When it comes to word processing, the program most people are familiar with is Microsoft Office, and for good reason: Microsoft has had a monopoly on commercial office software since 1996 (when Microsoft sabotaged Wordperfect), and OpenOffice (developed from the StarOffice code-base) didn’t achieve significant popularity until 2005.

Now that open-source software is becoming increasingly trendy, most tech-savvy people are aware of OpenOffice, and its fork LibreOffice, but what about the other open-source alternatives?

Introducing Abiword
Abiword is a fully-featured word processor with all the functionality anyone would expect from an office application, but without the taxing memory and hard disk space requirements of office heavyweights like Microsoft Word and LibreOffice. Unless you’re looking for a full-fledged integrated office environment, Abiword is really all you need.

Advantages of Abiword:

• Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS): means that everyone has unfettered access to the source code, and can modify, enhance, and distribute the software freely.
• Extremely Functional: While LibreOffice and OpenOffice have tons of features that cater to more enterprise users, Abiword focuses on the desktop and Web-centric users, with features that appeal more to mainstream users, Internet-enthusiasts, and power-users.
• Low Footprint: Abiword is extremely lightweight and provides an amazingly low level of stress on the CPU and RAM for the functionality it provides. It will run fast on older hardware, and appears to be on new-gen steroids on newer machines.
• Amazing Collaboration Features: A few years ago Abiword added their greatest feature yet, AbiCollab, a plugin system which made Abiword one of the best online collaborative word processors (if not the best!) available. Unlike Google Docs collaboration, AbiCollab is able to make use of the full functionality of a word processor, with all the editing power one would except of office-grade software. Abiword also launched an online arm, AbiCollab.net, in order to make the Collaboration process even easier, and to streamline it with the web-centric blogosphere.

Let’s See What Features AbiWord Has To Offer
Formatting: As you can see, pretty standard stuff. We have all of the clerical effects, a wide variety of fonts (including the main ones-- Times New Roman was used for this review), and the notorious Lorem Ipsum sample text. There are also options for fine tuning the color highlighting the text, and the color of the text itself. There are also all the standard options for Bullets and Numbering, Columns, Tabs, Headers/Footers, Footnotes and Endnotes, Alignment, Text formatting, and Styles.

Inserting Objects: Abiword can insert a variety of objects, including Breaks, Headers, Footers, Tables, a Table of Contents, Footnotes, Endnotes, Sψmbφls, Page Numbers, Date/Times, embedded Bookmark links, Mathematical Equations and of course Clip Art and Photos.

Tools and Plugins:  Abiword’s Tools and Plugins are one of its best features, and are accessible by downloading the package abiword-plugins. These extensions provide Abiword with a host of integrative features, including:

• Check Spelling
• Set Language
• Word Count
• Text Translation
• Wikipedia Lookup
• URL Dictionary
• Google Search of Text
• Thesaurus
• Edit Image via Gimp
• Stylist (Advanced Bullets/Lists)
• Document History/Revision Comparison
• AbiCollab Online Collaboration

AbiCollab: This is by far the best feature of Abiword-- it’s so good in fact, that it completely trumps Google Docs and any other office software out there in its collaborative capabilities.

What’s so amazing about AbiCollab?

• AbiCollab allows you to collaborate with up to hundreds, and potentially thousands of people on the same document, all without sacrificing any of Abiword’s features.
• Whenever any part of a shared document is edited, everyone who is also working on the document will see all the revisions in real-time, often within the second.
• Enhanced Social Networking Features: Built with social networking in mind, AbiCollab incorporates “friends”, “groups”, and multiple-user document administration. There is even support for editing documents using chat protocols like Jabber/XMMP.

The Conclusion: Although Abiword is in most ways more useful to the average user than LibreOffice/Open Office users, it does not receive nearly enough attention, due largely to the appeal of enterprise features and corporate sponsorship/marketing that has gone into bringing the latter into mainstream awareness. While LibreOffice is definitely better for those wanting an office suite, the average user only really needs a word processor; Light-weight, fully featured office suites like Abiword are really is taken for granted, all things considered.