(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Year upon year, Abiword still has this bug. Currently V 3.1

Sometimes when you save an rtf or doc,(in textmaker) then load it up in Abiword you get this result.
If you drag the mouse across you can actually read the text, but if you try to save the file again it is just as corrupted.

STILL !!!

I tried abiword some years back but it corrupted or simply crashed too often.

I switched over to installing/using LibreOffice; Or a gnumeric and Scribus pair for my needs.

I find ABI Word to be most useful as a batch converter from command line. I had way too many issues to regularly use it as a word processor.

One way that works is to use the Windows version of an older edition of Abiword under Wine. I've just installed Abiword 2.8.6 with Winetricks, but it also works to download an exe file of something like Abiword 2.4.5 and simply click on it with the Wine file manager to install it. You can then launch it by clicking on the Abiword.exe file, which will be in this subdirectory;

c:/Program Files/AbiSuite2/AbiWord/bin/

One drawback of doing it this way is that Abiword won't download additional dictionaries for some reason, so if you're a Brit you're stuck with American English and the spellings are often different (-ise / -ize etc.). I find this liveable with though.

Thanks for tips guys.
Good idea to use the rendering engine Slavvo!
I did try wine versions and same problem with RTF.

Then I tried the same RTF in Scrivener, and blow me same result.
It shows up with the text blacked out until highlighted.

I've been using textmaker for yonks because it's snappy and good and everything is saved with that.
And it is so perfect with puppies over those big lumbering grey java giants, imo.

So what I am thinking is that when textmaker saves an RTF, sometimes Abiword (and Scrivener) can't quite understand it.

So possibly I am being a bit harsh on Abiword and possibly if RTF files had been written and saved in Abiword then the problem might not be there.

But with all the bug reports over time, I always used to remove it straight away!
So that begs the question. Is textmaker faithful to RTF?
I haven't had a bum steer from opening up a textmaker RTF in windows..ever.
Sometimes the formatting is a bit off though, and needs a tweak, and vice versa sometimes.

Hi, Smithy.

Maybe you noticed this as well: abiword offers two types of rtf format for saving a text,
old and new. Which one does it import? Just a thought.

In my experience, TED is the editor to use on Linux if you are serious about RTF.
https://www.nllgg.nl/Ted. It comes with a couple of converters in
/usr/share/Ted/examples; or you can save your writing directly in txt, epub, html, etc.,
as well as RTF.

I just tested it, and Abiword has no problem taking in an RTF document created by
Ted. This doc has a table and a picture.

IHTH. BFN.

Thanks for this musher, I'm going to give Ted a try soon.

Hi Musher, I did use ted a long time ago, but green dome/v2013's excellent wines will do that job very well, if needed.

I do have a solution, I just remove Abiword, but just in case anyone else gets flumoxed by the niggle..

I've included one of the faulty ones, if anyone wants to open it up in a new (or old) puppy with abiword installed (rename the .gz to .rtf). I ran it through http://www.cryptam.com and it said clean.

I used to think it was my graphics card lol.

It's just a head's up on an occasional niggly problem. It happens with .doc as well and like it or not, the world deals with these types of files.


Possibly Libre Office and the other big ones might have a better implementation than textmaker, not really tried them much.

It's a pity, because Abiword printing is now spot on (used to be like a daisy wheel output back in the day, draft ultracrap) and it looks half decent, is a nice size for puppy.
And when I try a new puppy, boom, that b*st*rd bug is ever present

Hi Smithy.

> I do have a solution, I just remove Abiword,
Wow. Drastic! And if the man starts limping, you'll chop his limping leg, too !!!!

Back on subject: according to Abiword policy, odd versions of Abiword are beta, and
even-numbered ones are official. (This I know from member "Médor" on the French
side of the forum.) What version are you using?

But quality was always iffy with Abiword: it's only good for short letters, and it
comes with a decent format converter. That's about it, IMO.

About docx complex format rendering, my experience is that OpenOffice does a
better job of it than LibreOffice.

BFN.

There is an Abiword V3.0.2
Suppose to have a lot of bug fixes.
https://www.abisource.com/downloads/abi ... .2/source/

I tried compiling Abiword 3.0.2 some months ago but found that there was a problem with it.
Even the cursor did not look right and the performance was bad with sluggish key entries.
So they may have fixed some bugs but introduced some others.
I suspect this issue may be related to building for GTK2.
I believe other Puppy compilers had similar experiences with it.
If anyone did get this fixed and working it would be nice to hear about it.

Abiword is GTK3 by default but you can configure the build for GTK2. Perhaps something got overlooked and the developers didn't verify that everything was still OK for GTK2.

It may be possible to build for GTK3 and include the libs or something, but this is not ideal for Puppy.

In the end I just stuck with Abiword 3.0.1 as it builds for GTK2 using the same config as the one I was using for 3.0.2 and the finished build looks and runs OK for the tasks I have needed to do with it. Builds are included in my remasters of Stretch, Wheezy and Slacko 5.7

EDIT:-
As a test and out of curiosity I installed Abiword 3.0.2 in Stretch via PPM.
This is the Debian package which drags in a lot of dependencies including GTK3, in fact 28 packages at a total size of 53MB.

Smithy's test .rtf file still does NOT display correctly in it.
Looks OK in OpenOffice Writer though.

If you create an rtf file in Abiword, and also an identical file (just with different name) in Textmaker, then examine them in a text editor they seem to use very different formats.

I think musher hit the nail on the head in mentioning that the rtf format changed over time. I consider both Abiword and Textmaker to have incorrect implementations of the RTF spec.

Hi Guys:

ABI Word has had many flaws over the years, including hard shutdown without notice. That was the final nail in the coffin for me. You will notice, BarryK recently moved to LibreOffice, which I also find the most compatible with MS Word and pretty stable. Open Office may also be a good choice.

I won't argue with those looking at the code, but I believe .rtf has been a generic standard across platforms for years. Perhaps one or both got their coding wrong?

Anyway, my 2 cents is to not use ABI word for any significant documents. As some of you already know, I am sometimes working with documents over 50 pages long; and just don't trust ABI after multiple mishaps in the past....

Kind regards,

Slavvo67

Does anybody have any experience with Focuswriter as an rtf editor?

Nice find greengeek, I am giving it a try now.
It installed ok from puppy package manager.

Needed a few adjustments in preferences to get the standard toolbars on the top, bold, justify, alignment, etc, looks really good,

BUT I can't find a way to have the fonts available. What if one wants to change font sizes and font as you write?
And a ruler, can't find a ruler. Also print preview seems to be missing. It says version 1.6.6.
Needless to say, loading up the bug test rtf causes focuswriter to close.

It's certainly got a nice look to it though. Not tried printing, but definitely needs the print preview.

Musher, Abiword was 3.01 I was trying, the one in Stretch and Artful,
I would actually give the limping man a piggyback, but if a grizzly was chasing us, he might have to hang around shouting loudly or singing some opera to do the animal's head in, whilst I got a massive tree branch or some honey and berries or something.

But as OscarTalks seems to indicate, there are problems even in the latest..Slavvo, that sounds lousy that it just shut down.. especially if you were in the middle of writing something!

EDIT: I finally got a Scrivener package to function ok. It's in Documents subforum if anyone wants to give it a try.

Smithy wrote:Year upon year, Abiword still has this bug. Currently V 3.1

Sometimes when you save an rtf or doc,(in textmaker) then load it up in Abiword you get this result.
If you drag the mouse across you can actually read the text, but if you try to save the file again it is just as corrupted.

I presumed you already knew how to clear the strange formatting - but in case anyone doesn't know how to clear the particular bug shown in the first post - it is to do with "highlighting" being set by Textmaker and misunderstood by Abiword.

You can get around it by opening in Abiword, highlighting the affected text (ctrl A if it is all affected) then clicking "Format, Font, Highlight color", then ticking "set no highlight color" and resaving. Doesn't improve the incorrect communication between Abiword and Textmaker but does allow the user to get a readable result.

Hello, gang.

Smithy wrote:(...)
I would actually give the limping man a piggyback, but if a grizzly was chasing
us, he might have to hang around shouting loudly or singing some opera to do
the animal's head in, whilst I got a massive tree branch or some honey and
berries or something.
(...)

For the purists and the nostalgic, some almost completely useless information:
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.p ... legally%29

MS Word 5.5 for DOS for FREE (legally)

One could run it under DOSBox, I suppose. When you save your writing in RTF,
it would be the original thing. (Straight from the grizzly's mouth!)

I said "almost completely useless", because this would have value as a test, for
comparing, in an hex editor, a save from Word-5.5 and a save of the same text
from Abiword. Maybe there is a simple unnoticed error in Abiword's RTF save
sub-routine?

BFN.

greengeek wrote:

Smithy wrote:Year upon year, Abiword still has this bug. Currently V 3.1

Sometimes when you save an rtf or doc,(in textmaker) then load it up in Abiword you get this result.
If you drag the mouse across you can actually read the text, but if you try to save the file again it is just as corrupted.

I presumed you already knew how to clear the strange formatting - but in case anyone doesn't know how to clear the particular bug shown in the first post - it is to do with "highlighting" being set by Textmaker and misunderstood by Abiword.

You can get around it by opening in Abiword, highlighting the affected text (ctrl A if it is all affected) then clicking "Format, Font, Highlight color", then ticking "set no highlight color" and resaving. Doesn't improve the incorrect communication between Abiword and Textmaker but does allow the user to get a readable result.

Good to know. Many thanks, greengeek.

i just had a bit more of a tinker with comparing what Textmaker and Abiword RTF files look like when you open them as text and have made an interesting observation.

Use Textmaker to create a file that contains nothing more than the word "test" then save it as RTF.

If you try to open it with Abiword you should see the issue Smithy pointed out in the first post.

Now right cick that file and "open as text" so you can view it in Geany. At the bottom of the file you should see the word "test" preceeded by a "highlight0" spec. See pic 1 below. Note that there is no backslash following the "highlight" term.

Using Geany add a backslash and also change the number from highlight0 to highlight25 and click "save".

Now use Abiword to open the file and the problem should be gone (at least it is on my system...)

I experimented with various highlight values (highlight0, highlight3, highlight4 etc) and each value (except 0) gave a successful highlight that rendered the text visible. "25" was the one that seemed to remove the highlight completely and give white background.

I don't know if others can duplicate this but this is the behaviour I see on my system. (maybe locale dependent??)

I also just tried opening Smithy's test file from page 1 and i can make it readable by opening it as text in Geany and using the search function to automatically replace all occurrences of "highlight0" with "highlight25" then clicking "save"

Did not need to worry about backslashes.