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#1 2005-01-22 23:12:55

nacnud
Member
From: Brooklyn
Registered: 2004-11-04
Posts: 22

A good, stable word processor?

I'm looking for suggestions on a good word processor.  My frustration with OOo Writer increases each time it slows down to a crawl when I'm typing.  It seems to happen randomly, and it has happened on different boxes with different distros and different versions of OOo.  Running top while this happens only shows that soffice suddenly hogs up all cpu power when I type/delete.  I can't figure it out--is it me?!

I've tried Abiword a couple of times, but it crashes (closes) when I try to insert text.  Running it from a terminal only gives the output "aborted."

Kwriter seems ok, but it renders the my extant document in a strange way--hard to look at.

I spend most of the day using word processors, and I deal with a lot of big documents, so I'm looking for something that won't give me so much trouble.

Is there anything else out there?

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#2 2005-01-22 23:45:18

shadowhand
Member
From: MN, USA
Registered: 2004-02-19
Posts: 1,142
Website

Re: A good, stable word processor?

Lyx. Everyone that learns to use it properly swears to never use anything else ever again. I think there's a QT frontend too.


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#3 2005-01-22 23:45:26

cactus
Taco Eater
From: t͈̫̹ͨa͖͕͎̱͈ͨ͆ć̥̖̝o̫̫̼s͈̭̱̞͍̃!̰
Registered: 2004-05-25
Posts: 4,622
Website

Re: A good, stable word processor?

I haven't had your problems with OO.
Which version of Java do you have installed?


"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍

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#4 2005-01-22 23:46:35

JGC
Developer
Registered: 2003-12-03
Posts: 1,664

Re: A good, stable word processor?

Maybe learning latex would be nice?

Turning off auto spell checks would speed up many word processors.

Besides Abiword, which I prefer, there aren't many different choices available than OpenOffice.org and KOffice.

Other option: if you think wine is stable, try MS Word with wine, or get Crossover office. My sister is using it here that way, most of the things work fine, except for inserted JPG/PNG images.

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#5 2005-01-23 02:58:36

nacnud
Member
From: Brooklyn
Registered: 2004-11-04
Posts: 22

Re: A good, stable word processor?

Thanks for your suggestions.  I will try lyx and latex and see how it goes!

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#6 2005-01-23 08:25:05

iphitus
Forum Fellow
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2004-10-09
Posts: 4,927

Re: A good, stable word processor?

i use abiword and it's rock solid... i dont know what happened there...

anyway, im going to try and use lyx/latex too this year big_smile

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#7 2005-01-23 09:03:03

nggalai
Member
From: Switzerland
Registered: 2004-08-01
Posts: 215
Website

Re: A good, stable word processor?

I had problems with Abiword in the past, but the current release (2.2.3) has been very stable for me. Only crashes when trying to import password-protected files.

I never got LyX to run properly on my system, or rather, there seems to be a lot missing. Is there a Wiki or something around about what a proper LyX installation needs in regards to additional packages and configuration?

I predominately use OO.org, mind. I work with styles a lot, and OO.org handles them better than Abiword IMO. Hence also my interest in LyX ...

93,
-Sascha.rb

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#8 2005-01-25 23:20:33

nacnud
Member
From: Brooklyn
Registered: 2004-11-04
Posts: 22

Re: A good, stable word processor?

The error message I just got before Abiword crashed is:


*** glibc detected *** double free or corruption (!prev): 0x08865358 ***
Aborted


What could this mean?

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#9 2005-01-26 00:27:30

JGC
Developer
Registered: 2003-12-03
Posts: 1,664

Re: A good, stable word processor?

We still have a pending patch for glib2 and gtk2 that could be the problem. It could be every lib that abiword depends on, glibc slays abiword because it detects memory inconsistency. The only way of finding out is running abiword with valgrind and detecting which library causes these problems.

We're also one release of abiword behind, which could also fix the problem.

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#10 2005-01-27 10:43:21

janwil
Member
From: Tartu, Estonia
Registered: 2003-08-15
Posts: 88

Re: A good, stable word processor?

nggalai wrote:

I never got LyX to run properly on my system, or rather, there seems to be a lot missing. Is there a Wiki or something around about what a proper LyX installation needs in regards to additional packages and configuration?

In order to produce output, LyX needs teTeX installed (pacman -S tetex) and if you need nice fonts in formulae on screen, you also should download the corresponding ttf or xft fonts; see

http://wiki.lyx.org/pmwiki.php/FAQ/Qt

Jan

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#11 2005-01-27 11:31:05

dp
Member
From: Zürich, Switzerland
Registered: 2003-05-27
Posts: 3,378
Website

Re: A good, stable word processor?

kword ... as long as you store everything in RTF or native kword xml files.


The impossible missions are the only ones which succeed.

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#12 2005-01-27 12:14:38

nggalai
Member
From: Switzerland
Registered: 2004-08-01
Posts: 215
Website

Re: A good, stable word processor?

janwil wrote:
nggalai wrote:

I never got LyX to run properly on my system, or rather, there seems to be a lot missing. Is there a Wiki or something around about what a proper LyX installation needs in regards to additional packages and configuration?

In order to produce output, LyX needs teTeX installed (pacman -S tetex) and if you need nice fonts in formulae on screen, you also should download the corresponding ttf or xft fonts; see

http://wiki.lyx.org/pmwiki.php/FAQ/Qt

Jan

Cheers! This will come in handy. big_smile

Thanks a bunch!

-Sascha.rb

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#13 2005-01-28 02:38:59

SleepyDog
Member
Registered: 2004-10-15
Posts: 114

Re: A good, stable word processor?

'Nother vote for latex. I personally don't like lyx. I use vim with the latexsuite plugin. Works great for me. I laugh at the days when I typed half my paper only to have Abiword crash on me. Of course, latex could take a while to learn, but it's a markup code, like HTML, so it isn't too hard.

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#14 2005-01-28 15:18:52

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: A good, stable word processor?

I've honestly never used latex.... maybe this thread will spurn me to do that...  but then again, I'm a developer, not a writer

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#15 2005-01-29 15:12:18

oscar
Member
From: Kiruna, Sweden
Registered: 2004-08-13
Posts: 457

Re: A good, stable word processor?

shadowhand wrote:

Lyx. Everyone that learns to use it properly swears to never use anything else ever again. I think there's a QT frontend too.

thanks for the tip!
LyX seems very promising, esp for a lame person who haven't had the time to learn latex properly smile


To err is human... to really foul up requires the root password.

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#16 2005-01-30 21:55:07

Snowman
Developer/Forum Fellow
From: Montreal, Canada
Registered: 2004-08-20
Posts: 5,212

Re: A good, stable word processor?

Kile is another GUI for LaTeX.  However, I prefer using emacs.

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#17 2005-01-30 22:37:36

nacnud
Member
From: Brooklyn
Registered: 2004-11-04
Posts: 22

Re: A good, stable word processor?

JGC wrote:

We still have a pending patch for glib2 and gtk2 that could be the problem. It could be every lib that abiword depends on, glibc slays abiword because it detects memory inconsistency. The only way of finding out is running abiword with valgrind and detecting which library causes these problems.

We're also one release of abiword behind, which could also fix the problem.

These updates seem to have fixed the problem with abiword for me--thank you.

I am dabbling a bit with lyx--it takes some getting used to.  I have to say, though, that lyx seems more equipped for those who work in the sciences than those who work in the humanities (like me).  I'm an English prof so I do a different kind of writing than most of the lyx templates are intended for.  But I guess that makes sense since most linux users are probably science/math people.

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#18 2005-01-30 23:07:09

oscar
Member
From: Kiruna, Sweden
Registered: 2004-08-13
Posts: 457

Re: A good, stable word processor?

nacnud wrote:

I am dabbling a bit with lyx--it takes some getting used to.  I have to say, though, that lyx seems more equipped for those who work in the sciences than those who work in the humanities (like me).  I'm an English prof so I do a different kind of writing than most of the lyx templates are intended for.  But I guess that makes sense since most linux users are probably science/math people.

We probably have to convert to the dark side, or die alone sad


To err is human... to really foul up requires the root password.

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#19 2005-01-31 11:03:19

xerxes2
Member
From: Malmoe, Sweden
Registered: 2004-04-23
Posts: 1,249
Website

Re: A good, stable word processor?

there is also one company that are making proprietary office software for linux,
www.softmaker.com

I've tried the trial version of the wordprocessor and it was pretty good but then I stopped using it and write xhtml instead so I don't know how good it is really, it cost nothing so it may be worth a try,


arch + gentoo + initng + python = enlisy

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