AbiWord Interests, But Fails To Excite

There are a lot of free alternatives to Microsoft Office, from the full-featured OpenOffice.org to the ultra-lightweight AbiWord. These two are available for all major platforms -- Windows, Mac, and Linux -- and can open and edit both Office documents and documents saved in Open Document Format, a free, internationally standardized file format that anyone can implement in their own word processor without signing a patent agreement.

OpenOffice.org, like Microsoft Office, is great for making high-quality documents and presentations to put on your boss' desk. AbiWord, on the other hand, is a basic, no-frills word processor, with about the complexity of Windows' built-in Wordpad. It does have a few more options ... like indents, inserting hyperlinks, and built-in grammar and spellcheckers. But at its core, it's a simple and lightweight word processor that anyone can pick up and use. It loads quickly, and it doesn't take up a lot of RAM or hard drive space.

I don't work in a corporate office, and I don't need to make presentations or hand shiny printouts up to a middle manager. I'm a writer, and I just need something to write with, something that stays out of my way and lets me do what I want to. That's why I started using AbiWord, and why I've stayed with it for months. It has a lot to recommend it, and I do recommend it to anyone who thinks that it might fit their needs. But at the same time, some of its quirks are starting to grate on me.

Poor Rendering Capability

You'd think it wouldn't be too hard to make text appear on the screen. But all too often, when I go back and correct a piece of text, something will appear messed-up afterwards. A letter will look like it's bolded (it's not), or something. And I have to scroll down and then scroll back up, to "reset" that part of the screen and make it look normal again.

To be fair, I'm not exactly using a default Windows install. I'm using AbiWord on XUbuntu 8.10, and XUbuntu's support for my graphics card isn't the best. It's possible that some of these problems are because of the OS and its drivers, and not because of the word processor itself. At the same time, though, I still remember one time when I accidentally did something that I barely even remember what, and all of a sudden the whole page I'd been working on was turned into gibberish. I had to toss it and start over again.

Poor File Compatibility

AbiWord works fine with most file formats. But the format it saves in by default is .abw, its own special file format that nothing else uses. And while it's technically Free / Open-Source, just like Open Document Text is, that doesn't do me much good in practice if I can't open AbiWord documents in another word processor. I can, of course, save in more common file formats, like Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Open Document Text (which requires a separate conversion filter for the Windows version of AbiWord). But to do that, I have to tell it to save that way every single time. There's no way to change the default as far as I've seen, and it's annoying.

Those whose families or offices use Microsoft Office 2007 should also note that AbiWord has poor support for Office 2007's crazy new file format. This isn't the AbiWord developers' fault, as it's Microsoft that decided to write up a new file format all of a sudden and give everyone headaches. But the fact still remains, and it's still something to consider if full compatibility's important to you.

Poor Cut-and-Pasting Into Associated Content

I don't know if it works this way with other web-based forms, but cutting-and-pasting from AbiWord into the box to put content for AC is frustrating. Not all of the formatting is preserved, so I have to manually bold and italicize words. But even worse, it doesn't show that I have to do this until after I've clicked to the next page. I have to click back to the editor from the next page in order to make my changes.

At least hyperlinks are preserved. I like being able to insert them into AbiWord, and that is a big plus for it compared to simpler programs like Wordpad.

The Upshot

AbiWord is a nice word processor, and many of you may still want to use it. But I had a lot less trouble using the Windows version of IBM's Lotus Symphony, another free office suite that's compatible with Microsoft Office. It uses a lot more memory and hard drive space, and is much slower to load up. But its interface is streamlined and easy to figure out, and it gave me very little hassle after I turned off things like word auto-completion. It's also full-featured, so it might give Microsoft Office itself a run for its money.

I'm getting a much faster computer for Christmas. So I may consider switching to a more powerful office suite then, when slowness and resource hogging are all but unnoticeable. For those of you on older computers like my current one, though, you may still want to consider AbiWord. It's a free download at http://www.abisource.com/, so what've you got to lose?

Leave a comment here if you'd like to share your experiences with other readers. And good luck finding the right free alternative to Microsoft Office!