When it comes to word processors, users have a variety to chose from. From the ever popular commercial Microsoft Word, to the open-source and free OpenOffice.org Writer. There is another option in the open-source and free realm, AbiWord.

AbiWord is a available for a large number of operating systems including Windows, Linux, QNX, FreeBSD and Solaris. So rest assured that the documents you create are going to be available for many people to read. AbiWord also supports the ODF format via a plugin.

The installation file for AbiWord was only 5.16MB and installed painlessly. In order to support ODF, you need to install the “Get Tools Plugins” option from the download area as well. When you run the plugin installer, you get a variety of options to chose, and it will download and install any other files that are necessary as well.

I did a quick test by creating and saving a rather simple .odt file within AbiWord and opening it in OpenOffice.org Writer to test for compatibility. Most of the things I tested converted just fine between the two, except for one rather important feature. The automatic page numbering I applied within AbiWord did not work when I opened the file in OpenOffice.org Writer. This is a rather important feature in my view. It is also worthy to mention that I mainly just tested text-formatting features such as color, justification, lists, etc. Those all worked fine.

All in all, I feel it is worth a look if you’re interested in a cross platform, light weight word processor that has the bonus of being free. The download is available in the AbiWord download area.