Ubuntu: Up and Running

Writer

The OpenOffice.org word processor is a fast and easy-to-use application called Writer, and it’s packed with every conceivable feature you could need. To run it, you can select Applications → Office → OpenOffice.org Word Processor or double-click any file that’s associated with it, such as those with the extension .odt (the standard format used by OpenOffice.org and other free programs) or .doc. For example, Figure 12-1 shows the result of opening the file Welcome_to_Ubuntu.odt from within the example-content folder you just copied to your desktop.

Figure 12-1. Editing a document in the Writer application

Warning

Although Writer can handle Microsoft Word files (like all parts of the OpenOffice.org suite), files with some complicated formatting elements do strange things if you move between Writer and Word. These problems are unpredictable and can range from strange page layouts to missing text. That said, different versions of OpenOffice.org are much more compatible than different versions of Word, which often have difficulty with files from Word running on other systems.

If you have used any popular word processing package, you should find that Writer is very easy to learn, as it follows a lot of standard conventions. For example, the menus at the top are logical, and just browsing through them you’ll be able to find many of the features you need.

And, of course, there’s always ...