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AbiWord is a word processor with a user-friendly interface similar to Microsoft Word but is lighter and functions well in older computers with fewer resources--for this reason it is the default word processor for the One Laptop per Child proyect. AbiWord is multi-platform software which runs in Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX, QNX, GNU/Linux and many other types of UNIX. Since it is free software (also known as open source software), you can download, utilize, change, and/or redistribute it without paying licensing fees.

Runasimipi.org has translated AbiWord in Northern Aymara (La Paz, Bolivia and Puno, Perú), Southern Aymara (Oruro, Bolivia and Iquique Chile) and Southern Bolivian Quechua (Cochabamba, Potosí, Sucre). The Aymara interfaz is only available in versión 2.6 and later. 

Install AbiWord in Windows
AbiWord can be downloaded from http://www.abisource.com/download/. Double hacer doble clic on the installer and follow the instructions on screen to install it. (The current version is abiword-setup-2.6.2.exe).  If you have the CD de Runasimipi.org, you can stick the CD in your Windows machine and a web page will open automatically. Look for AbiWord and double click on [Instalar] to install AbiWord on your computer. 

If you want to use AbiWord's importers/exporters to open MS Word or WordPerfect documents, doube click on abiword-plugins-impexp-2.6.2.exe to install them or click [im/exportador] in the CD de Runasimipi.org. If you want to also use AbiWord's Tools plugins, double click abiword-plugins-tools-2.6.2.exe or click [plugins] in the CD. If you want Spanish spell checking, double click AbiWord_Dictionary_Espanol.exe or click [dic-español] in the CD.  To install each one, select "Next", then "Next", and finally "Install".   

If you have the CD de Runasimipi.org and your web browser does not permite the use of executable files, you will have to look for each installer inside the CD and double click them individually. Open the CD de Runasimipi.org. (To open it, right click on the CD icon on your desktop or in Windows Exporer and select "Explore".) Look for the installers insid the AbiWord folder.

Using AbiWord in Quechua and Aymara
AbiWord in Quechua has been available since version 2.10 in 2004 and Aymara was added in the northern (La Paz) dialect and southern (Oruro) dialect in version 2.6.0 in 2008.  To use AbiWord in Quechua or Aymara, open Preferences, which is found in the Tools menu. Select the General tab (en version 2.4.6 and earlier,  select the Language tab). Under User interface language, select Aymara (La Paz), Aymara (Oruro), Quechua (3 vowels) or Quechua (5 vowels).  

AbiWord in GNU/Linux or UNIX:
For Linux/UNIX users, AbiWord is the default word processor for the GNOME desktop environment, but the majority of GNU/Linux and UNIX distributions do not include it in their installation CDs because they already have OpenOffice.  To obtain AbiWord, download and install it from the repository of your distribución. For example in Debian, you can install it from the command line:

    su
        [enter your root password]
    apt-get install abiword abiword-plugins abiword-help

In Ubuntu, use:

    sudo apt-get install abiword abiword-plugins abiword-help
        [enter your root password]

In Fedora, use:

    su
        [enter your root password]
    yum install abiword

Aymara and an updated quechua translation are availbe in versions 2.6 and later of AbiWord. If you would like to test out AbiWord 2.6 but it is not yet included in your distribution, you can compile it from the source code. Download the source at http://www.abisource.com/download or copy it from the "AbiWord/codigo" dirctory in our CD. Decompress it:

    tar xzf abiword-2.6.2.tar.gz

Change to the directory which was just decompressed and use the standard comands ./configure, make and make install to compile and install AbiWord.

    cd abiword-2.6.2
    ./configure
    make
    make install

Before compiling AbiWord, you will need access to the internet to download all the necessary dependencies or access to a complete set of instalation CDs for your GNU/Linux distribution.  For example, the g++ compiler and the following development libraries have to be installed in Ubuntu 7.04:

     apt-get install g++ libglib2.0-dev libglade2-dev libgnomeprintui2.2-dev libgsf-1-dev libenchant-dev libfribidi-dev libwv-dev libpopt-dev

In other distributions, the required libraries will perhaps have other names (for example, in Red Hat/Fedora they are named "devel" instead of "dev"), but the requirements will be similar. When using the comand ./configure, you will be informed which libraries you lack.   

If you want to install the extra plugin tools, the importers/exporters or the Help system, you will have to compile and install them in a similar fashion. manera.

Setting the AbiWord interface in Quechua or Aymara
To change the AbiWord interface language, you will need to change the LANG variable, which indicates the language in a ISO code of 2 or 3 lower-case characters, the country in 2 upper-case characters, and the character set.  For example, "en_US.ISO-8859-1" is English from the US in the  ISO-8859-1 character set and "jqr_PE.UTF-8" is Jaqaru from Peru in the 8-bit Unicode character set.

In versions 2.4.6 and earlier of AbiWord, change the language to "qu_BO". In versions 2.6 and later, you can use: 
    quh_BO    quechua boliviano con 3 vocales
    qul_BO    quechua boliviano con 5 vocales
    aym_BO    aymara norteño de La Paz y Puno
    ayc_BO    Aymara sureño de Oruro y Iquique

First use the command locale to determine which language is being used by default by your sistem. Before opening AbiWord, change the system language to Aymara or Quechua, and afterwards return it to your original language.

    $ locale
    LANG=es_PE.UTF-8

In this example, Spanish from Peru is the default language and the character set is 8-bit Unicode. Then change the language to Northern Aymara and open AbiWord. Afterwards, return the language to Spanish of Peru.

    LANG="aym_BO.UTF-8"
    export LANG
    abiword &
    LANG="es_PE.UTF-8"
    export LANG

It is very handy to place this commands in a script and execute them when you want to use AbiWord in aymara or quechua. To do this, save these commands in a plane text file called "abiword-aym". (You can use an editor like kate, gedit, nano or vi.)  Change the permissions to make the file executable: 

    chmod a+x abiword-aym

Now open AbiWord in Northern Aymara from the command line:

    sh abiword-aym

You can also add this command to a menu item. If the file "abiword-aym" is located on your desktop, you can double click it to execute the script and open AbiWord in Northern Aymara. To do this in GNOME, right click over the file and select "Properties" in the menu. Inside the "Properties" window, select the "Permissions" tab and put a check mark next to "Execute" to activate it. 

Last Updated: Fri, 17 Oct 2008