Software Update: AbiWord 2.8.5

On Monday, version 2.8.5 of AbiWord was released. AbiWord is an open source word processor for Windows and Linux. Execution for Mac OS X is slightly behind and is now on version 2.4.5. The program is capable of opening and editing various document formats, including those from Microsoft Word, OpenOffice.org and WordPerfect, plus regular RTF documents. Furthermore, the functionality of AbiWord can be extended with plugins and dictionaries extensive.

A lot has changed in version 2.8. For example, collaboration, working with different people on a document, has been improved. In addition, comments can now be added, different pages can be displayed on the screen and there is support for Scalable Vector Graphics, which makes images look a lot better. Support for the OpenDocument and Office Open XML format has also been improved and the print area has been updated. In version 2.8.5, the following improvements have also been made:

This release includes the following changes (and more!):

• Significant OpenDocument filter improvements
• Fix a potential crash when more than 2 people are collaborating on a document and one of the collaborators disconnects
• Improved MS Write filter support

The full changelog can be found here.