Re: Are Gnome and Abiword DEAD ?

From: Abdullah Ramazanoglu (abdullah_at_ramazanoglu.tr)
Date: 10/24/04 

Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 21:03:12 +0300

begin A Nengineer dedi ki:
> Penang wrote:
  --8<--

> Can anyone give a comparison with OO.org's word processor? Pros & Cons?

Last I checked, perhaps more than a year ago, abiword was slick, fast,
less eye-candy, less bells and whistles, but most importantly, abiword was
partially MS-Office compatible. While OpenOffice was substantially slower
to start up, but good performance once started up, memory hog, and with
good alien document formats compatibility. BTW I don't know if Abiword
runs on Windows and Mac.

Essentially I don't care for MS-Office compatibility, but it's necessary
to diffuse into a Word ridden world. Secondly, having a document format
that can be easily processed on both Linux, Mac and Windows platforms
(.sxw or .oot for OOo v.2) is important to standardize a document format.
OpenOffice can do it with its .doc, .sxw (.oot), and .pdf capabilities.

Things are improving though, on both OpenOffice and, I presume, Abiword.
OpenOffice is getting faster to startup, more stable, and more MS-Office
compatible each year. And I'm really curious how things right now are on
Abiword side.

The moment Abiword can process OpenOffice documents (which should be
*much* easier to do compared to MS-Office, due to open specs), then it can
be a serious contender in basic word processing needs, because it is real
small and fast compared to OpenOffice.

However, while much of the word processing needs of the IT market is just
that, basic word processing, there is an important proportion of users who
need powerful word processing. This brings another dilemma for Abiword: In
a workplace, installing OpenOffice to some of the desktops and Abiword to
others, is techno-theorethically possible, but practically not feasible.
One needs to use the same word processor throughout an enterprise, mixed
with Linux, Mac, Windows desktops, and basic, intermadiate, power users.

Also there's the word processor vs. office suite issue: One needs
spread*** regardless of which word processor he uses. If one uses
Abiword, then another topic will come up: Namely, whether to use
OpenOffice or some dedicated spread*** and the whole discussion repeats
itself for spread*** this time.

So I guess OpenOffice wins. I'm still curious about the latest
status of Abiword, though. 

-- 
Abdullah        | aramazan@ |
Ramazanoglu     | myrealbox |
________________| D.0.T cöm |__
Quantcast