I want to save a file in .zabw format, I can only find answers on "how to open .zabw files". I found out that .zabw is a native Abiword format. It is gzip compressed .abw (https://www.abisource.com/help/en-US/info/infoformats.html).
When saving a file in Abiword it shows an option in "Save file as type: Abiword(.abw, .zabw, abw.gz)" but the file is saved as file-name.abw and not file-name.zabw.
So when I use gzip to compress an .abw file does it become filename.abw.gz?
gzip file-name.abw
Are .zabw and abw.gz same?
Also, how can I obtain a file in .zabw format?
Abiword does not save files to .zabw, but it can read them. It can also read .abw.gz files, which is the same as an .zabw file (both are an XML file compressed in gzip format).
When you open an .zabw file, Abiword will read it, but if you modify and save that file, it will convert it into an uncompressed XML file and it won't change the filename, which is unfortunate (and that should be considered a bug). The help page recommends to only use .zabw to send the document over the internet, in other words, they tell you to compress the file to transfer it, but edit and work with an uncompressed file.