Which word processor to choose for the Pinephone?

[Peter Gamma]

1  LibreOffice

- Who uses it on the Pinephone?:

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...614&page=5

2. VIM was suggested in this forum.

- who uses this in 2023?

3. Abiword

- alaraajavamma says she uses it on the Pinephone
- But I was not able to write to the external SD card with it
- after a installed postmarketOS with Abiword on the exernal SD card, I was able to open Abiword files on a Ubuntu PC, save it to an SD card again.
- But when I come back to my Pinephone I had issues most probably because of Abiword format mess.

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=18788

- not only me had this issues with Abiword formats, there are a number of Abiword format issues reported:

https://www.google.ch/search?as_q=abiwor...etype=&tbs=

4. A user suggested LyX word processor instead of Abiword

- I installed  Version 2.3.7 (Sonntag, 1. Januar 2023) on my PC
- it looks similar to Abword
- there are more recent versions available than for Abword
- instructions for LyX are quiet academic and very extended
- still it looks great on my Windows 10 PC and simple

- does someone use  LyX on his Pinephone?

-  It looks as if it was an option to replace Abiword if it messes up with file formats.

[Peter Gamma]

Furhtermore Emacs was suggested as well by TRS80

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...ht=writers

- here is an Emacs demo:

https://youtu.be/urcL86UpqZc

- who uses it on the Pinephone exept for TRS80?

My favorite option would be LyX word processor

- But LibreOffice installation took my about a month every day working a little bit with the great support of the Pin64 forum.

- But should I now install LyX word processor?

- Is it in an app store on the Pinephone?

[Peter Gamma]

I use postmarketOS on my Pinephone ,which is Alpine Linux. For the LyX word processor there are lyx Linux Alpine packages available:

https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages?na...anch=v3.18

But which package to choose for the Pinephon? the armhf?

[Peter Gamma]

Wibble suggested to choose Calligra for word processing:

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...ht=writers

I am looking for an application which runs on the Pinephone and on Ubuntu. Here is an instruction how to install Calligra on
Ubuntu:

https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Calligra/

But I can only find packages for x86 if I am looking how to install it on the Pinephone:

https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/contents?na...x86&page=1

Which package to choose for Pinephone postmarketOS Linux Alpine, wibble?

[Kevin Kofler]

Unfortunately, I have not seen any workable word processor for the PinePhone.

LibreOffice, AbiWord and LyX are not designed for touch devices at all.

Calligra claims to have a touch UI, Calligra Gemini, but it is so horribly buggy and incomplete that it is not even alpha quality. Calligra Gemini basically does not work at all. In the touch UI, I cannot even edit the text of a word processor document. There is a formatting toolbar, but without a working selection mechanism, it is useless as well. Then, the presentation mode is offered even for a word processor document (it makes sense only for presentations), and that mode is a completely unusable mockup: even the exit button does not work! And there is a big time display on top that displays a nonsense time (starting from 23:00:00 no matter what the actual time is, so it is neither a wallclock time nor an elapsed presentation time). And the first slide displayed is a dummy example slide. And all this is in landscape mode only, because Calligra Gemini is even more broken in portrait mode: creating a new document is not doable in portrait mode because the whole screen is taken by the left sidebar, so you cannot choose an option in the main part of the dialog, and the editing touch UI just hangs in portrait mode because the toolbar does not fit the narrow screen. The only part of Calligra Gemini that works is the desktop mode, but that is basically the same as the Calligra desktop applications and completely unsuitable for the PinePhone screen, most of the screen real estate is covered by various sidebars.

Emacs and vim are not word processors at all, they are just text editors. And not even designed for touch interfaces anyway.

[KC9UDX]

Sigh I finally found something to disagree with TRS80 about.

I use Vim, a lot. I even use it in instances when most people would use a word processor, but it is not a word processor, and I can't imagine using it witha touch screen. Well, I can, because I have. But I sure don't recommend it.

Emacs should be capable of beinga word processor, shouldn't it?

[Peter Gamma]

Emacs should be capable of beinga word processor, shouldn't it?

Yes, but not for a physiologist like I am, for the following reason:

https://youtu.be/urcL86UpqZc

---

But I have become more positive about Abiword and LibreOffice as described here:

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=18788

I can do without touch support since I use a keyboard anyway.

[TRS-80]

Emacs and vim are not word processors at all, they are just text editors. And not even designed for touch interfaces anyway.

"Just" text editors.  Well, maybe Vim...

Emacs is more like a Lisp based framework for dealing with text (of all kinds).  You could implement a 'word processor' and/or many other things (and many people already have).  It's really a completely different thing, which therefore takes some getting your mind around, at first.

For example, I am editing this post right now, in BBCode mode, in Emacs, via the 'Edit with Emacs' browser add-on.  But this is on my main battle station (desktop).

I am assuming keyboard usage, yes.  Since we have a physical keyboard (at least I do).  When combined with that (and Emacs), I find using the PinePhone to edit text a treat, actually.  A lot of the problems with touch based interfaces (especially on mobile) simply go away when you use a program which was originally intended for terminal usage (and you get used to the keybindings for moving around).

Sigh I finally found something to disagree with TRS80 about.

I use Vim, a lot.  I even use it in instances when most people would use a word processor, but it is not a word processor, and I can't imagine using it witha touch screen.  Well, I can, because I have.  But I sure don't recommend it.

Emacs should be capable of beinga word processor, shouldn't it?

I already addressed the bit about the keyboard, above.

I guess it depends what you mean by 'word processor'.

Luckily, I don't have to edit (M$) 'Word' documents almost ever.  I keep all my own (extensive) notes in plain text (Orgmode) files.  Which can be exported to many formats (including HTML, LaTeX, PDF, etc.).

For more fancy looking things, there is LaTeX, which far, far exceeds the document formatting capabilities of any 'word processor'.  Although, I will admit the learning curve might be even more than for Emacs itself.

[Peter Gamma]

I am agains Emac as my friend here:

https://youtu.be/urcL86UpqZc

I am promoting Abiword on the Pinephone altough it has hardly any keyboard shortcuts. And if it not sufficient to adapt LibreOffice for the Pinephone screen which is a lot of work but should work for Pinephone enthousiasts.

I went back to an Android phone with Softmaker Office for Android with Textmaker and Planmaker. This is one of the best Office application for mobile I know. Then I am prepairing to use a Raspberry Pi running NextcloudPi for cloudfree data exchange to a PC. A complicated solution but still the best I could find. I would prefer a Pinephone where I can edit files on the external SD card and on my PC, something Android phones can’t do. But to get ti to work reliably is a lot o fwork, too.