Linux® Bible 2009 Edition: Boot up Ubuntu®, Fedora®, KNOPPIX, Debian®, SUSE®, and 13 Other Distributions

Chapter 5. Working with Words and Images

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Desktop publishing in Linux

• Using word processors

• Doing page layout with Scribus

• Taking documents from Windows to Linux

• Working with images

• Making Inkscape vector graphics

• Using scanners

• Publishing on the Web

Writing documents has always been a mainstay of desktop computers. Linux systems have steadily made up ground on Mac and Windows systems when it comes to desktop publishing applications. Now, nearly every feature you would expect for document writing, layout, and publishing (in hard copy and on the Web) is available with Linux systems.

This chapter describes popular Linux office suites (such as OpenOffice.org and KOffice) for creating documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. Scribus is an excellent application for doing page layouts. For working with images, I cover the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) and a few image viewers (such as Gwenview and Eye of GNOME). For working with vector graphics, I describe the Inkscape vector graphics editor.

For displaying the content you create, several different viewers are available that display output in Portable Document Format (PDF) and PostScript format. Evince viewer and Adobe Reader are available for PDF. To display PostScript files, there's Ghostview.

To publish on the Web, there are tools for everything from writing basic HTML documents to making Web photo sites to implementing full-blown content management systems. Software that is packaged for Linux to manage your own Web sites ...