Take it lightly: Word processing and collaboration with AbiWord

Word for Word

By Dmitri Popov

At first sight, AbiWord might look like a rather simplistic word processor (Figure 1). But don't let its appearance fool you: Behind the lightweight interface hides a powerful application that sports a few clever features not found in OpenOffice.org Writer. In fact, if you don't work with complex documents like books and scientific papers and you don't use other OpenOffice.org applications, AbiWord can easily replace Writer as your word processor of choice.

Figure 1: Behind AbiWord's interface hides a powerful application.

Even if you prefer to stick with Writer as your primary writing tool, you have plenty of reasons to keep AbiWord handy. Because AbiWord requires less space and fewer resources, it's great for use on older hardware, notebooks, and netbooks. More importantly, AbiWord boasts excellent collaboration capabilities, so you can use the word processor to share documents and collaborate.

AbiWord Features Galore

Although AbiWord is often considered a lightweight alternative to OpenOffice.org Writer, it does offer all the essential writing and formatting features. In fact, some of these features are more powerful and easy to use than their Writer equivalents. Take, for example, Word Count (Figure 2), the must-have feature for any word processing application worth its salt. In Writer, this feature shows you only the word and character counts in the current selection and whole document. In AbiWord, the Tools | Word Count command offers more detailed information, including total word count, word count excluding footnotes and endnotes, character count with and without spaces, as well as number of paragraphs, lines, and pages.

Figure 2: The Word Count feature provides detailed information.

The Table of Contents (TOC) feature in AbiWord is not as flexible as in Writer, but it lets you generate and insert a TOC with consummate ease. For this feature to work, you have to format the document structure using the Heading styles. To begin, place the cursor in the document where you want to insert the TOC and choose Tools | Table of Contents. To edit the TOC properties, right-click on the inserted TOC and select the Table of Contents item. In the General section, you can specify the TOC's heading text and style and modify settings for each TOC level. To edit the TOC's layout settings, switch to the Layout Details section. Here you can specify numbering type, label text, and indentation.

Similar to Writer, AbiWord allows you to insert fields into the document. Fields act as placeholders for dynamic values like current date, word count, document keywords, and so on. The Insert | Field command opens the Insert Field dialog window containing all the supported field types. The field types in the window are grouped into four sections - Date and Time, Application, Numbers, and Document - and you can insert the field you want by picking it from the list and pressing the Insert button.

Although AbiWord is not designed to handle complex documents, it does offer the Styles feature, which can help you manage document formatting more efficiently. To manage styles, choose Format | Create and Modify Styles. By default, the Available Styles section lists the styles in use in the current document, but you can use the options in the List section to display all existing styles (the In Use option) or narrow the selection only to custom styles (the User-defined styles option).

To create a new style, press the New button, give the style a name, and specify its type by selecting the desired item from the Style Type drop-down list (Figure 3). To edit style properties, select the appropriate entry in the Format drop-down list. For example, if you want to specify font properties, select Font and use the options available in the Font dialog window to tweak the available font properties. To make it easier to apply styles, AbiWord sports the Stylist tool (Tools | Stylist) which looks like a stripped-down version of the Stylist feature in OpenOffice.org Writer. All styles in AbiWord's Stylist window are organized into an expandable tree, making it easier to find the style you need quickly.

Figure 3: Working with styles in AbiWord.

AbiWord also offers a few neat helper tools - all accessible via the Tools menu. The Google Search tool, for example, lets you select a word or text fragment and search for it in Google, whereas the Wiki Encyclopedia tool lets you look up words in Wikipedia. As the name suggests, you can use the Thesaurus tool to find synonyms (Figure 4), and the GDict Dictionary tool allows you to look up word definitions without leaving the convenience of your word processor. The Summarize tool creates a summary of the current document, and you can even specify the length of the summary.

Figure 4: AbiWord's thesaurus.

Collaborating with AbiWord

When it comes to collaboration, AbiWord shines. Its Revisions feature works like the Changes function in Writer for tracking changes made to the document. To enable Revisions, choose Tools | Revisions | Mark revisions while typing and give the new revision a name. AbiWord then tracks all changes made to the document and marks them with different formatting options. If you prefer to hide changes while working on the document, choose Tools | Revisions | Show document after revisions. The Revisions feature lets you create and manage multiple revisions of the same document, which helps when the document goes through several editing stages.

Although the Revisions feature can help you keep tabs on changes made to the document, the Collaboration feature transforms AbiWord into a nifty real-time word processing tool. AbiWord supports document sharing and editing via a direct TCP connection, an XMPP/Jabber account, or the dedicated AbiCollab service. As the name suggests, the direct TCP connection option lets users connect to an AbiWord instance that acts as a server. This solution is perfect for use on a local network, and it's rather easy to set up.

First, you have to create an AbiWord server account on your machine. In AbiWord, choose Collaborate | Accounts and press the Add button. Second, choose the Direct connection (TCP) protocol from the Account type drop-down list, then select the Accept incoming connections option and press OK to save the settings. To share the current document with other users, choose Share Document from the Collaborate menu.

To connect to the AbiWord server, you have to create an account in AbiWord running on the client machine. Creating a client account is similar to setting up the AbiWord server, but instead of Accept incoming connections, you have to select the Connect to a server option and specify the address of the AbiWord server. To save the settings, press OK, then choose Collaborate | Open Shared Documents, select the document you want from the list of shared documents, and press the Open button (Figure 5). This opens the selected document, and you can work with it as if it were a local document. To make it easier to keep track of changes, AbiWord assigns a unique font color to each connected user.

Figure 5: Opening a shared document.

AbiWord also supports the XMPP protocol, which lets you share documents and collaborate via an XMPP/Jabber account. With one of the many IM applications, like Pidgin, Gajim, or Kopete, you can easily set up a Jabber account. To share documents via XMPP, you need to create an XMPP account in AbiWord. To begin, choose Collaborate | Accounts, press Add, select Jabber (XMPP) from the Account type drop-down list, and enter your username, password, and Jabber server address in the appropriate fields in the Account properties section. To save the account, press OK, then use the Share Document command to enable sharing for the current document. To access the document shared via XMPP, choose Collaborate | Open Shared Documents, press the Add Buddy button, and enter the Jabber username of the user who hosts the document. Pressing OK saves the settings, then you can select the document you want and press Open.

Whereas the direct TCP connection is ideal for small workgroups on the same local network and the XMPP solution works best for ad hoc document collaboration, the AbiCollab service [2] is perfect for sharing and collaborating on documents via the web (Figure 6). To use the service, you have to create a free account on AbiCollab's website and then set up an AbiCollab account in AbiWord. The service itself performs three key functions: It allows you to access and manage your documents via a browser, it lets you collaborate and share documents with other users, and it gives you a way to manage users and groups. Using AbiCollab's web interface, you can tag, share, and preview existing documents, as well as create new ones. Also, you can export documents stored on your AbiCollab account in a number of formats, including ODF, PDF, DOC, RTF, and HTML. Better yet, the service saves each revision of the document, so you can keep track of all edits and grab any previous version of the document. AbiCollab also lets you specify access rights for each document and share it with specific users or groups. In AbiCollab, click on the share link next to the document, and use the available options to specify the desired access rights to share the document with other users. Using AbiCollab's Groups feature, you can set up a group and use the sharing feature to share the document with the group. AbiWord also provides two separate RSS feeds: one for your personal documents and one for all the documents on your AbiCollab account. With these feeds, you can stay abreast of document activity from an RSS reader.

Figure 6: AbiCollab service.

Final Word

Although AbiWord might not be the right tool for editing complex documents, it's a perfect tool for trouble-free word processing and easy document sharing and collaboration. Its collaboration capabilities alone make it a must-have tool for workgroups and anyone who writes for a living.