There are several word processors in GNU/Linux, each with different goals and features. Some are free software, some are based on free software, some are proprietary. What do you, as an amateur or professional writer, need to consider in such programs when moving to GNU/Linux? If you're not entirely satisfied with your current word processor or if you're wondering what's available on the GNU/Linux platform in terms of word processors, this article's for you.

Word processors need to cover more than just the basics. Certain requirements are in order to provide a stable and productive work environment. There is a list of necessities itemized below, but perhaps the most underrated feature of a word processor is its ability to find errors in your document. Such functions are commonly known as proofing or writing tools. The reason why good writing and proofing tools are a necessary feature for professional writers is because many of us don't have an editorial staff to look over our work, and even if we do, even the best human editors make mistakes from time to time. A good electronic proofing tool does not make any mistakes and it misses nothing if it is properly configured. Likewise, a bad proofing tool will screw up your style and give you erroneous suggestions.

The best aspect of a good proofing tool is on-the-fly scanning. If the program is checking your spelling and grammar as you work, you can catch errors immediately and edit as you go. Some writers prefer to ignore editing and revision until the first draft is done, but if you're working on a large project it's impossible to keep track of continuity and maintain consistency if you leave all of your corrections for later. If you are using a tool -- or if you have a powerful tool available to you -- the tool should be doing most of the work, leaving the writer to concentrate on the quality of the content.

There are only two word processors that have grammar checkers worth mentioning -- Microsoft Word and Corel WordPerfect -- and neither of them are presently available for GNU/Linux. The grammar modules in these programs are not flawless, but they'll always show you when you're making a mistake that you may not even know you're making. How many people absent-mindedly use the passive voice in narrative, or split infinitives like they're going out of style, or use "compliment" when they should be using "complement?" All of these errors will make it past a spell checker, as will typos that leave out letters by accident (such as "or" instead of "for" or "to" instead of "too"), but a grammar checker will find them. There are a great many writers in this world who are very good at expressing themselves through the written word but are sloppy typists or don't know all of the rules for standardizing their work and making it readable to others. Members of this silent majority need a good set of proofing and writing tools to help them create an excellent story or other professional writing project.

Aside from good proofing tools, some other features that make word processors valuable are:

• The ability to accurately read from and write to a variety of file formats, especially Microsoft Word .DOC format
• Export functions that allow good-quality PostScript, PDF, and HTML output
• A wide selection of useful styles for implementing standard text formatting
• The ability to accurately count pages and words, and perform other analytical functions
• General program stability, especially when working with large or multiple documents
• An eclectic array of anti-aliased fonts to choose from
• Internationalization support
• Customization of the interface
• Programmability through a macro language of some sort
• The ability to insert objects such as spreadsheet charts and graphic files into documents
• Functions to add and manage tables, text boxes, lines, and watermarks

The Programs

For this review I obtained legal, up-to-date copies of the following programs:

Now let's take a look at how they compare:

TextMaker

In a nutshell: it's fast, inexpensive, and works with Word documents quite well (except of course for "protected" Word 2003 documents, which only Microsoft Word 2003 can view or edit). The font rendering in TextMaker is a thing of beauty, and is noticeably superior to the other programs in this review. The menus aren't clogged with a lot of groupware and specialized functions, which means they're easy to customize and navigate. TextMaker seems like it was designed specifically for writing documents, stories, distributable print media (flyers, brochures, etc.), and books; it's not the "jack of all trades" that OpenOffice.org Writer and StarOffice Writer are.

The integrated proofing tools are average, being unable to recognize some alternative spellings. The built-in thesaurus is quite capable, however, and is on par with StarOffice Writer 7.

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There is no native macro support presently, but SoftMaker is working on programmability for their next release, TextMaker 2005. The Find/Replace function is above average, allowing some out of the ordinary search criteria such as tabs, line breaks, and styles. Speaking of styles, TextMaker includes only four predefined paragraph styles, but there are some nice premade templates -- 22 of them, to be exact -- covering faxes, memos, business cards, letters, and even a phone list.

The Word converter in TextMaker is the best of all of the programs in this review; it was able to maintain formatting for embedded graphics and tables in a complex test document created in Word XP. Unfortunately, TextMaker does not have conversion functions for WordPerfect's .WPD or OpenOffice.org's .SXW file formats, so if you were hoping to switch from OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, or WordPerfect, TextMaker won't be able to import your old documents. There is no export function for PDF, but you can save as formatted HTML, and can save to PS by printing to a file. You can insert up to 14 different types of graphic formats into a document; there is also a basic solver for inserting mathematical equations, and a symbol map containing special characters. You can insert fields, text boxes, tables, headers, footers, and footnotes, but like all of the other programs we tested, there is no watermark feature.

Also absent is the "word art" feature of Microsoft Word, which allows you to do strange and unusual things with text orientation. The analytics are extensive, offering not only counts of characters, lines, words, pages, and all manner of related literary delineations, but it also tallies averages for sentence length and other interesting statistics.

As far as internationalization is concerned, TextMaker is available in English and German, and can accommodate "old" German spellings of some words. The next version of TextMaker will include support for the Spanish, Russian, and Portuguese languages.

OpenOffice.org Writer

OpenOffice.org is part of a large office suite, and as such, its primary advantage is its flawless integration with other parts of the suite. Aside from the ability to add spreadsheets to documents and other suite-related features intrinsic to nearly every comprehensive office package, OpenOffice.org Writer is a highly competent word processor with a diverse array of features.

If you haven't used OpenOffice.org in a while, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the new features and greater level of ability that it now possesses. Since the release of version 1.1, OpenOffice.org has grown up, enhancing its filters, increasing its stability, and cleaning up its code so that it works faster and looks better. The button bars are highly customizable (the screen shot you see here uses a customized interface), and you can write macros in OOo's own special API, OpenOffice.org Basic.

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The fonts don't render as nicely as they do in TextMaker, even with the anti-aliasing setting turned on. The Find/Replace feature is the most extensive of any program in this article (along with StarOffice Writer), being able to search for text styles, special characters, text attributes, and similar words. There are dozens of predefined paragraph styles to choose from -- more than are offered by TextMaker, AbiWord, and KWord.

The proofing tools are average; you'll have to make the dictionary learn a good two dozen words in your first few documents. The thesaurus is substandard, offering little advantage for professional writers. The analytics are average, counting the parts of the document without providing statistics. You can draw vector graphics, insert 26 different types of graphics files, frames, tables, indexes, and all manner of other types of objects, including formulas (using OpenOffice.org Math).

The internationalization support is immense in OpenOffice.org Writer: 35 languages are supported, with more in testing and development.

OpenOffice.org can export to HTML and PDF without trouble, but there is no PostScript export function. It can also open and save to Word .DOC format, but the more complex the formatting, the more likely you are to have some kind of problem with the conversion filters. For the vast majority of standard documents, there is little or no trouble in converting to and from Word .DOC format. WordPerfect's file format is not supported in OpenOffice.org. Interestingly, the upcoming version 2.0 will use a new standard file format known as OpenDocument (previously this was called the OASIS Open Office XML format), which the European Union has committed to adopting. The next edition of OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, and KOffice (of which KWord is a part) will all use this same standard file format.

Sun StarOffice Writer

At a glance there doesn't appear to be much difference between StarOffice Writer and OpenOffice.org Writer, but what lies beneath the surface of StarOffice Writer are third-party components that provide better proofing tools, proprietary fonts, and enhanced conversion filters. These additions can add up to a significant advantage over OOo Writer for some users. There is also a slight cosmetic difference between the menu fonts and the colors of the buttons and such, but for the most part you'll find that the two programs appear to be visually and operationally identical.

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The dictionary recognizes alternate spellings and somewhat obscure words and the comprehensive thesaurus is much more thorough than the one in OpenOffice.org, providing definitions and expanded possibilities for synonyms.

Sun claims that StarOffice Writer has "WordPerfect filters." We took this to mean conversion filters for WordPerfect documents, but the copy of StarOffice Writer that Sun provided us refused to open any of our WordPerfect 10 test files. After trying out five test documents, the MS Word filter seems to be the same as it is in OpenOffice.org Writer, with the one exception being Windows font support. StarOffice Writer comes with proprietary fonts that offer metric equivalents to common Windows fonts, which means it's easier to keep the look and style of a Word document when importing into StarOffice Writer. Another advantage that StarOffice Writer has over OpenOffice.org Writer is document templates: OOo has only a handful included by default, whereas StarOffice has about 300 sample documents and document templates for a wide variety of purposes.

AbiWord

AbiWord is the only word processor in this review that uses the GTK toolkit for its interface. It's also the most extensible of any word processor available for GNU/Linux. The base program is little more than an advanced text editor, but add in some of the 50+ plug-ins, and you have a word processor worth using. In effect, all of AbiWord's power is in its extensibility. While this means that the program has almost no limit to its potential, it also means that you're trusting your program stability to third-party modules of varying degrees of quality. Only eight of the 51 listed plug-ins have the highest rating for stability as of this writing. The plug-ins are only available in Red Hat's RPM package format, not as source code; this presents a problem for those who have to compile the base package from source.

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The find and replace function is is very basic, offering only word and character replacement. The interface is not customizable at all, so you're stuck with the standard layout. You can insert text boxes and fields, but if you want to insert a graphic file you'll be limited to the PNG format. AbiWord comes with a native Word .DOC converter, but oddly it does not have the ability to read OpenOffice.org's .SXW documents. Document format support is limited to rich text format, plain text, HTML and multi-part HTML, and Word .DOC format. The spell checker is average, failing to recognize older English spellings of some words.

Font rendering is better than OpenOffice.org and StarOffice, but not as nice as TextMaker. The analysis tools are average, calculating words, characters, lines, paragraphs, and pages. Natively, AbiWord lacks the ability to export to PostScript, PDF, and HTML. AbiWord contains more than 80 paragraph styles and 12 document templates, and is available in over 30 languages.

Many of these shortcomings can be solved by installing some or all of the plug-ins. However, we're reviewing the functionality of the program as it is compiled from source, as that was the only option available on our test platform. The previous edition of the program was available to us as an all-inclusive package, and we found it to be horrifyingly unstable when importing documents of any kind.

KWord

KWord is more of a desktop publishing program than a word processor. Its tool set and layout are geared toward making media-rich, highly formatted print media, although it is also equipped to handle writing projects in general.

The conversion filters are nothing short of horrible, wreaking havoc on styles and formatting in OOo .SXW and Microsoft .DOC documents. KWord is, however, the only word processor in this review that can natively import and export WordPerfect .WPD files. The WordPerfect filter isn't as bad as the Word or OOo filters, but in our test documents it had a tendency to run words together at random. While KWord can save documents in an eclectic variety of formats (including some unusual ones, like TeX, Lotus AmiPro, and SGML), it cannot export to PDF or PostScript. Interestingly, KWord can import PDFs even though it cannot export to them.

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KWord has 12 document templates and 30 predefined styles, with the option to import or create other kinds of styles. Font rendering is average -- about on par with OpenOffice.org and StarOffice. The analytics are excellent, providing statistics for the usual document delineations plus various types of objects and formatting elements, and it even offers a syllable count along with a Flesch reading ease rating.

The proofing tools show promise, but are otherwise unimpressive. The built-in thesaurus is well designed, offering suggestions for synonyms, more specific words, and more general words. Unfortunately, the English version doesn't seem to know very many words, so it isn't much of a help. The dictionary is average, being unable to recognize alternate or older spellings of some words.

KWord does not have macro support, but it does have scripting capabilities through the DCOP interface, which allows you to control KWord with a variety of programming languages. KWord is available in 9 languages, with another 15 languages more than 90% translated and a long list of others in various stages of completion.

The interface is suitably customizable, but it doesn't offer anything out of the ordinary in terms of features.

The one area where KWord excels in is its handling of objects and formatting elements. You can choose from up to 18 types of graphics to insert. Text frames, formulas (including matrices), tables, and nine different types of object frames are available.

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WordPerfect for Linux

Corel has been offering downloads of WordPerfect for Linux on and off for the past year, making little adjustments to it, and then taking it off of their Web site. The last version we tested was based on WordPerfect 8 for Linux. Although that was a strong word processor for its day, it doesn't quite measure up to OpenOffice.org Writer or StarOffice Writer. It's dated, in other words. It still uses the Motif toolkit, the proofing tools are competent but primitive, the font rendering stinks, and it employs an annoying multi-window interface similar to The Gimp.

We'd really like to see a GNU/Linux port of the amazing WordPerfect 12 product that Corel is currently shipping for the Windows platform, but Corel has not yet fully committed to the GNU/Linux word processor market as of this writing and has no public plans to port its flagship product to other platforms.

Summary

Think of TextMaker as a sort of "Word Lite" -- it's got many of the same features and functions as Microsoft Word XP without the bloat, but it isn't truly a drop-in replacement for Word XP or 2003. A new version is currently being beta tested.

OpenOffice.org Writer is a jack of all trades, and is surpassed in its functionality only by StarOffice Writer. It's a bit of a behemoth -- the codebase for OpenOffice.org is larger than the entire 2.6 Linux kernel -- but despite its size, it has improved greatly in the past few releases. It's stable, supports Word documents tolerably, and it's free as in rights and in price.

StarOffice Writer is probably the most stable and reliable of the bunch. It's compatible with more file formats and has more fonts, but it doesn't work with Word files as well as TextMaker does. Although it costs money and is licensed restrictively, StarOffice 7 has better fonts and a slightly more appealing interface than OpenOffice.org.

Like OpenOffice.org, AbiWord has also come a long way in a short time, but the basic functionality is a little too slim and the program relies too heavily on potentially unstable modules to enhance its feature set. The previous release had severe stability issues when employing some of the conversion filters. If nothing else, AbiWord is fast, looks nice with the GTK toolkit, and renders anti-aliased fonts better than everything we tested except TextMaker.

KWord is not as useful of a word processor as it is a DTP application. Still, it has some interesting yet not fully fleshed-out features that could make future releases highly competitive. Its conversion filters are substandard, but it's the only GNU/Linux word processor that comes with a WordPerfect filter, even if it isn't... well, perfect.

Conclusions

Much like the operating system distributions, GNU/Linux word processors have advanced quickly in a short period of time, but have not yet reached the home stretch. Depending on the nature of your work, some or all of these programs may be more than suitable for you. For highly discriminating writers, some sacrifices are going to have to be made if you're moving from Word XP or 2003, or from any version of WordPerfect after 10 (also referred to as the 2002 edition).

We'd like to see more powerful and more easily accessible writing tools, a tabbed document view (much like Mozilla has for browser windows), more export formats, and better conversion tools. Specifically, WordPerfect 12 is an excellent example to follow. It has tabbed document views, can open or export to almost any format (except .SXW), and the proofing tools are unmatched. WP12's dictionary and thesaurus should be a model for all word processors; you can get not only alternate spellings of many words, but the thesaurus is highly verbose and intelligent and the dictionary offers Oxford definitions for known words. The grammar checker and analysis tools in WP12 are phenomenal; ideally we'd like to see this kind of functionality in the GNU/Linux word processors reviewed above.

If you're working in a professional environment, StarOffice and TextMaker both offer some degree of commercial support, should you require it. TextMaker is not very expensive at all, and is well worth the purchase price if you need superior Word compatibility and an interface that's easy on the eyes. If you're a starving writer, OpenOffice.org will probably provide you with the most stable and versatile environment for your work. This is not to imply that KWord and AbiWord are not worth investigating, but they do not offer the same power, stability, and flexibility that OpenOffice.org does. Secondly, open source programs are constantly and rapidly evolving, and thus can invalidate this review's findings in a matter of weeks. Here's hoping that the next few rounds of updates elicits one or more GNU/Linux word processors that can put Word and WordPerfect to shame.

Copyright 2005 Jem Matzan. Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire article are permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.