Abiword Help
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
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. Copyright 1998-2000 AbiSource, Inc. 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 oper- ating 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 fea- tures 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.