AbiWord: A Tiny Little Yet Powerful Word Processor

reviewed by Ahmad Faiz (ahmadvaiz@aol.com)

A word processor software is a must-have application in every people’s PC or Mac. The

advancement of technology offers computer users a wide variety of word processors. They vary

from paid softwares bundled in the so-called office suite which consists of a word processor, a

spreadsheet calculator, a presentation builder, a PDF viewer, and even an image editor to

open-source softwares or we know it as free softwares. Free softwares allow the users to install

and use them freely. In other words, you do not have to buy the license of a free software to

utilize it in your PC or Mac. Even, some free softwares can be installed on multiple PCs or Macs

without worrying the legality of the softwares. A wide variety of word processors gives many

choices for us in installing and using the word processor.

AbiWord is an open-source word processor. Yes, the label open-source guarantees us to install

and use it freely without having to dig our wallet a little deeper in buying a license. Unlike other

open-source word processors which come in a bundled office software such as the leading

open-source office applications, Apache Open Office and its brother Libre Office, AbiWord

comes alone with its amazing ability to help us in handling a wide variety of documents. Thus,

AbiWord cannot help us to make any spreadsheet calculations and presentation slides. However,

when it comes to document processing, AbiWord will amaze you with its amazing ability,

elegant simplicity, powerful processing, and friendly user interface in creating simple or complex

documents.

The amazing thing of AbiWord is its capability in open any document formats. Although

AbiWord has its own format in saving documents with its ABW, AWT, and ZABW format, it

can open other formats ranging from the most common document formats i.e. DOC, DOCX and

its variations DOT, DOTM and DOCM, the open-source formats in creating documents i.e. ODT

and OTT to rich text documents i.e. RTF formats and Internet documents i.e. HTM, HTML, and

XHTML formats. To add, AbiWord is able to open other formats such as WordPerfect

documents WP and WPD, StarWriter documents SDW, OpenOffice Writer STW and SXW,

ApplixWord AW, AppleWorks CWK, Doc Book DBK and XML, and of course simple texts

TXT. So, you don’t need to worry if your friend emailed you a document in one of those

formats. You can open it and print it right away from your AbiWord.

Another amazing thing from AbiWord is its compatibility. You can install AbiWord in a wide

variety of Operating Systems. If you are using a Mac and of course your Mac is running on the

OSX, you can download and install AbiWord and use it for every day use without concerning the

license. If you are a Windows user and looking for an alternative of Microsoft Office Word, it is

worth to try AbiWord in your Windows-based PC. You can install and run AbiWord in old

computers for instance a Pentium I or Pentium II computer. AbiWord requires small resources of

your hardware, hence it lets your old Pentium I computer to install and use AbiWord as more

advanced computers i.e. Core i7 computers. Similarly, if you have a computer which is running a

Linux OS, either it is Ubuntu, Mint, OpenSUSE, Fedora, or even Puppy Linux, you can also

install AbiWord for your Linux computers. In addition, AbiWord is also available for SunOS,

Polaris, CentOS, and ChromeOS. For other supported OS, please visit AbiWord site.

This amazing word processor comes with its elegant simplicity. You can visit its official site and

download and install it to your PC or Mac. The installation steps are very easy to follow with its

elegant and simple stages. You just need to click the next button to complete the installation.

Further, the software has small size. In Windows EXE installation file, the size is only 8 MB and

it expands to 23 MB after installing on your drive. Compare it with approximately 700 MB

Microsoft Office 2013 EXE installation file and it grows to for about 850 MB after instalation.

Therefore, you can save your valuable drive size for something else because AbiWord is light

and does not occupy your disk very much for either the installation EXE file and installed files.

Moreover, due its small size i.e. 8 MB, even it is still smaller than a five-minutes MP3 song in

320kbps format, you can download and keep it on a small size USB flash drive.

AbiWord is powerful to handle a wide variety of document formats. You can open a DOC or

DOCX file created by other word processors such as Microsoft Office Word or Libre Office and

edit it as you want and reopen it in the Microsoft Office Word or Libre Office. Also you can

open an ODT file created by Apache Open Office and print it from your AbiWord. Furthermore,

you are able to open less common document formats by your AbiWord, edit it then print it. A

spell checker function is also avaliable in AbiWord. Thus, if you are writing i English and words

that you type are red underlined, you can do the right click, then select the correct words. This is

helpful as people sometimes especially who are novice writers type wrong words. Another

interesting point is that you are capable of converting your documents. You can convert your

AbiWord format ABW to DOC or DOCX formats. Now, you don’t have to worry in submitting

your work to your professors. If you assume your professors do not have AbiWord installed in

their computers, and you do your work in AbiWord, you can email the work by saving your

documents in the most common formats DOC or DOCX. To add, if your friends are also using

AbiWord, you can work together with them through AbiWord by using the collaborate function.

So, you will no longer need other softwares such as TeamViewer or Clouds.

People who are users of, for instance Microsoft Office, do not need to worry in using AbiWord.

The user interface, menu orders, and command functions are similar to Microsoft Office 2003.

Unlike the tabbed mode applied from Microsoft Office 2007 to 2013 that makes some people

confused because the commands are grouped in certain tabs, the AbiWord offers you a nostalgic

user interface similar to the simplicity yet meaningful Microsoft Office 2003 menu and

command functions. Novice users of AbiWord will be able to cut his or her learning curves thus

learning faster of the menus and command functions due its similarity with the Microsoft Office

2003. All menus and commands needed to produce simple and professional-look documents are

placed in a neat order.

A word processor software is a must-have application for your PC or Mac. If you are looking for

an alternative of your paid word processor software, then AbiWord is worth to try. Similarly, if

you need a free word processor software and you don’t want to buy the license to use it legally,

then AbiWord is a good solution. If you still have your old Pentium I computer, and plan to use

it, then AbiWord is suitable for your old computer. AbiWord is the ultimate answer for the word

processor software with amazing ability, elegant simplicity, powerful processing, and friendly

user interface in creating simple or complex documents. It is able to handle various document

formats. It is light and simple. It is a reliable word processor for creating, opening, editing, and

printing documents. It is really helpful in assisting its novice users to adapt to the realm of

AbiWord. It is AbiWord, a tiny little yet powerful word processor.

P.S. This document is created with AbiWord 2.8.6 for Windows