AbiWord is a free word processing program distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Supported platforms: Windows, Linux, macOS, SkyOS and others. The default is included in the distributions of Xubuntu and Debian.
The name AbiWord is part of the root of the Spanish "Abierto" ("open"). AbiWord was originally a product from SourceGear, which later became supported and developed by a volunteer team.
The first version became public on April 18, 2002, at that time it did not support the tables, which met the critical remarks of most users. The tables began to be maintained in the second version, which was released in mid-September 2003.
AbiWord features
The program code is based on the components of the GTK + library. According to the developers, it can be built under Windows, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, QNX and other operating systems. The official site offers links for downloading Windows builds, macOS and Linux, as well as source code.
The size of the installation package for Windows is approximately 8 megabytes (dictionaries and extensions are not included). For Linux, the package weighs about 3.5 megabytes. AbiWord has been translated into many languages, including Russian.
The editor functions in accordance with the WYSIWYG principle, there is support for basic word processing functions:
- text styles and formatting;
- the ability to insert footnotes and footers;
- creating lists and tables;
- insertion of images and their scaling;
- header formatting;
- Russian spelling checker;
- print.
The editor does not provide built-in mechanisms for creating graphic elements, as well as grammar checking or automatic hyphenation. Word (DOC) format is supported, as well as ABW (self-developed), HTML, RTF. With the help of additional plug-ins, you can import documents in the format of WPD, ODT, SDW and others.
