Abiword Help

Home , AbiWord

AbiWord Help

Karl Ove Hufthammer

24th October 2000 Contents

1 About AbiWord? 2

2 About Abisource.com 2

3 Why choose AbiWord? 3

4 The Single Document Interface 4

5 Frequently Asked Questions 5

5.1 Open Source Strategy ...... 5

5.2 AbiWord ...... 7

5.3 Remarks ...... 11

6 Edit commands 11

6.1 Undo ...... 11

6.2 Redo ...... 12

6.3 Cut ...... 12

6.4 Copy ...... 12

6.5 Paste ...... 13

7 Inserting objects 13

7.1 Date and Time ...... 14

7.2 Symbols ...... 14

7.3 Images ...... 15

1 1 About AbiWord?

AbiWord is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Soft- ware Foundation; either version 2 of the License or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITH-

OUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MER-

CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the

GNU General Public License for more details.

AbiWord and AbiSource are trademarks of AbiSource, Inc. The

AbiSource project is currently hosted by SourceGear Corporation. For more information, see the AbiSource web site.

2 About Abisource.com

Abisource.com is the central hub of activity and communication for the

AbiSource project.

It is the place to find the latest version of AbiWord, articles relating to the project and AbiWord T-shirts. There are sections designed specifically for software developers and other sections designed for users. You will find a variety of ways to communicate with users, contributors and developers of AbiWord. We want the communication to be as open as the software itself.

The AbiSource project is sponsored by SourceGear Corporation.

2 3 Why choose AbiWord?

AbiWord, in spite of its young age, has several advantages over its compe- tition. One of its main features is that it’s free, whatever its use (personal, professional . . . ). It’s also multi-platform, i.e., it’s available on several operating systems (Windows, Linux, BeOS, Solaris . . . ).

AbiWord is in constant development and in perpetual evolution. It’s simple but functional: it contains only the most important features. How- ever, contributors from around the world is working on improvements, day by day. Because of this, updates are frequent, and contain useful new features and many corrections. Because it’s free and is easy to install and use, the traditional problems with payment for updates are removed, giving the users a greater return on investment with lower ownership costs (operating expenses).

AbiWord has a “Look & Feel” that’s very close to other word processors on the market. You’ll need very little time to get used to it.

Lastly, its native document format, ABW, is a XML format, which makes it much easier for other applications (e.g. word processors) to read. It also ensures compatibility with future versions of AbiWord, so you don’t lose work due to upgrades.

In short, here are the advantages of AbiWord:

• Free – in cost and in source code

• Multi-platform

• Easy to use interface

• Frequent updates with new features

• Compatible native ﬁle format

3 4 The Single Document Interface

AbiWord is a Single Document Interface (SDI) – one AbiWord window can contain only one document at once. If you open another document or create a new one, a new window will appear. Conversely, closing the AbiWord document will close the document.

This is the opposite of Multiple Document Interface (MDI) programs, such as Microsoft Word 97, where all the documents are contained in only window. Closing a document will not result in closing Word.

The SDI technology was adopted for AbiWord for two major reasons:

1. Since AbiWord is being developed for several platforms at once (Win-

dows, Unix, BeOS and soon Mac), it was decided to stress the unifor-

mity of these versions. Since Unix is based on the single document

interface (SDI), that is what we decided to use. Thus, every open doc-

ument in AbiWord has a button on the taskbar.

2. The most familiar application to users today is without doubt the In-

ternet browser. Most popular browsers today use the SDI concept.

From this, most users are now used to this concept and less and less

used to the alternative, the multiple document interface. This rein-

forces the choice of this technology. Thus, new users do not have to

worry about knowing how AbiWord works; it works just the way

they expect. So new AbiWord users are not disoriented.

4 5 Frequently Asked Questions

5.1 Open Source Strategy

What is Open Source software?

Open Source software differs from traditional proprietary software

in that the source code (the underlying instructions which make the

software function) is available, as well as the application itself. For

most users, the availability of source code is of no immediate beneﬁt;

however everyone beneﬁts from higher quality software produced as

a result of many individuals making improvements to the original

software. For more information about the concept of Open Source,

visit www.opensource.org.

Why is it free?

We want everyone to use our product.

AbiSource is not shareware. You are not obligated, morally, legally or

otherwise, to pay for using our products, ever. Please use our soft-

ware, and please pass copies to everyone you know so that they can

use it as well.

AbiSource is not shareware. You are not obligated, morally, legally or

otherwise, to pay for using our products, ever. Please use our soft-

ware, and please pass copies to everyone you know so that they can

use it as well.

We have no hidden agenda.

What’s the catch?

No catch. You don’t have to make any compromises. Our products

are always being improved. Initial releases may come out with only

5 the essentials, but as Open Source software matures, it becomes as

full-featured as the offerings from the leading proprietary vendors.

Releasing our software as Open Source allows us to attain a higher

level of quality than our closed source counterparts.

Will it work on my computer?

AbiWord works on several different kinds of computers. Versions are

available for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT. Versions

for Linux work with Intel, Alpha and LinuxPPC architectures. There

are also versions available for BeOS, Solaris and FreeBSD. Currently,

AbiWord does not work on a Macintosh.

Is there support?

In the future, AbiSource will provide ofﬁcial technical support for

all of our products. Currently, support is available by signing up

for the AbiWord user mailing list. Send a message to abiword-

[email protected] with the word “subscribe” (without the

quotes) in the message body. To reduce spam trafﬁc to this list, only

its members can submit messages; you need to subscribe to it to send

mail. We also host archives of this list.

The AbiWord user mailing list is designed to facilitate discussion

among users of AbiWord. The list is monitored by various AbiSource

project members. You may use this list to:

• post questions,

• suggest features, or

• carry on nearly any discussion which is directly related to Abi-

Word.

6 Please remember that this mailing list is a public forum and your

postings may be read by many people.

5.2 AbiWord

What features are available in AbiWord?

Currently, there is quick list of features on the . For an extensive look

at AbiWord features, you can check out the AbiWord feature matrix.

We also have a similar document cross-referenced by operating sys-

tem. Try AbiWord and see for yourself. It’s a fast download, and the

software is very easy to use.

Some menu items say to add code at a certain line. How do I do that?

This message is an indication that the dialog in question has not been

added yet. As an Open Source project, everyone is encouraged to join

in the development effort. This message is a reminder to those knowl-

edgeable in programming languages such as C that their contribu-

tions are wanted. If you don’t understand the speciﬁc instructions in

this message, don’t worry about it; be patient and these features will

continue to appear with each successive release.

How do I change languages in AbiWord?

AbiWord can work with menus and strings translated into many dif-

ferent languages by changing an option. As there is no options dialog

yet, changing languages requires hand-editing of the options ﬁle. For

Linux and FreeBSD, this ﬁle is in your home directory in a hidden di-

rectory named .AbiSuite. For Windows, the ﬁle is usually in the Win-

dows directory in a directory named AbiSuite. The ﬁle itself is named

AbiWord.proﬁle. Modify this ﬁle as follows:

7 • Find all occurrences of the word _builtin_ and change it to

custom.

• Find three lines that typical end with values="En-US".

These three lines begin with MenuLabelSet, StringSet, and

ToolbarLabelSet. Change each of these three lines to a different

value, such as Fr-FR for French.

• Save the document, and relaunch AbiWord. All menus and

strings should now be in your language of choice.

Currently supported languages are:

Ca-ES

Catalan

Cs-CZ

Czech

Da-DK

Danish

Du-NL

Dutch

Fi-FI

Finnish

Fr-FR

French

De-DE

German

Hu-HU

Hungarian

8 Id-ID

Indonesian

It-IT

Italian

No-BOK

Norwegian Bokmål

Nn-NO

Norwegian Nynorsk

Pl-PL

Polish

Pt-PT

Portuguese

Sv-SV

Swedish

I like using AbiWord in my native language. Why do I still see some English in the product?

Translations for AbiWord are provided by conscientious individuals

all over the world who enjoy using AbiWord in their native lan-

guage, just as you. As AbiWord continues to develop new features,

occasionally there is a small time lag between when a new dialog

or menu appears, and when all the new translated words can be

submitted. You can help the translation effort by contacting the

person responsible for your particular translation. To do so, look in

your AbiWord directory for a folder named strings. Find the ﬁle

associated with your language in that directory, and open it with an

editor such as vi or Notepad. At the top of that page, you will ﬁnd

9 the name and email of the person who is maintaining the translation.

If I type in another language, how do I have spell check work for that language?

Your AbiWord distribution contains a ﬁle called american.hash.

This is a dictionary of English words. By replacing this dictio-

nary with one from your language of choice, spell check will then

mark only those words misspelled for the language you choose.

A comprehensive list of available dictionaries is at http://fmg-

www.cs.ucla.edu/geoff/ispell-dictionaries.html.

When I try to install AbiWord on Windows, I get an error about missing COMCTL32.DLL.

COMCTL32.DLL is a Windows library AbiWord needs

to run. Some older versions of Windows did not have

this library. You can get it free from Microsoft at

http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/ieplatform/ie/comctrlx86.asp.

How do I use TrueType fonts for AbiWord on Linux?

Most GTK apps use X fonts exclusively, because what they demand

of fonts is minimal. Most programs use fonts only for on-screen ren-

dering. AbiWord also requires fonts to be able to sent to the printer.

There are some complex issues regarding TrueType fonts in conjunc-

tion with printers on Linux.

The AbiSource solution is to keep a copy of scalable Type 1 fonts lo-

cally, Therefore, AbiWord can use only Type 1 fonts.

How do I enable vi and Emacs key bindings in AbiWord?

For the hardcore computer geeks out there, AbiWord is built with

the ability to select arbitrary keybindings. You can switch between

10 these different modes by pressing “F12”. The status bar will indicate

the current keybinding mode is in use. Please note that not all vi or

Emacs keys are implemented, but most are. If there is a particular vi

or Emacs keybinding that you ﬁnd is missing, remember that every-

one is encouraged to join in the development process, and this might

be a chance for you to make a contribution.

5.3 Remarks

Questions not in the FAQ

If there are any questions which are not answered in this FAQ, please

visit the AbiSource site.

6 Edit commands

Here you’ll learn about the following edit commands:

• Undo

• Redo

• Cut

• Copy

• Paste

6.1 Undo

There are three ways to undo typing, editing or formatting commands:

1. Go to the “Edit” menu and choose “Undo”

11 2. Click the “Undo” icon

3. Use the keyboard shortcut by pressing “Ctrl” and “Z” simultaneously

6.2 Redo

There are three ways to restore (or cancel) the effects of the Undo command:

1. Go to the “Edit” menu and choose “Redo”

2. Click the “Redo” icon

3. Use the keyboard shortcut by pressing “Ctrl” and “Y” simultaneously

6.3 Cut

To cut a word, paragraph or any other object (an image for example), select/highlight the object, then do one of the following three actions:

1. Go to the “Edit” menu and choose “Cut”

2. Click the “Cut” icon

3. Use the keyboard shortcut by pressing “Ctrl” and “X” simultaneously

This will erase the object. However, your object is put into the memory of the computer (in the clipboard) and can be placed somewhere else using the “Paste” command.

6.4 Copy

The “Copy” command is used to duplicate text or an object. This command must be combined with the “Paste” command. To copy a word, a paragraph or any other object (an image for example), select/highlight the object, then do one of the following three actions:

12 1. Go to the “Edit” menu and choose “Copy”

2. Click the “Copy” icon

3. Use the keyboard shortcut by pressing “Ctrl” and “C” simultaneously

Your object will not disappear and a copy will be put into the memory of the computer (in the clipboard) to be pasted somewhere else.

6.5 Paste

Once the text or object is in the computer’s memory (by using either the

“Cut” or “Copy” command), you can paste it in the desired place. To do so, position your cursor where you want the text or object, then do one of the following three actions:

1. Go to the “Edit” menu and choose “Paste”

2. Click the “Paste” icon

3. Use the keyboard shortcut by pressing “Ctrl” and “V” simultane-

ously

This command is active only if your clipboard has been ﬁlled using the

“Cut” or “Copy” commands. The pasted object will be the last object either copied or cut.

7 Inserting objects

To streamline the creation of your documents, AbiWord allows you to insert these preset objects:

• Date and Time

13 • Symbols

• Images

7.1 Date and Time

To insert the current data and time, position the cursor where you want to insert the date. Go to the “Insert” menu and choose “Data and Time”.

A window with several formats for date and time will appear. Choose the desired format and click the “OK” button to insert or the “Cancel” button to cancel.

The following window will appear:

7.2 Symbols

To insert a symbol or a character that isn’t available on your keyboard, ﬁrst position the cursor where you want to insert the symbol/character. Then do one of the following:

1. Go to the “Insert” menu and choose “Symbol”.

• Select the font on the top by clicking on arrow at the topmost

ﬁeld.

14 • Click the desired character on the grid.

• When the character is enlarged on the bottom, click “Insert”.

• Repeat as many times as is necessary.

• When ﬁnished, click on the “Close”.

2. Use the keyboard short cut by simultaneously pressing the “Ctrl”

and “M”.

7.3 Images

It’s possible in AbiWord to insert images into your documents. You can currently only insert PNG ﬁles.

To insert an image, position the cursor where you wish the picture to go, go to the “Image” and choose “Image”.

Enter (or browse to) the path where your image is and choose “Open” to insert the image.

AbiWord treats inserted images as a characters, so they’re subject to existing alignments and line spacing, and can be moved by spacing or tabs.