Welcome to AbiWord!
===================

AbiWord is an "Open Source" word processor (if you would like more information about the 
concept of Open Source, you might start looking at http://www.opensource.org ). It 
provides all the really useful features that you find in other word processors, but at 
the same time, it places much lesser demands on computer resources (disk space and 
memory) than other comparable word processors do.

AbiWord is a truly multilingual word processor. It supports not only languages that use 
the Latin alphabet, but also those using Cyrillic (such as Russian), languages from the 
Middle East (such as Hebrew and Arabic), and languages from the Far East (such as 
Chinese, Korean and Japanese). AbiWord provides as-you-type multilingual spell-checking, 
its menus, dialogues and messages have been translated into many languages, and other 
spell-checking dictionaries and translations can be easily added.

One of AbiWord's greatest strengths is its ability to open and save documents in a large 
number of formats, both common and uncommon; there is probably no other word processor 
around that can handle anywhere near the variety of documents that AbiWord can. Using 
AbiWord you will be able to exchange documents with people using Microsoft Office, 
WordPerfect, Open Office and other word processors, but also to export your documents 
into (and import from) HTML format for use on the Internet, and import text files in 
many different encodings. In addition to editing documents in AbiWord, you can use it as 
a command-line tool to convert documents from one format to another in non-interactive 
fashion. Indeed, various Internet sites use AbiWord to convert their documents stored in 
different formats to HTML on the fly.

AbiWord is not only a fully-featured multilingual word processor, it is also a cross-
platform application: it was designed to work well on multiple types of computers and 
operating systems. At the present time, AbiWord is supported on Windows (Windows 95 – 
Windows XP), Linux (including Intel and Alpha), a variety of other UNIX-like systems 
(including Solaris, and *BSD), BeOS, QNX and MacOS X.


* Latest Version and Additional Downloads

AbiWord is a quickly developing application, so it is always worth while to check for 
the latest version at http://www.abisource.com/. At the same place you will find 
additional downloads, such as spell-checking dictionaries, plugins extending AbiWord 
functionality (in particular extra importers and exporters for formats not supported by 
the default installation), useful information about the project and the people involved 
in it, and if you would like, you can also download the full source code of AbiWord.


* Getting Help

In addition to the online help, you might find assistance through these channels:

- Visit the AbiSource website at http://www.abisource.com. Here you will find a 
  growing amount of information, including frequently Asked Questions. You may also 
  download the latest version of AbiWord.

- Interact with other users of AbiWord. AbiSource provides an email list for AbiWord 
  users. Information about subscribing to this list is available on the AbiSource 
..website.


* Helping

If you would like to join the community of people who are developing AbiWord, there are 
lots of ways you can help, even if you are not a computer programmer.

If you are in fact a programmer, and would like to work on the project, see the 
developer information on our website, join the abiword-dev mailing list, and ask what 
needs to be done. There are always features or ports which need attention.

If you are not a programmer, you can still join the abiword-dev mailing list and 
contribute in other ways. The easiest way to help is to simply use the program and 
report any bugs you find. A tool called Bugzilla is available on our website for exactly 
this purpose.


* Distributing AbiWord

Because AbiWord is Open Source, it is freely distributable and available for use by 
anyone, without restrictions. With AbiWord, there is no need to worry about piracy. We 
encourage you to make as many copies as you like and to give them to your friends and 
colleagues.

Note that AbiWord is not "shareware". You are under no moral or legal obligation to pay 
anyone for this right to use this program.

If you are not familiar with this kind of software, please rest assured that there is no 
catch. AbiWord is free, and it will always be free. It is developed in a public fashion, 
by members of the software community from all over the world, communicating and 
collaborating together via the Internet.

You will find the details of the GNU Public Licence under which AbiWord is distributed 
below.


* Licence

Copyright 1998,1999,2000 AbiSource, Inc. and others as indicated in the program sources. 
All Rights Reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms 
of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either 
version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY 
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A 
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

AbiSource, AbiWord, and AbiSuite are trademarks of AbiSource, Inc., in the United States 
and other countries. AbiSource's logos and AbiSource product and service names are also 
trademarks of AbiSource, Inc., which may be registered in other countries.


GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991

 Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, 
Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA

 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, 
but changing it is not allowed.

                Preamble

  The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and 
change it.  By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your 
freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its 
users.  This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's 
software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it.  (Some other Free 
Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License 
instead.)  You can apply it to your programs, too.

  When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price.  Our General 
Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies 
of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code 
or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in 
new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

  To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you 
these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to 
certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you 
modify it.

  For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, 
you must give the recipients all the rights that you have.  You must make sure that 
they, too, receive or can get the source code.  And you must show them these terms so 
they know their rights.

  We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you 
this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the 
software.

  Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone 
understands that there is no warranty for this free software.  If the software is 
modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they 
have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on 
the original authors' reputations.

  Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents.  We wish to 
avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent 
licenses, in effect making the program proprietary.  To prevent this, we have made it 
clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

  The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.



GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE

TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

  0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by 
the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public 
License.  The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on 
the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that 
is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with 
modifications and/or translated into another language.  (Hereinafter, translation is 
included without limitation in the term "modification".)  Each licensee is addressed as 
"you".

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this 
License; they are outside its scope.  The act of running the Program is not restricted, 
and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based 
on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is 
true depends on what the Program does.

  1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you 
receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on 
each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all 
the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any 
other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.

You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your 
option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.

  2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus 
forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work 
under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

    a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you 
    changed the files and the date of any change.

    b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part 
    contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a 
    whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

    c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must 
    cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to 
    print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a 
    notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and 
    that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user 
    how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive 
    but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is 
    not required to print an announcement.)



These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole.  If identifiable sections of 
that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent 
and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to 
those sections when you distribute them as separate works.  But when you distribute the 
same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution 
of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees 
extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to 
work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the 
distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.

In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program 
(or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium 
does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.

  3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in 
object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that 
you also do one of the following:

    a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which 
    must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium 
    customarily used for software interchange; or,

    b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any 
    third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source 
    distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to 
    be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily 
    used for software interchange; or,

    c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute 
    corresponding source code.  (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial 
    distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form 
    with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications 
to it.  For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all 
modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts 
used to control compilation and installation of the executable.  However, as a special 
exception, the source code distributed need not include
anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major 
components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable 
runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a 
designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same 
place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not 
compelled to copy the source along with the object code.

  4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly 
provided under this License.  Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or 
distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this 
License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this 
License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full 
compliance.

  5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it.  
However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its 
derivative works.  These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this 
License.  Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the 
Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and 
conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

  6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the 
recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, 
distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions.  You may not 
impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted 
herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this 
License.

  7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or 
for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you 
(whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this 
License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License.  If you cannot 
distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any 
other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at 
all.  For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of 
the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the 
only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from 
distribution of the Program.

If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular 
circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole 
is intended to apply in other circumstances.

It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other 
property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the 
sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system, which 
is implemented by public license practices.  Many people have made generous 
contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance 
on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he 
or she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot 
impose that choice.

This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence 
of the rest of this License.

  8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries 
either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places 
the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation 
excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries 
not thus excluded.  In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written 
in the body of this License.

  9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General 
Public License from time to time.  Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the 
present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.

Each version is given a distinguishing version number.  If the Program specifies a 
version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the 
option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later 
version published by the Free Software Foundation.  If the Program does not specify a 
version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free 
Software Foundation.

  10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose 
distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission.  For 
software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free 
Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this.  Our decision will be guided 
by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software 
and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.

                NO WARRANTY

  11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE 
PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.  EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN 
WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT 
WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  THE ENTIRE 
RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU.  SHOULD THE PROGRAM 
PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

  12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY 
COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS 
PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, 
INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE 
PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR 
LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY 
OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY 
OF SUCH DAMAGES.

             END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

        How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

  If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to 
the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can 
redistribute and change under these terms.

  To do so, attach the following notices to the program.  It is safest to attach them to 
the start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and 
each file should have at least the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full 
notice is found.

    <one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
    Copyright (C) 19yy  <name of author>

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the 
    terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software 
    Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY 
    WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A 
    PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this 
    program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 
    330, Boston, MA 02111-1307  USA


Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.

If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in 
an interactive mode:

    Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19yy name of author
    Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
    This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
    under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.

The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the appropriate parts of the 
General Public License.  Of course, the commands you use may be called something other 
than `show w' and `show c'; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever 
suits your program.

You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, 
to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if necessary.  Here is a sample; alter 
the names:

  Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program
  `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.

  <signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
  Ty Coon, President of Vice

This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary 
programs.  If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to 
permit linking proprietary applications with the library.  If this is what you want to 
do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License.
