ABIWORD(1) AbiWord 2.8 ABIWORD(1)
2009-12-11
NAME
abiword - flexible cross-platform word processor
SYNOPSIS
abiword [OPTIONS] [FILENAME...]
DESCRIPTION
AbiWord is a full-featured, efficient word processing application
suitable for a wide range of word processing tasks, and extensible
with a variety of plugins. It integrates with enchant(1) to provide
spell-checking.
OPTIONS
-g WxH[+X+Y], --geometry=WxH[+X+Y]
Specifies window geometry at startup.
-E PLUGIN, --plugin=PLUGIN
Execute the specified plugin instead of the main application.
--import-extension=EXT
Import the given file as if it had extension EXT, overriding
automatic file type detection.
-u PROFILE, --userprofile=PROFILE
Use PROFILE instead of the default ~/.AbiSuite/AbiWord.Profile to
read and store settings.
-t DEST, --to=DEST
Convert the given file to another format, writing the result to
DEST. The format of DEST is determined by its extension.
See also --to=FORMAT and --to-name.
-t FORMAT, --to=FORMAT
Convert the given files(s) to the given format. Unless explicitly
specified with --to-name, the original filename will be used
(with a different extension, if necessary). See also EXAMPLES.
The more popular values for FORMAT include:
lb lx. abw T{ Abiword XML format (zabw for gzip, bzabw
for bzip2 compression) T} dbk DocBook XML doc Microsoft
Word binary format docx T{ Office Open XML (newer Microsoft
Word versions) T} html Hypertext Markup Language kwd KWord
odt OpenDocument Text pdf Portable Document Format
rtf Rich Text Format sxw OpenOffice.org Writer 1.0
txt Plain text
--to-name=DEST
Only useful in conjunction with --to=FORMAT. Specifies where the
converted document shall be written to.
- 1 - Formatted: May 31, 2026
ABIWORD(1) AbiWord 2.8 ABIWORD(1)
2009-12-11
--verbose=LEVEL
Set level of verbosity [0-2], 2 giving the most detailed output.
-h, --help
Display a short help message and exit.
--version
Report the version of AbiWord.
EXAMPLES
To convert the document example.abw to RTF:
abiword --to=rtf example.abw
The resulting file will be named example.rtf.
To print a document:
abiword --to=ps --to-name=fd://1 FILENAME | lp
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to the Bugzilla bug tracking system at
<http://bugzilla.abisource.com>.
SEE ALSO
enchant(1)
HISTORY
AbiWord was started in 1998 by AbiSource Inc., a company founded by
SourceGear corporation. The initial plan was to build a free office
suite named AbiSuite, encompassing word processing, spreadsheet and
presentation applications. As they didnt have a usable product when
their venture capital was up, the code already developed (namely
AbiWord) was made open source. AbiWord development was subsequently
taken over by volunteers and is driven by the community to date.
- 2 - Formatted: May 31, 2026
