Software & Apps > File Types How to Open, Edit, & Convert ABW Files ABW files are documents created by AbiWord By Tim Fisher Tim Fisher Senior Vice President & Group General Manager, Tech & Sustainability Emporia State University Tim Fisher has more than 30 years' of professional technology experience. He's been writing about tech for more than two decades and serves as the SVP and General Manager of Lifewire. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on May 5, 2023 File Types File Types Apps Windows MS Office Linux Google Drive Backup & Utilities Design Cryptocurrency Trending Videos Close this video player What to Know Open an ABW file with the free AbiWord or LibreOffice Writer program.To convert an ABW file, open it in one of those same programs, and then save it under a new format.ABW files are documents created by AbiWord. They're similar to Word's DOCX format. This article explains what an ABW file is and how to open, edit, and convert one on your computer. How to Open an ABW File Both AbiWord (for Windows) and LibreOffice Writer (Windows, Linux, macOS) can open ABW files. 5 Best Free Online Word Processors for 2024 Since ABW files are stored using XML, you can also open one with a text editor, which is great if you don't want to bother installing one of those programs linked above. However, doing this doesn't properly format the document, so you'll see lots of things you wouldn't see if it were open in a word processor. Still, this is a fine way to see what the document says and to copy out text if you need to. ABW Files. How to Convert an ABW File If you're already using AbiWord or LibreOffice Writer, you can open the file in one of those programs and then save it under a new format. AbiWord, for example, can convert to Word formats like DOCX and DOC, as well as to RTF, TXT, EML, ODT, SXW, etc. Another option is to use CloudConvert's ABW converter. It's a free file converter website, so you just have to upload the file there to convert it to a different format like PDF. You might also have luck using Docpose to save the file to a huge number of document formats. Like CloudConvert, this one works entirely online, so it runs in your web browser. Still Can't Open It? If you can't open or convert the file with one of the programs listed above, you might be confusing a different format, like Amazon Kindle eBook (.AZW), with this one. Since their file extensions are so similar, this is fairly easy to do. The same is true for A2W and ABR files. Although they're similar since they are documents, some AbiWord files are Gzip compressed XML. Those use the ZABW or ABW.GZ file extension. Other technology terms use these letters, but they don't have anything to do with the file format. Examples include available bandwidth, average bandwidth waste, and abandonware. What Is an ABW File? A file with the ABW file extension is a document created by the AbiWord word processor. Similar to Microsoft Word's DOCX format, this one uses XML to store rich text, images, tables, etc. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit