Email and instant messages shoot back and forth between people these days. Unglamorous, plain old boring business documents, however, remain the stalwart of legally binding communication in the business world. It's changing, but many fields still require printed and/or signed material for day to day operations. Business letters, reports and brochures all need to be produced quickly and efficiently.

As Linux is brought into service in small and medium sized companies, desktop pilots often wonder how they will ever get off the ground without proprietary word processing applications like Word. "Can I still do basic business letters with Linux?" And "Will our old Word docs work with Linux?", they ask.

The answer to both questions is a resounding "You betcha" with OpenOffice.org Writer.

OpenOffice.org Writer is the premier word processing program for Linux. With it, you can write documents, import/export Word files, or even PDF a colleague. In short, Writer will handle just about any documentation load in your normal business office. And it's Open Source (no licensing headaches) to boot.

Let's get a quick idea of how Writer works before you solo.

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