Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 3 - STEP BY STEP GUIDE Manual page 88

74 Chapter 7. Working with Documents
accomplish several tasks for academic, business, or home use. The following sections shows you how
to use the OpenOffice.org suite.
7.1.2. OpenOffice.org Writer
Writing documents using OpenOffice.org is similar to other word processing applications you may
have used before. A word processor is like a text editor but has several additional features that allow
you to format, design, and print your documents without the need to memorize complex formatting
tags or codes. OpenOffice.org Writer is a powerful word processor that features WYSIWYG for-
matting — what you see in the OpenOffice.org Writer window is exactly what you get if you printed
the document or if you gave the document file to someone else for them to view. Figure 7-1 shows
OpenOffice.org Writer in action:
Figure 7-1. OpenOffice.org Writer
To start OpenOffice.org Writer from your desktop panel, choose Main Menu => Office => OpenOf-
fice.org Writer; to start it from a shell prompt, type
.
oowriter
The main interface is the document editing area (the white space in the middle of the window) where
you can add and edit text. At the top of the window are various functions collected into toolbars that let
you choose your fonts, letter sizes, justification (aligning the text of your document to the left, center,
or right margins), and more. There is also a text box that enables you to specify the exact location of
a document on your machine and load the document into the editing area. There are also buttons for
opening, saving, and printing documents, as well as buttons for creating new documents (which opens
up a new window with a blank document for you to add content).
Along the left side of the window, there is a toolbar with buttons for checking your spelling, toggling
the automatic highlighting of misspelled words, keyword and phrase searching, and other convenient
editing functions. If you hover the mouse cursor over a toolbar button, a pop-up Tip is displayed with
a brief explanation of the button's functionality. You can display more detailed Tips by clicking the
Help menu and choosing Extended Tips.
You can immediately begin typing text into the document editing area at any time using the default
settings. To save your text, click the Save button
, which opens the pop-up file browser. You can
choose the file format from the File type drop down menu at the bottom of the browser window.
The default file type is appropriate for files that you are working on exclusively with OpenOffice.org
applications. However, for files that you need to distribute to Microsoft Office users, or if you are