Introduction to word processing with Abiword
Tutorial
Basic Tasks

This section describes the tasks most commonly performed when using Abiword.

Tutorial
Basic Tasks
Creating a new document

    Pull down the File menu and choose New.A new window will be created with a blank document.

Tutorial
Basic Tasks
Saving your document for the first time

    Click on the File menu and choose the Save option.If you have not saved this particular document before, the following Save As dialogue box will be displayed. Otherwise the document will immediately be saved with its existing name.

    Enter the name of your document in the Selection field.

    Use the directory selector to choose the place you wish to save the document.

    Click the OK button to save the document.

Tutorial
Basic Tasks
Saving your document with a different name

Sometimes you will want to save your document with a different name. Reasons for doing this, may be that you want to change the document around but want to retain a copy of the original so that you can always return to that document if the modified version becomes to messed up.

To do this, perform the following steps:

    Pull down the File menu and choose Save As.The following dialogue box will be displayed

    The name of your existing document will already be entered in the Selection field. However you can change the name if you so desire. Alternately you may wish to change the Save file as type field so that instead of saving your document as an Abiword document, you can save it using the file-format of an alternative word processing package that is being used by the person with whom you wish to share the document. In this case, by clicking on the selector box next to the Save file as type field you can bring up a list of possible file formats. By then clicking the mouse cursor on the format you desire you will select that format. Finally, you can choose where you want to save your document either by using the directory listing in the Directories list box field to navigate through the file system or by using the directory selector that is directly between the Directories and Files list, and the Create Dir, Delete File and Rename File buttons

    When you have selected the new name, location and file-format for your document, click the OK button.

Tutorial
Basic Tasks
Importing Word for Windows documents

It is often the case that you will receive documents that have been written using other word processors. Probably the most common of these is Microsoft Word. Abiword is able to read most kinds of documents, and can even save documents using these kinds of formats, so that you are able to send documents to other people and be confident that they will be able to read them.

    Pull down the File menu and choose Open.The open file dialogue box will be displayed.

Note that by default Abiword will attempt to automatically detect the kind of document that you are trying to open. However if for some reason it is not able to detect the kind of document, you can specify the kind of document that you are trying to open by clicking on the Open File As Type bar. This will present a list of the possible file formats that Abiword is able to read.

    If the document that you want to open is not in the current directory (the default directory will be the home directory of the account you are currently viewing with the Open File dialogue box. You can do this by clicking on the directories in the Directories box which is on the left hand side of the Open File dialogue box. If you click the .. directory, you will be taken up one level to the previous directory, and any directories that are accessable from there will then be displayed in the Directories box.

    Click on the file that you want to open

    Click the OK button.

Tutorial
Basic Tasks
Exporting an Abiword document to another format

    Open the document that you want to save to an alternative format.

    Pull down the File menu and choose Save As.The following dialogue box will be displayed

    Click on the Save file as type button.A list will be displayed on the screen with a series of alternative file formats.

    Choose the file format that you want to save your document as (for example, if you want to save in Microsoft Word format, choose the Microsoft Word option about a quater down from the top of the list..

    Click the OK button.The document is saved.

Tutorial
Basic Tasks
Printing your document

    Make sure the document is open in Abiword.

    Click on the File menu and choose the Print option.The print dialogue box will be displayed on screen.

Select from the following options in the Print dialogue box.

Item    Description

Printer    This will tell the computer to send the print job to the printer. This is as opposed to the File option described below.

File    If you select this option, the output of the printing operation will be sent to a file on disk, rather than to the actual printer

Printer Command    By default this will be lpr. This is correct for 99% of cases.

All    If this option is selected, the entire document will be printed.

From/To    The first and last page to print. If the toggle-button next to the From field is selected, Abiword will print all pages starting from the page number entered in the From field and ending at the page number entered into the To field.

Selection    If you select this option, then only the text that has been highlighted will be printed.

Collate    This will tell Abiword to collate the document that it is about to print. For example, if you were printing 10 copies of a document, this would cause it to print 10 copies of page 1, followed by 10 copies of page 2, and so on.

Embed Fonts    Choosing this option will cause Abiword to embed the information about the fonts into the document itself, so that the printer does not have to have seperate information about the available fonts.

Copies    This field specifies how many copies of the document will be printed. By default this will be one, but if you want more than one copy, enter the number of copies you want into this field.

Print in:    This option allows you to select the colours that you want your document printed in. Selecting the Colour option will only work if you have a (properly configured) colour printer connected to your computer. The other alternatives are Black & White which as the name suggests, will print the document purely in black-and-white. The grey-scale option allows Abiword to interpret any different coloured text in your document as various shades of grey. This can be useful when printing graphics or multi-coloured text to a black and white printer.

Print    Clicking this button will send the document to the printer.

Cancel    Clicking this button will cancel the print job.

     Click the Print button when you are ready (or Cancel to abort).