Re: And now, which word processor?

[Christian Koch <cfkoch%sdf.lonestar.org@localhost>]

On Wed, Dec 04, 2013 at 07:06:30PM +0000, Christian Koch wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 04, 2013 at 05:59:06PM +0000, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
> > Yesterday I installed Abiword on my Thinkpad X61 with Netbsd 6.1.2.
> > 
> > Despite having installed all MS .ttf fonts and having all dependencies
> > fullfilled, opening existing word documents was a pain. Latest
> > generation .docx won't even open. Creating a new document from scratch
> > was also painful as bullets points were all messed up. In comparison
> > Google docs does a better job.
> > 
> > I understand winehq won't work on a 64 bit. Correct me if I am wrong.
> > 
> > Is there any alternative to installing a full fledged Open/Libre
> > Office? All I need is a basic but realiable Word processor.
> > 
> > Thanks
> > 
> > -- 
> > Ottavio
> 
> That's because AbiWord from pkgsrc doesn't support .docx files. It certainly
> doesn't generate them, at least. AbiWord will happily output in a variety of
> other formats, including old-fashioned .doc. 
> 
> AbiWord *is* a basic and reliable word processor, if you must use a graphical
> one. It's my favorite graphical editor which has the ability to output 
> Microsoft
> formats at all. (My *real* favorite typesetting environment is Vim + Markdown 
> or
> Vim + LaTeX.)
> 
> In my opinion, using Wine for running just a word processor is kind of a 
> waste.
> 
> -Christian

Woops, nevermind. Right after I sent my previous message I decided to install
the editors/abiword-plugins pkgsrc package anyway. Works great, heh :\ AbiWord
insists on calling the file format by its real name, Office Open XML.

I had originally never bothered to install it because the
editors/abiword-plugins DESCR file doesn't mention docx! Which only has to be
the most valuable feature this package provides...

So my new verdict is: I personally don't have any issues with AbiWord on
NetBSD/i386 6.0.1. But I compiled the packages from source, FWIW. If bullet
points are your biggest problem, then don't look past AbiWord if you need
Microsoft formats for work.

(And if you don't _need_ Microsoft formats, then don't use them.)

-Christian