![\"Cloudeight](\"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2011\/abiword.png\")
<\/p>\nWe first featured this program as a freeware pick of the week in \t\t\t\t2004. Here it is seven years later and the intrepid EB was \t\t\t\tbrowsing one day (she took a break from grazing) and told me I \t\t\t\tshould take a look at AbiWord again because it has been much \t\t\t\timproved since 2004. It’s nice to hear that something has \t\t\t\timproved since 2004. I wish I could tell you that EB or I have \t\t\t\timproved, but you know we’re not wines or cheeses. Believe it or \t\t\t\tnot, we’re people. The hair is a little grayer (OK – A LOT \t\t\t\tgrayer). Well mine is; EB still dyes hers an awful shade of \t\t\t\tgreen. With that red hair clip in her hair she reminds me of a \t\t\t\tstuffed olive. I just let my hair get gray. I’m lucky to have \t\t\t\thair at my age. What does all this have to do with our freeware \t\t\t\tpick today? Well let me tell you…<\/p>\n
Absolutely nothing.<\/p>\n
So let me segue sweetly into the gist of our freeware pick. \t\t\t\tIt’s a great word processor. For those who eschew Microsoft \t\t\t\tOffice and want to create and open those ubiquitous Word docs – \t\t\t\tboth *.doc and *.docx – AbiWord will do that. AbiWord will do a \t\t\t\tlot more than that. When you install it you can choose the \t\t\t\tAbiWord plugins you’d like to install with it. For instance, you \t\t\t\tcan install the grammar plug-in. Most of you are praying that I \t\t\t\tinstalled that plug-in. I’m sorry to tell you that I did install \t\t\t\tit but I didn’t use it to write this newsletter. I’m sure my \t\t\t\tgrammar is nearly perfect anyway, right English aficionados?<\/p>\n
Well lets get right to the pickles, shall we?<\/p>\n
AbiWord lets you open and create documents in many different \t\t\t\tformats, as you can see from the screen shot below. You’ll \t\t\t\tnotice it can even save files in Outlook Express\/Windows Mail \t\t\t\t*.eml format – as well as Word doc, HTML (web format), Text, \t\t\t\tRich Text, Open Office and even *.docx. Wow. You can choose from \t\t\t\ta lovely array of formats – enough to please almost all of you.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And if you’re a template lover, you’ll find that AbiWord \t\t\t\tcomes with a nice selection of templates to create a variety of \t\t\t\tdocuments. If you’re like EB and I and you can’t remember the \t\t\t\tproper format for business letters, you can use the \t\t\t\tBusiness-Letter template to make sure you look like a real \t\t\t\tcorporate gazillionaire. You can even make up your own \t\t\t\tsecretary’s initials and stick them at the bottom. So while your \t\t\t\tsitting in your pajamas, hunched over your computer wrapped in a \t\t\t\tblanket, your letter will appear as if it came from Wall Street! \t\t\t\tOh, the wonders of the Internet Age. Look at all the templates! \t\t\t\t(EB: please note the “Friendly-Letter” template.)<\/p>\n
![\"Cloudeight](\"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2011\/abiword1.png\")
<\/p>\n
AbiWord has a lot of features – too numerous to mention here, \t\t\t\teven though I’m a well-known windbag. So look at the screenshot \t\t\t\tbelow. You’ll see you can check your spelling, get a word count, \t\t\t\tdo a search, look things up in the Wiki Encyclopedia, make \t\t\t\tannotations (I bet some of you would really love to make some \t\t\t\texplicit annotations on this newsletter), and so forth. Well, \t\t\t\tlook at the picture below:<\/p>\n
![\"Cloudeight](\"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2011\/abiword2.png\")
<\/p>\n
Now we’ve come to the point that you all love. It’s time to \t\t\t\tbring in the developers and let them say their piece. So \t\t\t\tdevelopers, bring it on!<\/p>\n
“…Like most Open Source projects, AbiWord started as a \t\t\t\tcathedral, but has become more like a bazaar. AbiWord is part of \t\t\t\ta larger project known as AbiSource, which was started by the \t\t\t\tSourceGear Corporation. The goal of the project was the \t\t\t\tdevelopment of a cross-platform, Open Source office suite \t\t\t\tbeginning with AbiWord, the project’s word processor.<\/em><\/p>\n SourceGear released the source code to AbiWord and a developer \t\t\t\tcommunity quickly formed around the project. SourceGear has \t\t\t\tsince then stopped working on the project.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n The developer community has since then continued to make \t\t\t\timprovements and increase the quality of AbiWord…”<\/em><\/p>\n That’s about it. AbiWord is a great alternative to those \t\t\t\tbulky 100MB word processor\/office programs. AbiWord packs a lot \t\t\t\tof punch into just 7.9 MB file size. No EB, not spiked fruit \t\t\t\tpunch. I meant it packs a lot of features and usability into a \t\t\t\trelatively small file size. If you’re tired of this rambling \t\t\t\tprose and want to download a great word processor with enough \t\t\t\tfeatures to appease the most fussy among you, \t\t\t\tvisit the AbiWord Website \t\t\t\twhere you can read more about and\/or download AbiWord<\/a>. It \t\t\t\tmay well be just the word \t\t\t\tprocessor<\/a> you’ve been looking for.<\/p>\n DETAILS<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n AbiWord<\/strong> Do you have a freeware program you love?\u00a0Tell us about it<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We first featured this program as a freeware pick of the week in 2004. Here it is seven years later and the intrepid EB was browsing one day (she took a break from grazing) and told me I should take a look at AbiWord again because it has been much improved since 2004. It’s nice to hear that\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[75,36,1215,1214],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1931"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1931"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1933,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1931\/revisions\/1933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWindows XP, Vista, Windows 7
\n33bit and 64 bit (both versions are contained in one installer)
\n7.9 MB Windows Installer
\nWhat is it? An excellent word processing program with a lot of useful features<\/p>\n