ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

yvonney · 2009-04-10 21:11:04

Looking for any thoughts on how to do some light word processing without abiword. Additionally, not interested in anything java based.

Abiword is quite a too big thing though i'd installed it thinking it was necessary.
it's as problematical as ever which I'm hoping to turn into a good thing by REPLACING it... :--)

IS there a work processor that I can change font with and do some basic work processing to create the odd letter with....?

Ideally it would be something still maintained and not last updated in 1994...

thanks!

abiword. geez.

Last edited by yvonney (2009-04-10 21:16:00)

MarCustomized · 2009-04-10 21:20:44

Google Docs? It's in the clouds.

yvonney · 2009-04-10 21:25:35

thank you.

i'm going to try lyX and Ted.

Ted for tiny and LyX as it's part of a larger and interesting set of things worth looking into.

Any other ideas if there is anything would be great.

Last edited by yvonney (2009-04-12 02:12:12)

yvonney · 2009-04-10 21:56:41

Might need to go back and change my mind about abiword....

LyX is cool though might not be for me at this time.
Still thinking. thanks.

Last edited by yvonney (2009-04-10 21:58:54)

sctincman · 2009-04-11 01:11:28

LyX is very cool and fun, but learning Tex can be a little annoying...

Personally I like abiword (except for word wrapped images, will "Abort" if I try to open a document with a lot in it and messes up placement, etc...)
In my opinion, it seems lightweight, especially when compared to others like openoffice.org or word.

What about GNU TeXmacs? I've never used it, but it seems like it would fit your criteria

iphitus · 2009-04-11 01:23:09

I'm using a self mixed combination of python markdown with plugins, itex2mml/latex.

I'll release a proper package of it shortly, as well as a portable windows version so you can edit anywhere.

Last edited by iphitus (2009-04-11 01:25:21)

yvonney · 2009-04-11 01:31:42

nice! i'll look into them all...
thank yous!

thisllub · 2009-04-11 10:22:06

I had never thought of Abiword as big.
It always starts instantly for me.

Gen2ly · 2009-04-11 10:29:06

Always liked Abiword too. Got it going on a 400Mhz machine so it's not too intensive. And Abiword got a big update about a year ago and does just about all i need.

farvardin · 2009-04-11 11:25:07

abiword is very lightweight. It takes 30 seconds to download and install, and then 5 sec to launch.

sudo pacman -S abiword
Password:
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...
Targets (3): wv-1.2.4-1 libgsf-gnome-1.14.11-1 abiword-2.6.8-1
Total Download Size: 3.82 MB
Total Installed Size: 13.39 MB

Ted is quite small too :

pacman -S ted

(launch it with "Ted")

But it's using gtk1 and is quite old (and using rtf format).

If you want something lighter, go with txt2tags http://txt2tags.sourceforge.net/ or an other markup language. You can convert the wiki-like syntax to latex and then pdf, html or whatever you like.

Last edited by farvardin (2009-04-11 11:27:04)

yvonney · 2009-04-11 11:48:53

abiword's many dependencies and then the plugins needed.

It actually needs ESD sound if I'm not mistaken....and I'd LOVE to know just HOW small abiword could be.
I was amazed at all the stuff it needs. I guess someday I'll be skilled enough to:

know what abiword actually needs for a slim install and then the one of two plugins I actually wuold like. a couple of importers and maybe a PDF export etc. for example.

For about 3 months now something about my system causes abiword to crash immediately upon trying to print so i've been keeping that in mind while I look for the possibility of a smaller alternative. There's a few of us in the abiword crashes thread. :--)

So actually I'd love to be enjoying abiword. Nice features. And, I don't mind how fast or how slow it boots... though ALL the stuff that for me just seems excessive that it installs. I believe decisions have been made as to what to package it and of course I understand that. or, more likely....? it just NEEDS all the stuff below.

Having abiword as my big program was the plan though some of us are currently struggling with it. hence the think here.

Great suggestions and thought! thank you!!!

Interested to know what could be done away with from the following.
I did a bunch of pacman single package install attempts (thopugh not exhaustively as far as the ordering went) yet it seems like all the main abiword stuff is needed.

I'd REALLY like to be rid of esd sound which I believe is tucked away in there somewhere.

Summing up: would love to be using abiword and the problems with the crashing make me laugh mostly as everything has been so brilliant this past year ARCH-wise!

of the main parts of abiword (without abiword) I'd need tdb only, I think, for fdm.

Of course there's essentials there and just being rid of a few of them or ignoring them would be great.

I'm certainly not asking howto here. Just thinking.

The esound bugs me though, and a few others in the main packages. I expect I can easily be convinced otherwise though. :--) abiword goes nicely with firefox, or will when I have some luck with the crashes.... I will REALLY appreciate it for sure,... then.

fribidi-iiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ABIWORD

fribidi-0.10.9-1
libart-lgpl-2.3.20-1
libgnomecups-0.2.3-4
libgnomeprint-2.18.5-1
libgnomecanvas-2.20.1.1-2
libgnomeprintui-2.18.3-1
wv-1.2.4-1
orbit2-2.14.16-1
gconf-2.24.0-2
tdb-3.3.1-1
smbclient-3.3.1-1
gnome-mime-data-2.18.0-3
gnome-vfs-2.24.0-2
libbonobo-2.24.0-1
audiofile-0.2.6-3
esound-0.2.41-1
libgnome-2.24.1-1
libbonoboui-2.24.0-1
gnome-keyring-2.24.1-1
libgnomeui-2.24.0-1
libgsf-gnome-1.14.11-1
abiword-2.6.6-1

PLUGINS

abiword-plugins-2.6.8-1

psiconv-0.9.8-4
imagemagick-6.5.0.10-1
jasper-1.900.1-2
freeglut-2.4.0-3
link-grammar-4.2.4-1
libwpd-0.8.14-1
libgnomedb-1.2.2-6
libgda-1.2.4-4
postgresql-libs-8.3.7-1
libxslt-1.1.24-2
libmysqlclient-5.0.77-1
rarian-0.8.1-1
gtkmathview-0.8.0-1
gmetadom-0.2.6-1
gdome2-0.8.1-1
boost-1.37.0-1
aiksaurus-1.2.1-1

Last edited by yvonney (2009-04-11 12:02:47)

skottish · 2009-04-11 13:31:57

esound (esd) is a dependency of libgnome. This is at least one reason why abiword pulls it in.

sctincman · 2009-04-11 22:45:23

have you tried building abiword without gnome support?

minimal changes needed to the stock PKGBUILD file, this is the one I used

# $Id: PKGBUILD 29617 2009-03-10 12:22:59Z giovanni $
# Maintainer: Giovanni Scafora <giovanni@archlinux.org>

pkgname=abiword
pkgver=2.6.8
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="A fully-featured word processor"
arch=(i686 x86_64)
license=('GPL')
url="http://www.abisource.com"
depends=('fribidi>=0.10.9' 'enchant>=1.3.0' 'libgnomeprintui' 'wv>=1.2.4' 'libgsf>=1.14.8')
makedepends=('pkgconfig')
options=('!makeflags')
source=(http://www.abisource.com/downloads/abiword/${pkgver}/source/${pkgname}-${pkgver}.tar.gz)
md5sums=('fab04d8ef999c303f720197adf261310')

build() {
  cd ${srcdir}/${pkgname}-${pkgver}/
  ./configure --prefix=/usr --with-libxml2 --disable-gucharmap --with-sys-wv \
              --disable-gnomevfs --disable-gnomeui || return 1
  make || return 1
  make DESTDIR=${startdir}/pkg install || return 1
  rm -rf ${pkgdir}/usr/lib
  mv ${pkgdir}/usr/share/icons ${pkgdir}/usr/share/pixmaps
}

However, looks like libgnomedb in abiword-plugins pulls in those dependencies too, give me a little bit and I'll see if I can get it to not pull those in

yvonney · 2009-04-11 23:20:09

woo hoo thanks skottish .... I almost wrote this morning as your comment triggered some philosopical randomness!

and woohoo sctincman ...

you have proved again how wonderful probelms can be! !!!!!!!!!! (love the typo)

abiword without much gnome-ness?? shivers of incredibleness!
it's already a miracle that not all the stuff needs to be pulled in... as my first glance understands it.

Anything more is pure magic.

best wishes to everyone.

P.S. just thinking: with a spellchecker and the ability to import pictures a slim abiword would be perfect for my needs.
I don't think
there's much else in the plugs I'd need. Not sure at this point though. PDF conversion and importing word doc etc. would be useful. I'll have to find out what the plugs all do again this afternoon by taking a look at the abiword site I guess.

Last edited by yvonney (2009-04-11 23:26:14)

yvonney · 2009-04-12 00:23:20

googled: building abiword without gnome

it's relating to solaris though interesting to me anyways:

http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/a … /0004.html

found and here quoted one line from the 4 or 5 posts:
Are you using configure --disable-gnome --disable-gucharmap

may be tricky though very interesting and appreciated to know what's possible.

skottish · 2009-04-12 01:15:25

yvonney wrote:

googled: building abiword without gnome
it's relating to solaris though interesting to me anyways:
http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/a … /0004.html
found and here quoted one line from the 4 or 5 posts:
Are you using configure --disable-gnome --disable-gucharmap
may be tricky though very interesting and appreciated to know what's possible.

That's a very old thread. The --disable-gnome switch is gone. At some point the abiword developers dropped support for a "gtk only" build because at that time gtk-print didn't have a preview function. I don't know what the status is now. There is a --enable-gnomeui which will link against libgnomeui. I have a feeling that if you disable the Gnome stuff that you won't be able to print anymore.

suicideducky · 2009-04-12 01:27:47

I too would love a lighweight abiword, all those damn gnome dependancies put me off... but I do not really need the ability to print, although opening word docs and converting to pdfs would be lovely!

Berticus · 2009-04-12 01:59:59

I converted to simply using vim and LaTeX (TeXLive), and would really encourage people to check it out. Didn't really take long to learn. It's especially useful when you're writing things which use the same format.

yvonney · 2009-04-12 02:00:31

thanks skottish.. and yes suicideducky, my reaction exactly.... pdf creation would suffice. then print that.

throwing in a solaris related post from 5 or so years ago was a nice warp was it not. thanks for info!

i'd love to have the extra brain power/time to achieve latex.vim. Not likely this year unfortunately. then again.

Last edited by yvonney (2009-04-12 02:08:28)

Berticus · 2009-04-12 02:22:16

I learned it during the school year (undergrad). So it's still quite possible. I always just kept the [not] so short manual opened all the time. It didn't take long, surprisingly, for me to not have to look at it anymore. The big thing that helped was learning how to make my own commands. Thereafter, I just wrote a couple of class files, and just kept using those (through soft links). Very easy to change layout, and I didn't have to remember all the packages I needed. Although since I heavily commented my class files, I could remember why I needed them.

sctincman · 2009-04-12 06:43:22

skottish wrote:

That's a very old thread. The --disable-gnome switch is gone. At some point the abiword developers dropped support for a "gtk only" build because at that time gtk-print didn't have a preview function. I don't know what the status is now. There is a --enable-gnomeui which will link against libgnomeui. I have a feeling that if you disable the Gnome stuff that you won't be able to print anymore.

This makes sense: printing used to work for me when I was using it under gentoo with the (-gnome) USE keyword, and then after an upgrade would throw an IPP error and just abort. Never got the time to investigate (switched to Arch soon after ;] ), but I guess this would be the cause... Just tried printing right now and same thing, throws the IPP error and aborts... Just tried looking through the dev mailing list and can't find anything pertinent as far as plans or such...

It seems someone still had the problem with --enable-gnomeui http://bugzilla.abisource.com/show_bug.cgi?id=11967, and then what seems to be the official bug for this problem (still unresolved) http://bugzilla.abisource.com/show_bug.cgi?id=11974

And sad to say, yvonney and suicideducky, but I think abiword uses it's printing interface to export to pdf's, and trying to "Save as..." a pdf throws the same error and aborts...

Alternatives for the time being? I'm still sticking by Lyx. It may be Qt based, but it's a nice cross between WYSISYG and TeX

and there's always google docs :P

brebs · 2009-04-12 12:21:09

I use lout as a slim alternative to the ridiculously enormous texlive.

Berticus · 2009-04-12 13:26:04

Hmm... wasn't aware of other text processing programs. May have to check out lout.

---Edit---
Supposedly lout does't render mathematical equations as nicely as LaTeX, which is going to be a huge problem for me.

Last edited by Berticus (2009-04-12 15:32:18)

yvonney · 2009-04-12 18:32:47

great info and ideas here!

- size and depth of latex makes lyx a questionable direction for my skills and requirements. fantastic to be thinking about the wysiwyM thing though.

- lout interesting discovery and with it fitting on a floppy may be the experimental base for wysiwyM for me, later.

- abiword crash (cups? abiword?) has prompted a think, so that's good.

- being able to edit pkg file and remove ANYTHING un-needed from abiword would be GREAT. That is the prime interest at this point.

Can someone like me who has done a few abs custom installs: (recently thrilled to get fdm 1.6 installed and pacman aware)

1) remove ALL abiword and it's plugins

2) Use the yaourt command to insist that the option to edit the package build file be invoked?? (this IS possible? or option to this perhaps, WITHOUT needing to do the full manual ABS thing? Though it is a benefit to my ability using the regular ABS way of course!

3) upon using pacman or yaourt or abs manually to install abiword the pkgbuild file comes up, do edits to change dependencies and continue install.

4) outcome: printing, pdf creation, spellchecker (or some clever option externally?) only a few needed export and import formats, and picture import, jpg only maybe. No esd sound (esound) not possible?

Anything would/could be an improvement to the whole mass of things it installs.

When abiword works here again (crashes upon print attempt) i'll be more than happy to have all the packages installed. It's not working right now due to assumed bugs, as mentioned, which has prompted some thinking.

Last edited by yvonney (2009-04-12 18:52:02)

jumzi · 2009-04-12 19:45:28

I Go with Berticus!

Read the [not] so short manual once (about 141mins) Then you can edit with (g)vim and have the manual open over half the screen and you can start using (g)vim for making neat articles and the alike!

Last edited by jumzi (2009-04-12 19:45:45)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-10 21:11:04

ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

#2 2009-04-10 21:20:44

Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

#3 2009-04-10 21:25:35

Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

#4 2009-04-10 21:56:41

Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

#5 2009-04-11 01:11:28

Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

#6 2009-04-11 01:23:09

Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

#7 2009-04-11 01:31:42

Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

#8 2009-04-11 10:22:06

Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

#10 2009-04-11 11:25:07

Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

#11 2009-04-11 11:48:53

Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

#12 2009-04-11 13:31:57

Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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Re: ABIWORD replacement: search for light working alternative - ideas?

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