AbiWord and MS templates?

[Reddkryten]

Hi there, long time listener first time caller.

I recently got a CnM minibook as a birthday present and I'm enjoying it so far, but there is one thing that really limits it for me.

I write a lot of screenplays and on my computer I use this template for Microsoft word http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scriptsmart/scriptsmart_gold.shtml
It contains a lot of macros which add buttons etc for use in script writing.

This doesn't seem to work very well with Abiword, or if it does, I haven't figured it out yet. When I tried it, I found the fonts listed under styles, but they didn't work very well and all of the formatting was useless.

Is there any way to get this to work with Abiword? Some sort of plugin to enable the macros or a converter? Are there any other word processors which I could install on my CnM that would be more compatible with MS Word?

Thanks in advance.

[Leven2e]

if you are professionally writing,it'd be too slow for your speed anyway.
Why don't you do it without ScriptSmart,and when you have finished with it,you can transfer it to your ScriptSmart-enabled word processor. Is it not what you need?

[Unhban]

Slightly off-topic of Reddkryten's (hmmm... Red Dwarf?) thoughts, but hidden in a directory but not accessible by AbiWord from a menu item, are a whole raft of templates for it. Off the top of my head I can't remember which directory, but it's the same one that has  normal.awt  file in it.

At least that was in the original OS, but not checked to see if they're still there with 3MX.... you can always load one by using the IMPORT feature of AbiWord....

Unh.

[Whiskers]

I'd be amazed if any scripts or templates created for MS Word worked at all on a Little Linux Laptop, or in 'Abiword' on any machine.  You can export files from Abiword in a form that most versions of MS Word can display reasonably well, and you can load MS Word .rtf files (and possibly some .doc files) into Abiword, but that's the extent of the 'interoperability' of the two applications.

It's rather shameful that the BBC is so MS-centric; it doesn't happen only with their 'Writers Room'.   I don't know if they'd accept and share any templates or macros for other word-processing or text editing programs their users might care to offer. 

They don't insist that you use their 'Script Smart' for submissions:

You do not need to use Script Smart to submit your script to the BBC.

As long as your script is laid out in a standard script format, BBC writersroom will consider it.

You can find information about using Abiword here <http://www.abisource.com/help/en-US/index.html>.  Perhaps you could create a 'screenplay' template for your Abiword?

[Reddkryten]

Hi there. Thanks for the replies.

About the speed, would that really be a problem? I mean, I've only had it a few days so I haven't given it a real challenge yet, but surely word processing isn't that demanding? I mean, the specs are kinda low but better than an old Windows 95 machine I used to own.
(btw Leven2e, is your avatar from The Jackal?)

Unhban, I was able to use the import style thing, but it didn't do much. I was able to access all the fonts, but the indentation and capitalization features didn't work as well as the automatic things.
(And yep, Red Dwarf, when I was signing up for my first email account, Kryten was taken so it became Reddkryten  )

Oh no, the BBC don't require script smart, it's just I've been using that template for awhile and I'm comfortable with it.
Not only are they MS centric, but they're not even good at being MS centric. They won't make a vista version of Script Smart!

So my options are make my own template...I might have to do that eventually if a Vista version of script smart doesn't come along by the time I upgrade my main PC. The only problem with this is the template wouldn't work on my PC, so I'd be constantly back and forth.
Write everything normally in Abiword and then when I get to my PC, paste it into Script Smart and reformat it. Sounds kinda likely.

Out of curiosity are there any good Netbooks running Windows?

[Leven2e]

I think that yes,the speed is a problem,and there are netbooks those run Windows well.

[Whiskers]

I think that yes,the speed is a problem,and there are netbooks those run Windows well.

... but of course, they run Linux even better  :))

[wicknix]

Amen to that! My EeePC 900A came with Xandros (linux) but it literally filled the 4 gig ssd leaving about 300 mb free. So i wiped it and put XP on it. I can say that XP is very sluggish (900A is 1.6ghz with 1 gig ram btw), but i decided to leave it on the internal ssd anyway just in case. Then i bought an 8 gig sd card and installed a custom remix of puppy linux on the sd and boot from that. Boy what a world of difference. The machine actually feels like 1.6ghz under linux, while it feels like a 600mhz machine when running XP.

Cheers.

[Mijzelf]

Write everything normally in Abiword and then when I get to my PC, paste it into Script Smart and reformat it. Sounds kinda likely.

Why not install AbiWord on your Windows box? AbiWord is available for most platforms I've ever heard of.

[Whiskers]

Write everything normally in Abiword and then when I get to my PC, paste it into Script Smart and reformat it. Sounds kinda likely.

Why not install AbiWord on your Windows box? AbiWord is available for most platforms I've ever heard of.

Why use a 'word processor' at all?  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LyX>

[jameswi99]

Reddkryten,
    As well as the lack of template support, you will probably come across a couple of other issues which you need to be aware of before you get too hooked on your linux notepad. I also write and have struggled a bit with:

1) The random insertion of characters when I am typing fast - See http://linuxlaptopforum.ark2webdesign.co.uk/index.php/topic,267.0.html - for details
2) In trying to get around (1) I upgraded to 3MX - which is brilliant - however the version of Abiword used in anything greater than 3MX v1.1 is completely incompatable with Microsoft Word .doc and .rtf files. So you will be stuck with 1.1 if you want to be able to transfer formatted documents.

Cheers

James
 

[rodonn]

I tend to get the random char insert ( last time I sat that sort of thing it was an ASCII terminal trying to display EBCDIC encoding of a PAD data stream on the old PSS system...) if clip more than one key at once.