About AbiWord
About Open Source
Index
Contents
What's New
Check Version
Introduction
Installation
Getting Started
The Workspace
Entering Text
Formatting
Edit Commands
Paragraphs
Styles
Inserting Objects
Printing
Preferences
Shortcuts
abisource.com
FAQ
Credits
Search

## Entering Text

After creating a new AbiWord document, you can enter text on the blank page. Begin typing and the letters will automatically be inserted where the cursor is. This cursor advances its position with each new letter. If the OVERWRITE function is turned on (by pressing the "Insert" key), the letters you type will overwrite any existing ones.

To introduce a new paragraph, you simply press on the " Enter " key. However, the " Enter " key is only used to introduce a new paragraph and must never be used to introduce a simple new line. The changing of lines is managed by AbiWord when the text overflows the right hand margin. It is the guiding principle of any word processor. You can however add a manual line break by simultaneously pressing on the keys " Shift " and " Enter " and that does not make a new paragraph.

## Spell checking

Sometimes you make typing errors during the data entry. To correct the mispelt text, use:

> * the "Backspace" key (above the " Enter " key) makes it possible to erase the character located BEFORE the cursor of insertion I.
> * The "Delete " key which makes it possible to erase the character located AFTER the cursor of insertion I.

If a word or a text is selected, the pressing the key " Backspace " or " Delete " will erase all the selected text.

When a word is mispelt, AbiWord underlines in red this word indicating that it does not exist in its dictionary. Here for example is the word juxtaposition: It does the same for all the words that it does not know even if they are correct.

To correct a word underlined in red, click the right button of the mouse on the word. A menu then opens containing a certain number of suggestions. If the correctly spelled word appears among the suggestions, click above so that the mispelt word is automatically corrected.

If no suggestion is made by AbiWord, then that means that AbiWord did not find any similar word in its dictionary. It should then be checked if this word is spelt correctly. If this is the case, there are then two possibilities:

1. If the mispelt word is not a regular word in your documents, then choose to be ignore this word. (click on Ignore all) It will not be underlined any more but this only applies to the current document.
2. If the mispelt word on the contrary is frequently in your documents (like a proper name for example), you can choose to add this word to the dictionary of AbiWord. (click on Add)

The last option (Change) will change the word as below:

> * The Ignore button will not underline any more of the selected word and will continue the checking.
> * The button Ignore All will not stop AbiWord on the selected word if it finds it in the document.
> * The Change button will correct the incorrect word by the selected suggestion.
> * The button Change All will correct all the occurrences of the word of the current document.
> * The Cancel button does not carry out any modification and will exit from this window.Likewise the Escape key.

To launch the spell checker, there are several options:

1. Go the "Tools" menu and click on " Spelling... " or
2. Right click on the underlined word and then click on the last option (Spelling...) or
3. To use the keyboard short cut, press the F7 key

## Statistics on the document in progress

You can get various statistics on the document in progress, espicially useful during the drafting of a long document. Abiword can generate a summary or a report/ratio, and it can be interesting to have statistics, for example, the number of pages or words which make up the document in progress. To do so, go to the "Tools" menu and click on " Word Count".

A window similar to the one shown below appears:

This window gives various bit of information such as the number of pages in the document, the word count of the document, the number of characters in the document (with or without space), the number of paragraphs in the document and finally the number of lines in the document. Click on the "Close" button to close this window.

## The zoom function

During the data entry or before printing the document, you can zoom in on the document (to have an overall picture or to see the enlarged document). There are two ways to do this:

> * Click on the small arrow on the right of the Zoom list located on the Standard toolbar then select the amount of zoom from the list.

> * To get a more detailed control of the zoom function, go to the "View" menu option, and then click on " Zoom ", and the window below appears:

> > The heading " Preview " displays an outline of the enlarged/shrunken characters

> > The heading " Zoom to " has several levels of present zoom:

> > > Preset zoom with 75%, 100% and 200%

> > > "Page Width" adjusts the zoom level to the width of the screen

> > > "Whole page " displays all the page on the screen

> > > There is also a function ("Percent ") where you can specify the amount of zoom by clicking on the small arrows in the box or by directly entering the zoom factor from the keyboard.