Writer

Writer is the word processor component of OpenOffice.org.

Book on OOo Writer

Cover of OpenOffice.org 2.x Writer GuideThe OOoAuthors team has produced a user guide for Writer. The third edition, covering OOo2.1+, was published in February 2007.

You can get the full book. or individual chapters, from the OOo Documentation Project or from OOoAuthors. You can also buy a printed copy.

See also the many books on OOo listed on this page.

Evaluating OOo Writer

I have mainly used Writer, the word processing component (equivalent to Microsoft Word), but OpenOffice includes the other standard office suite components as well: spreadsheets, presentations, drawing, and web publishing. In version 2.0, it also includes a database component.

My impression, after using OOo for over two years, is that if you have to share OOoWriter files with Microsoft Word users, you may run into conversion problems, depending on which Word or Writer features you’ve used. However, if conversion to and from Word isn’t an issue, this is a great tool, with some features that Word doesn’t have (but many Word users want) and some different ways of doing things that at first look seem like better ways. Some details are here:

Here are some other evaluations, by Bruce Byfield:

Here is some how-to information about using OOoWriter:

Tips for using OOo Writer

I recommend Solveig Haugland’s blog, which is full of great explanations, hints, and tips on using OpenOffice.org. Here are some examples of her work on Writer:

I also highly recommend Bruce Byfield’s blog and other articles written for LinuxJournal. Here are some of them: