AbiWord to Word DOCX converter

ABW → DOCX is for documents written in AbiWord on Linux or older Windows machines that now need to go to someone using Word or Google Docs.

Converted with Office engine · input deleted within 24 h
Free: 5 conversions a day · 5 MB each
Higher limits →

From real runs

What you get — and what changes

Element	Result	What happens
Text and accents	Kept	Greek, German and French test words (Ελληνικά, Größe, été) came through unchanged.
Pictures	Kept	The White Rabbit illustration in an AbiWord copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland became an embedded picture in the DOCX.
Footnotes	Kept	A footnote became a numbered Word footnote at the foot of the page.
Tables	Kept	A two-column plot and depth table became a bordered Word table with the header row and values in place.
Heading styles	Changed	AbiWord's Heading 1 and Heading 2 kept their size, weight and italics but were applied as Normal paragraphs, so Word's navigation pane is empty.
Numbered lists	Changed	A three-step list kept Word numbering 1 to 3, but the gap after each number disappeared, so items read '1.Mark the plots'.
Footer page numbers	Kept	The centred page-number footer stayed a live field.

Text and accents Kept
Greek, German and French test words (Ελληνικά, Größe, été) came through unchanged.
Pictures Kept
The White Rabbit illustration in an AbiWord copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland became an embedded picture in the DOCX.
Footnotes Kept
A footnote became a numbered Word footnote at the foot of the page.
Tables Kept
A two-column plot and depth table became a bordered Word table with the header row and values in place.
Heading styles Changed
AbiWord's Heading 1 and Heading 2 kept their size, weight and italics but were applied as Normal paragraphs, so Word's navigation pane is empty.
Numbered lists Changed
A three-step list kept Word numbering 1 to 3, but the gap after each number disappeared, so items read '1.Mark the plots'.
Footer page numbers Kept
The centred page-number footer stayed a live field.

Sample conversions

Illustrated novel chapter

Input: 353,507-byte .abw: the first chapter of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with a Tenniel illustration.
Output: 255,072-byte DOCX in 4.1 s with 2,155 words and the picture embedded.

Field notes with a footnote and table

Input: Constructed AbiWord file with two heading levels, a footnote, a numbered list, a table and a page-number footer.
Output: 7,427-byte DOCX in 2.3 s; footnote, table, list and footer are real Word objects, headings are styled Normal paragraphs.

A real AbiWord → Word DOCX run

We converted our AbiWord sample (345 KB) with Office engine on 2026-10-20. It took 2.7 s and produced a 249 KB Word DOCX file, 28% smaller than the input. The engine raised 1 warning, listed below.

Input · sample.abw · 345 KB

353,507 bytes

Output · sample.docx · 249 KB

Word document: 56 paragraphs, 0 headings, 0 tables, 1 embedded image; fonts Liberation Serif, Liberation Sans

Paragraphs: 56
Headings: 0
Tables: 0
Images: 1
Archive parts: 10
Fonts: Liberation Serif, Liberation Sans

Fonts that are not installed on our servers are replaced with substitutes, so lines can wrap differently.

Options and when to change them

filter: Keep the default; it writes a standard DOCX. Scripts that need another Word export filter can pass its name here.

Do it yourself

AbiWord

bash

abiword --to=docx notes.abw

AbiWord's own command-line export; current AbiWord releases are built for Linux, so this suits a Linux machine.

LibreOffice

bash

soffice --headless --convert-to docx --outdir out notes.abw

Gives the result described on this page.

AbiWord to Word DOCX by API or MCP

The HTTP API and the MCP server run the exact engine this page uses (Office engine); the response carries the same warnings the web converter shows. Check support first with GET /api/v1/pairs?from=abw&to=docx.

curl

curl -X POST https://filetypeconverters.com/api/v1/convert \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FTC_API_KEY" \
  -F "file=@input.abw" -F "from=abw" -F "to=docx" \
  --output output.docx

API reference

When this is the wrong conversion

If AbiWord is still installed, try its own Save As Word first and check whether it keeps the heading styles this route flattens.
If the reader only needs to read the document, ABW → PDF keeps the pages exactly as laid out here.

AbiWord to Word DOCX questions

Can Google Docs open an .abw file?

No. Google Docs and Word both reject AbiWord files. Convert to DOCX and upload that; Google Docs opens it as an editable document.

Are compressed .zabw files supported?

Yes. A .zabw is a gzip-compressed .abw, and it is unpacked and converted the same way.

How do I get proper headings back in Word?

Click into each heading and choose Heading 1 or Heading 2 from Word's Styles gallery. The text already looks right, so this only restores the outline for the navigation pane and table of contents.