SillyDog701

[Antony]

AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word. It is suitable for typing papers, letters, reports, memos, and so forth.

AbiWord is a GNU Freeware, created by a group of volunteers.

AbiWord is available for Mac OS X, RedHat Linux, Fedora Linux, SuSE Linux, Mandrake Linux, and yeah, the unavoidable Windows.

AbiWord homepage

From the screenshots, it seems to be a better alternative to OpenOffice.org.

(related thread about [sdt=2959]OpenOffice.org[/sdt])

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/125.5.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.12

[Don_HH2K]

Wow, those screenshots look a lot like an updated version of Lotus AmiPro 3, which I was using with my Win3.1 machines to do word processing awhile back. They share the same monochrome color scheme and even have the same icons for some text properties. I'll see if I can pull out the PC I [hopefully still] have it running on.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (Donzilla/0.1)

[DJGM]

From the screenshots, it seems to be a better alternative to OpenOffice.org.

(related thread about [sdt=2959]OpenOffice.org[/sdt])

Not quite. AbiWord is only a word processor, while OpenOffice is a full office productivity suite.

IMO . . . out of all the office suites available, Microsoft still provide the best one. My only gripe
against Microsoft Office is the extortionately high price that Microsoft expect us to pay for it!

Don't get me wrong, I think OpenOffice is an excellent choice for those want a full office suite,
but can't quite afford the high price tag to Microsoft's product. In my experience, I have often
found OpenOffice to be somewhat rather sluggish to start up, compared with Microsoft Office,
on Windows. And it is painfully slow to start and run on Mac OS X, due to the fact that has to
run on top of the X11 windowing environment, which is already quite slow on it's own.

On Windows, I'm currently running Microsoft Office 2000, which I bought a few years ago, on
a Student/Teacher license, while I was at college. I'm relatively happy with it, and I have no
intention of upgrading it to Office XP or 2003! I tried Office XP, and didn't like it much, so I
retrograded back to Office 2000, and stuck with it ever since.

On Mac OS X, I use Microsoft Office v.X, and if the Mac was my main computing platform, I'd
have to say that it's possibly the best office productivity suite on any platform, bar none.


(I bet you never thought you'd see me utter positive comments about Microsoft products!)


To balance this out, and to prove that I haven't really gone all pro-Microsoft, I'll say this:

Microsoft Internet Explorer is the buggiest POS internet application it has ever been my
misfortune to use, and Microsoft Windows Malignant Edition (Me) was the buggiest and
the most sub-standard PC operating system that I have ever used . . . period!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

[Antony]

From the screenshots, it seems to be a better alternative to OpenOffice.org.

(related thread about [sdt=2959]OpenOffice.org[/sdt])

Not quite. AbiWord is only a word processor, while OpenOffice is a full office productivity suite.

True, however, consider that most people only use Word, or the word processor is the most popular application used in any office productive suites.

If a good word processor is all the need, AbiWord seems to be far better than the Windows95-looking of the OpenOffice.org in OS X.

On Mac OS X, I use Microsoft Office v.X, and if the Mac was my main computing platform, I'd
have to say that it's possibly the best office productivity suite on any platform, bar none.

From Microsoft's own website (Mac section), it once said, the Office v.X is far better than the Office for Windows counterparts.

I still use Office v.X, which is a good product for me. I am not sure if I will get the Office 2004, I might if I have spare money.

Microsoft Internet Explorer is the buggiest POS internet application it has ever been my
misfortune to use, and Microsoft Windows Malignant Edition (Me) was the buggiest and
the most sub-standard PC operating system that I have ever used . . . period!

Internet Explorer for Mac is actually a very good browser before the release of Safari.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/125.5.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.12

[DJGM]

Microsoft Internet Explorer is the buggiest POS internet application it has ever been my
misfortune to use, and Microsoft Windows Malignant Edition (Me) was the buggiest and
the most sub-standard PC operating system that I have ever used . . . period!

Internet Explorer for Mac is actually a very good browser before the release of Safari.

I was of course, referring to the Windows versions of IE being ". . . the buggiest POS internet application it
has ever been my misfortune to use . . . " Meanwhile, I've always maintained the opinion that the version
of IE5.x for the Macintosh has always been many magnitudes better than it's Windows/PC counterpart.

Unfortunately nowadays, IE5.x for Mac is just as technically obsolete as it's Windows/PC counterpart.

Out of all the browsers available for Mac OS X at this moment in time, my favourite is Mozilla Firefox.

. . . consider that most people only use Word, or the word processor is
the most popular application used in any office productivity suites . . .

For what it's worth, the Microsoft Office application I use the most is . . . PowerPoint.

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