How to Decode an AbiWord Document

AbiWord is an open source, lightweight word processing application. AbiWord is available for all operating systems, including Linux-based systems, such as Ubuntu. Occasionally, when using AbiWord, a document will become corrupted and will not open in the AbiWord program. In a case like this you can decode an AbiWord document using a simple text editor. In Windows you can use Notepad and in Ubuntu use Gedit. When you open an AbiWord document in the text editor to decode the document text appears about halfway down the page.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

1. Right-click on the AbiWord document to show the File context menu in both Ubuntu and Windows. AbiWord documents have the file extension of “.abw.”

2. Click the “Open With” option in the context menu.

3. Click the “Text Editor” option in Ubuntu, or click “Notepad” from the list of available programs in Windows. The AbiWord document opens in the text editor.

4. Scroll about halfway down the document. The first half of the file will be full of document markup code that is similar to HTML code. Locate the first paragraph of text of your original AbiWord document. The paragraph, sentence or page title will appear in a code statement like the one below:

   <p style="Normal" xid="8"><c>The document text starts here.</c></p>

   Each paragraph of text in the original document will be enclosed in the “P” and “C” tags.

5. Delete all document markup tags surrounding the text in your document to decode and reclaim the text from your original AbiWord file.