If you have read Solveig Haugland’s “Mail Merge in Openoffice.org: Everything You Need to Know,” then you already know how to use mail merge to reduce your workload in one free and open source software application (FOSS). However, OpenOffice.org is not the only FOSS application you can use for mail merge. You can also use AbiWord or KWord to get the same advantages.
Both AbiWord and KOffice were originally built for GNU/Linux, but both now have versions for Mac OS X and Windows as well. AbiWord is a standalone word processor, while KWord is part of KOffice, which started as an office suite for KDE, one of the most popular interfaces for GNU/Linux. Although neither AbiWord nor KWord has as many features of OpenOffice.org, both are developed enough for many users’ needs. Some people prefer them because they are smaller and faster than OpenOffice.org, and therefore run better on older and slower computers.