they are already using a program with support for it if they need it.

Re:Grammar checker? No thanks

[Coryoth]

I suppose LaTeX support is nice for the math geeks, though you would think that they are already using a program with support for it if they need it.

I am a math geek, and unsurprisingly I do indeed use LaTeX. I am quite happy to see the TeX style math support in AbiWord though: not for me, but for others. As a math geek I read a lot of math, and seeing the ugly, badly rendered, hard to read, amateurish garbage produced by some word processors pains me. I'm realistic though. There are a lot of people who only need a little math and aren't going to learn how to write documents in LaTeX just for that. To have someting like AbiWords new equation editing is a good thing: it doesn't render quite as well as LaTeX, but it is streets ahead MS Word and nicer than OO.o currently manages: it's actually somewhat readable.

Personally I would prefer people use this OO.o macro which allows embedding of rendered LaTeX in an editable way, but to be fair you still need to know a little LaTeX to really be ale to use it (unlike AbiWord's offering).

Jedidiah.

Re:Grammar checker? No thanks

[ndogg]

Grammar checkers are nice for catching the stupid mistakes like "We can
can do this..."

Re:Grammar checker? No thanks

[Al Dimond]

Another great program for those that want nice equations (and nice documents in general) is LyX, which is essentially a GUI for building LaTeX. It has its own document format, but it compiles to TeX in order to generate output. As a college student I think it's great for quickly throwing together homework assignments with a mixture of text, equations, figures and code samples (I end up using it quite a bit in DSP classes). I don't think you really *have* to know anything about TeX to use LyX, unless you have specific requirements about how your document looks (for example, for courses in the humanities where I have to use MLA format... there's a LaTeX MLA package that I ended up having to modify becaue it was incorrect, and to use it within LyX you need to know a bit about how TeX works).

Actually Link Grammar checker is not GPL...

[pwagland]

From the Link Grammar website...

As of December 2004, we are releasing the parser under a new license; the license allows unrestricted use in commercial applications, and is also compatible with the GNU GPL (General Public License). You can view the license here. We are also releasing version 4.1b, which is identical to version 4.1 (released in 2000) except that the licensing statements reflect the new license.

Meaning that it is most likely no easier for abiword to include it than it is for openoffice to include it.

How does Sun's license affect using LinkGrammer?

[sonamchauhan]

From the Link Grammer link you provided:
http://bobo.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/
As of December 2004, we are releasing the parser under a new license; the license allows unrestricted use in commercial applications, and is also compatible with the GNU GPL (General Public License). You can view the license here. We are also releasing version 4.1b, which is identical to version 4.1 (released in 2000) except that the licensing statements reflect the new license.

Sun's license for OpenOffice is LGPL
http://www.openoffice.org/license.html

Eh?

[DrXym]

OpenOffice is LGPL'd and makes use of Mozilla, Java, Python and no doubt a large swathe of other libs and utilities. I don't see how the licence has been an impediment thus far.

I'd be more concerned that if it were GPL'd that it couldn't use some or all of the above. Now arguably, OO does need to shed some pounds so if it dumped Python and / or Java that might be no bad thing, but that's a different topic altogether.

Re:-1 flamebait

[eludias]

While theoretically correct, the practice is different: everyone is allowed to collaborate when the software has a BSD license. However, since it is not mandatory to publish the code, it really doesn't matter that much.

For example, the ASUS WL-500g (Linksys like router with USB port) its firmware is recompilable and hackable by you and me since it is (mainly) GPLed code. The newer SL1000/SL5000 (vpn routers) contain several BSD modules which ruin the party:

[From: http://website.wl500g.info/beta/firmware.php?fid=3 3 ]

Changelog:
SL1000 and SL500 GPL source code
Before using the source code, please note:

1. The router's firewall and VPN are licensed 3rd party code and are not subjected to GPL terms.
2. Several software modules are derived from BSD codes, which ASUS won't release. ...and therefore:

[From: http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=3417 ]
There are no chance to build something useful from this sources.

But which will be first to...

[Eric Smith]

...have a GOOD grammar checker?

Re:-1 flamebait

[horza]

The GPL discourages collaboration. If you want to encourage collaboration you need a license like BSD. The GPL allows restricted collaboration, but only between GPL fans. The BSD license allows collaboration for everyone.

If you are feeling altrustic, then BSD allows maximum freedom for your code. If you want the world to benefit from your code, but don't want someone ripping off your work and hiding it in a commercial project without paying you anything, then GPL gives you great protection. Even after you release something under the GPL you can still license it to a commercial closed-source enterprise for a fee, like MySQL. It only becomes a nuisance when the project grows and has many contributers as you then need to ask permission from each contributer before you can relicense. On the flip side BSD encourages more forking where the new code is not merged back into the main tree as there is no incentive. If the appropriate license is chosen then I don't think either will encourage collaboration more than the other as the license should reflect the goal of the project. A group writing printer drivers which their respective companies have agreed to make Open Source for pragmatic reasons may not want the same license as a loosely-knit group of graphics programmers wanting to release 3D modelling system. There are plenty of other licenses that can be used, though GPL, BSD and Apache licences currently have the greatest mind-share. There is no such thing as a best license, only the most appropriate one.

Phillip.

Equation Editing

[SCHecklerX]

I dunno about MathML, since I've never used it, but the equation editor that comes with OO.org models itself after what Word Perfect had back in the early 90's. Much much more efficient to type equations this way vs. markup or gui tools. For example:

x=sqrt((a+b)over(c+d))

would render as you expect (dunno how to show the result easily in slashdot, sorry). Very powerful stuff, especially if you are trying to type equations from notes and such...no need to take your fingers off the keyboard.

Re:Equation Editing

[piquadratCH]

For example:

x=sqrt((a+b)over(c+d))

would render as you expect (dunno how to show the result easily in slashdot, sorry).

This would look like this. Of course, you don't want to actually see those grouping brackets. That's why Math uses braces for grouping elements (x=sqrt{{a+b}over{c+d}}). Here's the result.

Re:Equation Editing

[idlake]

OOo and (La)TeX are similarly efficient in terms of input. But (La)TeX is the de-facto standard; there is no reason to use anything else.

A Writer's Experiences

[ChaoticCoyote]

I'm a pro writer, so I live inside word processors. AbiWord is my tool of choice these daya on both Linux and Windows.

I turn off real-time grammar checking, because it distracts me from the act of writing. In my experience, grammar checkers are often incorrect in their analysis, particularly if you write fiction and technical works (as I do.) Unusual terminology and structure can give these checkers indigestion.

That isn't to say that I don't use grammar checkers. When I've completed a draft of an article, I often run the grammar checker manually to make certain I haven't missed anything obvious or silly. But I can't stand them in "real time", where I feel like I'm back in high school with the teacher looking over my shoulder and nit-picking every keystroke.

Grammar check is perhaps a misnomer

[Julian Morrison]

Actual uses of grammar check:

- As a partner to spell check, find correctly spelled but misplaced words (eg: there and their).

- Find common brain-farts such as reduplicated words.

- Remind blame-ducking idiots that the passive verb makes their evasions obvious. Mistakes were made, my foot!

- Point out incongruities and neologisms, which some people might not know aren't cultured english, such as excessive verbing of nouns.

These are all tasks that require an ability to parse grammar, and they're actually useful.To call them "grammar checking" would be too strong, but I can't think of a better descriptive name.

Re:When will Abiword support OpenDocument?

[Nadir]

2.4 supports import of OpenDocument: from http://www.abiword.com/release-notes/2.4.0.phtml:

OpenDocument support

Support for the OpenDocument file format has been donated by INdT, Nokia's Technology Institute. Currently the OpenDocument import filter is basically complete, with support for styles, headers/footers, lists, image wrapping, text boxes, tables, footnotes/endnotes and tables of contents. OpenDocument export is planned as well and will be added during the 2.4.x series.

Since AbiWord is Open Source...

[mh101]

...any chance of integrating the grammar-checking code into Slashdot? Or would the code melt-down from an overload after being installed here for more than 5 minutes?

Re:Oh, the hypocrisy...

[Anthony Liguori]

The submitter praises GNOME's premier word processor in that it can surpass OpenOffice.org because it is GPL'ed, whereas the inflexible LGPL license of OpenOffice.org cripples development.

No, I think you (and most posters) misunderstand what the licensing issue is. The problem with OpenOffice.org is *not* that it's LGPL'd, but rather that for code to be integrated into OpenOffice.org, Sun requires you turn your copyright over to Sun. Very few existing Open Source projects are willing to do that--because frankly it's evil. This makes it very difficult for OpenOffice.org to integrate anything that isn't home grown.

Re:Oh, the hypocrisy...

[uhoreg]

Sun requires you turn your copyright over to Sun.

The FSF also requires you to assign your copyright to them if you contribute to some of their projects (such as emacs -- I know; I've contributed to emacs). And you have to sign a document saying that your work is your own, and that you have the right to assign copyright to them (i.e. your employer has no claim over the code). This is to make sure that any code that goes in is legit, or at least that if they get sued for copying someone's code, they can point to the document and say that it wasn't their fault.

Of course, the free software community trusts the FSF a lot more than than they trust Sun.

grammar checkers, bah!

[mysticgoat]

An english grammar checker in OpenOffice will be useful when the english language acquires a good grammar. I don't see that happening for quite a while. In over 400 years of "modern english", it hasn't happened yet.

In fact, since the number of people who now speak english as a second language greatly exceeds the number of native english speakers, the diversity of acceptable english expression is increasing. English has always been very open to importing new sentence structures as well as vocabulary from other sources. English is a healthy growing language, that is changing almost from year to year as it absorbs and transmogrifies what these new english speakers bring to the party.

Ehwww

[lastberserker]

That's quite ugly, don't you think? Here is a TeX version to compare (kudos to Wikipedia's TeX renderer)